The question behind my sub-three marathon attempt
The Starting Line
For a long time, I thought getting faster meant being able to run faster.
Run the interval harder.
Push the tempo.
Add another kilometer.
Get fitter.
There is an obvious logic to it. If I want to run a marathon under three hours, I need to run about 4:15 per kilometer for 42.2 kilometers.
So first I asked the obvious question:
Can I run 4:15/km?
I already know the answer.
Yes.
Last November, I ran a half marathon in 1:29:50, almost exactly 4:15/km.
This September, I ran 3 × 2K in:
4:13/km.
4:14/km.
4:10/km.
Then I tried holding marathon pace for thirty minutes. I didn’t quite do it. I averaged 4:20/km, although I worked my way down and finished the final kilometer at 4:14.
So 4:15 isn’t some foreign speed.
My body knows how to run it.
But I’ve realized I’ve been asking the wrong question.
The question isn’t:
Can I run 4:15?
It’s:
Can I make 4:15 cheap enough that I can keep paying for it for 42.2 kilometers?
That’s a completely different problem.
The Path
People talk about marathon training in kilometers.
60-mile weeks.
100-kilometer weeks.
Big mileage.
And looking at my own training, I started wondering whether I had simply missed something.
September will probably finish somewhere around 265–270 kilometers. That’s a lot of running for a normal person, but it’s not particularly huge for someone trying to break three hours.
I haven’t spent month after month running 100-kilometer weeks.
My training looks strange for a road marathoner.
There are mountain days.
Long ultras.
Concept2 sessions.
A 30-kilometer mountain run with almost 2,000 meters of climbing.
A 40-kilometer training day.
Then Five Peaks:
45.6 km.
3,605 meters of climbing.
More than 13 hours outside.
I have endurance.
I’m increasingly convinced that’s not the question either.
The problem showed itself in March.
I ran the Hapcheon Marathon in 3:18:32.
For much of the race, things were working.
Then they weren’t.
By the final part of the marathon, the numbers started changing.
My cadence dropped.
My stride shortened.
My ground contact time increased.
My power fell.
My vertical ratio increased.
And my pace collapsed.
The interesting part was my heart rate.
It wasn’t screaming higher and higher while I desperately tried to maintain pace.
My legs were simply becoming less capable of turning what I had left into forward movement.
The engine was still running.
The chassis was falling apart.
That changed the way I look at sub-three.
There are runners who can run 4:15/km much faster than I can.
There are runners who run 100 kilometers every week.
There are runners with better VO₂ max numbers, better 10K times, lighter bodies and prettier Strava graphs.
None of that gets me from kilometer 35 to kilometer 42.
I don’t need to beat those runners.
I need to solve my own equation.
And right now that equation looks something like this:
4:15 + 4:15 + 4:15 + 4:15…
Forty-two times.
That’s why cheap has become the word I’m interested in.
Cheap doesn’t mean easy.
Marathon pace shouldn’t feel like a recovery run.
Cheap means I’m not spending something unnecessarily.
No wasted acceleration because somebody passes me.
No 4:05 kilometer because I feel amazing at kilometer eight.
No reaching with my stride.
No fighting the ground.
No unnecessary tension in my shoulders.
No skipped fuel.
No ego tax.
Every unnecessary movement has a price.
Every surge has a price.
Every mistake in the first half gets charged interest in the second.
And maybe that’s what all those 100-kilometer weeks are really buying.
Not speed.
Durability.
The ability to keep paying the same price without the price suddenly doubling at kilometer 35.
I can’t go backward and manufacture months of 100-kilometer weeks before Gyeongju Marathon.
And trying to cram them in now would be stupid.
The work I’ve done is the work I’ve done.
So now I’m trying something else.
I’m trying to become more economical with what I already have.
This Friday, I want to repeat the thirty-minute test.
New shoes.
Same target.
4:14/km.
Not 4:10.
Not “let’s see how fast I can go.”
Not a progression because I get excited halfway through.
Thirty minutes.
4:14.
Again.
Again.
Again.
The result I’m looking for isn’t simply 7.09 kilometers in thirty minutes.
I want to see what it costs.
Heart rate.
Breathing.
Cadence.
Ground contact time.
Stride.
Power.
But also something harder to quantify:
Do I feel like I’m controlling the pace, or is the pace controlling me?
That’s the test.
Because if I have to fight for 4:14 for thirty minutes, then pretending I’m ready to fight for it for three hours doesn’t make much sense.
But if it starts becoming boring?
That’s interesting.
The Finish Line
October has made this question even stranger.
I’m not preparing for one race.
I’m running TransJeju 60K on October 2.
Gyeongju Marathon on October 17.
Then 9 Peaks 122K on October 30.
Three races.
Three different jobs.
TransJeju: practice.
Gyeongju: perform.
9 Peaks: endure.
Which means I don’t have much time left to become something new.
And maybe that’s the lesson I’ve been slowly moving toward all September.
I don’t need another massive mountain day.
I don’t need to suddenly chase 100-kilometer weeks.
I don’t need a higher VO₂ max number just so Garmin can tell me I’m fitter.
I have done the work.
Now I need to use what I’ve built without wasting it.
That’s a harder lesson for me than doing more.
More is easy.
Another workout is easy.
Another mountain is easy.
Another twenty kilometers because I’m feeling good is easy.
Trusting that enough is enough is harder.
A sub-three marathon sounds like a speed problem.
For me, I don’t think it is anymore.
I know I can run 4:15.
Now I need to find out how little of myself I can spend doing it.
Because on October 17, the question won’t be whether I can run one kilometer at 4:15.
It won’t even be whether I can run twenty-one of them.
The question waiting for me somewhere around kilometer 35 will be much simpler:
Did I make 4:15 cheap enough that I can still afford it?
That’s the experiment.
Pace. Patience. Durability.
One Way Grit.
