I don’t need to make it easy.
I need to find it 43 times.
The Starting Line
I thought the question was whether I could make 4:14/km cheap.
Cheap enough that I could keep paying for it for 42.195 kilometers.
That still matters.
But after this morning, I think I’ve found a better question.
Can I find 4:14?
Not once.
Not for a good kilometer when I’m fresh.
Not at the end of a workout when I decide to prove something.
Can I find it, lose it, settle back into it, and keep finding it until there’s no road left?
Can I find 4:14, 43 times?
That’s what I’m trying to figure out.
This morning was my second thirty-minute test.
The goal was simple:
30 minutes at 4:14/km.
I didn’t do it.
I averaged 4:18/km, covering 6.97 kilometers.
My kilometers went:
4:17
4:11
4:18
4:18
4:26
4:31
Then I came back.
The final 0.97 km was at 4:07/km.
There are a few ways I could interpret that.
I could focus on the finish.
I could say I still had plenty left because I was able to battle back.
I could blame the small hills in the middle.
I could point out that I lost concentration.
I could mention that I didn’t take any gels.
All of those things probably matter.
But none of them change what happened.
I lost 4:14.
And that’s interesting because I’m starting to realize how often I do that.
The Path
There’s a point in races where I seem to disappear.
It isn’t always the same kilometer.
It isn’t always the same feeling.
But somewhere around 50 to 75 percent of the way through, something happens.
I’ve seen it in 5Ks.
Half marathons.
Marathons.
Even workouts.
Sometimes I’m tired.
Sometimes my attention wanders.
Sometimes the terrain changes.
Sometimes I start thinking too much.
Sometimes I simply stop doing what I was doing.
The pace leaks.
Then I notice.
And eventually I fight my way back.
That sounds like grit.
Maybe it is.
But I’m starting to wonder whether constantly needing grit is part of the problem.
Five days ago, I was in the mountains.
Five Peaks.
45.6 kilometers.
3,605 meters of climbing.
More than thirteen hours on my feet.
So there is something encouraging about what happened this morning.
Five days after that mountain load, I could still run thirty minutes at 4:18/km.
My mechanics didn’t collapse.
My cadence stayed strong.
My ground contact time stayed relatively stable.
And after slowing to 4:31, I could still finish around 4:07.
The capacity was there.
That’s important.
Especially because this wasn’t the first experiment.
Earlier this month, I ran Three Peaks:
30.36 kilometers.
1,985 meters of climbing.
Twelve days later, I did my first thirty-minute marathon test.
4:20/km.
Then the mountain load got much bigger.
Five Peaks.
And the recovery window got much smaller.
Only five days.
Yet this morning:
4:18/km.
That’s progress.
Small progress.
But progress.
I’m not suddenly going to pretend four seconds per kilometer disappeared because I became dramatically fitter in a week.
The heart-rate numbers looked better too, but I’m treating those carefully because both workouts used wrist HR.
What interests me more is that my body could absorb a much larger mountain effort and still find approximately the same speed five days later.
Because that’s about to matter.
A lot.
The October Experiment
On October 2, I run TransJeju 60K.
Fifteen days later, I run the Gyeongju Marathon.
And thirteen days after that comes 9 Peaks.
Three races.
Three different jobs.
TransJeju: practice.
Gyeongju: perform.
9 Peaks: endure.
I’ve spent most of September trying to figure out whether this is completely stupid or whether there’s something underneath it that actually makes sense.
And I keep coming back to last year.
In October 2025, I finished 9 Peaks.
About 125 kilometers through the mountains.
Almost thirty-seven and a half hours.
I wasn’t preparing for a fast road race.
I didn’t follow it with some perfect half-marathon training block.
There was some speed work afterward, but not much.
Twenty-three days after 9 Peaks, I ran a half marathon.
1:29:50.
A personal best.
Almost exactly 4:15/km.
At the time, I was mostly happy about the result.
Now I’m more interested in the question behind it.
How did my legs go from 125 kilometers in the mountains to 4:15/km twenty-three days later?
Last year, I stumbled into the experiment.
This year, I’m deliberately walking into it.
September has almost become a smaller version of October.
Three Peaks → recover → marathon pace.
Then:
Five Peaks → recover → marathon pace.
Next:
TransJeju → recover → marathon pace.
And finally:
Gyeongju.
After TransJeju, I want two tune-up workouts before the marathon.
I’m not expecting those workouts to magically create new fitness.
There isn’t enough time.
I want them to tell me what survived.
Can I recover?
Can I turn the legs over again?
Can I settle into marathon pace?
Can I hold my mechanics?
And most importantly:
Can I find 4:14?
Cheap Isn’t Just Physical
This is where my thinking changed this morning.
I’ve been talking about making marathon pace cheap.
That makes sense physiologically.
Running economy matters.
Fueling matters.
Mechanics matter.
Cadence matters.
Muscular durability matters.
If every kilometer costs slightly too much, eventually the account reaches zero.
That’s what scares me about the marathon.
I know I have the speed.
I’ve already run a half marathon at roughly the pace I need.
What I don’t know is whether I can keep paying for it for twice as long.
But this morning made me realize there’s another cost.
Attention.
If I have to constantly check the watch…
correct my pace…
chase a kilometer I lost…
surge because I got distracted…
fight myself…
negotiate…
and then use grit to get myself back…
I’m spending something.
Maybe the cheapest kilometer isn’t the one with the lowest heart rate.
Maybe it’s the kilometer I barely remember.
No drama.
No correction.
No negotiation.
Just:
4:14.
Then another.
43 Times
Technically, I don’t need 43 kilometers.
A marathon is 42.195.
And technically, I don’t even need 4:14/km to break three hours.
4:14 gives me a little buffer.
But I like 43.
Because I don’t want to think about running for three hours.
That’s too big.
I don’t want to stand on the starting line thinking:
Can I run a sub-three marathon?
I can’t answer that.
I can answer something smaller.
At kilometer one:
Find 4:14.
When everybody is excited and running too fast:
Find 4:14.
At kilometer ten, when I’m feeling amazing:
Find 4:14.
When someone passes me:
Find 4:14.
When I hit a small hill:
Find 4:14.
When I reach halfway:
Find 4:14.
And then comes the part that actually interests me.
The place where a marathon stops asking about fitness and starts exposing every little thing you’ve been wasting.
When my stride wants to shorten:
Find 4:14.
When my cadence starts slipping:
Find 4:14.
When my brain says I’ve been doing this long enough:
Find 4:14.
When I lose it?
Don’t panic.
Don’t try to repay the entire debt in one 4:02 kilometer.
Just find it again.
That might be the lesson from this morning.
I ran 4:26.
Then 4:31.
I had lost it.
But I hadn’t lost the ability to run it.
I proved that when I came back and finished around 4:07.
So perhaps the result wasn’t:
I can’t hold 4:14.
It was:
I know how to find 4:14. I don’t yet know how many times I can find it.
That’s a much more useful uncertainty.
The Finish Line
I don’t have complete confidence that I can make 4:14 boring.
I don’t know whether I can make it cheap enough.
And I definitely don’t know whether I can find it 43 times.
That’s where I am on September 24.
And for once, I don’t think I need to pretend otherwise.
I have evidence.
Last year showed me that my body can come out of an enormous mountain effort and become fast again.
Three Peaks showed me something.
Five Peaks showed me more.
This morning showed me that five days after 45.6 kilometers and 3,605 meters of climbing, the speed was still there.
TransJeju will ask a bigger question.
Then I’ll recover.
I’ll do the tune-ups.
I’ll look at the numbers.
I’ll listen to the legs.
And on October 17, if the evidence says go, I’ll stand on the starting line in Gyeongju.
Not knowing whether I can break three hours.
Knowing only what I have to do next.
I don’t need to find three hours.
I don’t need to find 42.195 kilometers.
I don’t even need to find the finish line.
I need to find one thing.
4:14.
Then find it again.
And again.
And again.
43 times.
One Way Grit.
