Ran the Pittsburgh marathon this past weekend. I had been training for past 5 months to run a 4 hour marathon. A month ago I ran a 1:44:00 half-marathon. I ran 2 20 mile runs during my training that were just under 3 hours. Things were looking good.
Everything was going really well until about mile 18. I hit a wall at mile 18 and the 3:55 pacer passed me. I was running with them for the first 18 miles. The 4 hour pacer passed me at mile 20. I ended up running a 4 hour 22 minute marathon. The last few miles I was alternating between walking and running. I have never been in that much pain. I was in a bad place.
I was very disappointed with my results being so far off from the 4 hour goal for the rest of the day. Others have told me that it’s my first marathon and to be happy with the accomplishment. Idk how to feel about it. The experience of miles 18-26 were terrible and not encouraging for doing another marathon.