James Hsu

I send out a weekly newsletter of whatever’s on my mind. Subscribe here. I also conduct interviews with cool people. Check it out here.

Title is a tongue-in-cheek reference to my first marathon, which I ran just a month ago.

So…how did it go today?

Definitely better than the first go-round! I missed the sub 5-hour finish, but given that my first marathon took 5 hours and 35 minutes, I’m quite happy with this new PB (personal best) being 30 minutes faster.

The big victory is proper pacing in the first half of the run:

I’d been making a rookie mistake for long distance runs, which is attempting to “bank” a faster opening stretch of time for the first 8-10 km.

In the excitement of a race it’s easy to over-exert oneself – as the race starts and people are running way too fast – and prematurely hit the wall. It’s not an issue for me when I’m running a half-marathon, but my legs take too much of a beating when it comes to 42 km.

This time I made sure to stay in my “sweet spot” of 6’30” per kilometer.

My rule of thumb now is: when in doubt, slow down.

The weather was absolutely incredible today, but not overbearingly hot. That helped me enjoy the scenery as I ran.

The second half of my run got…gnarly.

Around the 28 km mark is when my feet started to respond. Thankfully, no cramping, but my legs started to feel the strain of a long run. The 8 to 9 minute kilometer signifies shuffling; the 9+ minute kilometer signifies walking.

All in all, it felt really bad physically in the moment, but I could keep moving.

I’m 75 kg and flat-footed — definitely not favorable factors in the slog of a long run. But over the years, I’ve realized that despite possessing zero athletic ability (I was a straight-C student in high school gym class), there’s a lot that good ol’ fashioned hard work can effect.

After speaking to some expert runners, the fix is simple: RUN MORE. More mileage; more 30+ km long runs.

There’s no secret to all this. Put more effort in = get better results.

In other words, I wasn’t fully ready, but I wanted to test myself. And I’m glad I did, but I have more work to do.

Next stop: break the 5-hour barrier. And if I’m progressing, might as well aim for a 4 hour 30 minute finish in 2024 🙂

Thanks for reading and have a great Thanksgiving weekend.

—

I send out a weekly newsletter of whatever’s on my mind. Subscribe here.

I also conduct interviews with cool people. Check it out here.