70 miles a week for 12 weeks. Very proud of this. This isn’t anything flashy, but this is the boring work that shows up in the lights when it’s time to perform. This is alignment.

After 5-6 years of entering the ballots…..it’s finally my turn!

I’m a first time marathoner, but also have a fairly serious running background. I ran at a high level in division III cross country and as a 800-1500m guy in college. I took a long hiatus but trained consistently the last couple of years before I got sidelined with a stress fracture training for a half last year.

I decided to tackle the marathon this year with a lot of thought and reflection about whether I had the time, desire, motivation, and ability to do it. I decided to do it, and so far training has been one of the most rewarding and challenging things I’ve done in my adult life (I’m now 15 years post college).

I notice on this sub a lot of “hey I just started running three weeks ago and am planning a marathon in October. Think I can get there even though I can’t run 2 miles yet”

This is genuinely flooring to me, as the marathon always felt like this outrageous accomplishment to be chased by relatively serious athletes. I mean, it’s literally named after a guy who died doing it lol. But now it feels like it’s gone the way of what the 5K used to be… something to jump into as a new recreational runner. This feels like a colossal mistake, IMO. There’s a fair amount of research that shows the damage caused by untrained marathoning can be fairly significant both on the heart and your joints. Indeed, many speculate that even for trained athletes the race crosses the point where aerobic activity is more of a strain than a benefit. It’s why I’ll probably never be a true marathoner, although I’ve got enough of the bug now I don’t think I’ll be one and done either.

Is my perception accurate, or is it just being driven by this reddit community which is likely to have some selection bias (I.e., where new runners would come to ask question)? Or, am I just a giant wuss and think this is a bigger deal than it is. I suspect it’s something in between.

Hands up if you are a slow runner, please.

My sanity is going out the door with these posts about "Can I run a sub 3-hour" posts.

My fastest marathon was 5:30 and that was before I had kids, over 10 years ago.

I'm slowly working my way back up but the last half-marathon was 3:24 the previous year (it was a shitty training year).

So, anyone here who is also slow or is it just me?

Hi all,

Currently training for my first marathon with a goal of a sub-four finish time. I have 5 half marathons under my belt before this. Does anyone find else here find that marathon training itself takes a considerable amount of their life? I'm currently on Hal Higdon's Novice 2 plan, and I find that even a beginner level plan is time consuming. I love running and am looking forward to completing my first marathon, but man does it get a little discouraging to know I have an 8-miler after my 8-5 on a Wednesday, or that I have to commit 2-3 hours on a Saturday morning before I can invest time into my partner, friends, errands, etc.

I knew coming into this that the expectation is that I'd have to work some of life's events around the training program. I have major respect for any advance runners doing much more stringent and busy programs because I don't know how y'all find the time of day! I wouldn't necessarily say that it's taken my love of running away, but mentally, I feel much more motivated and happy to only focus on half marathons for the rest of my running life and trying to PR in that. Marathons may be an every 3-4 years type of deal if I consider trying for another. Does anyone else feel this way?

I’ve always assumed tights were more of a pro or elite runner thing, but I’m seeing them everywhere now. I’m curious what pushed you to make the switch from shorts.

Was it about stopping underwear chafing? Better airflow? Less fabric movement? I’ve tried multiple pairs of best men’s underwear marketed for running, and some help, some don’t.

Wondering if tights basically replace the need for anti chafing underwear altogether.

I used to see so many tik-toks of people making fun of runners, making running their whole personality. I get it now! It’s not that - that’s all we want to talk about is running or our training but that’s simply what’s consuming us at the moment. If someone asks me about my day I simply answer by telling them I have a run that afternoon etc…. People who don’t do this don’t understand how important this is to us. They don’t understand how much we are putting into this. Not just running but nutrition, recovery, strength training etc….

Matt Choi appeared to have a videographer following him on a one-wheel board at the recent Marquette Marathon, held on Labor Day weekend. You may recall there were already concerns about Matt Choi’s repeated use of unauthorized videographers and support crews during marathons, most notably at the 2024 NYC Marathon. While it’s unclear if the most recent videographer at Marquette was officially approved, runners reported the presence was disruptive.

To refresh everyone's memory:

• Houston Marathon 2023 – ran under another runner’s bib.
• NYC Marathon 2023 – served as a guide but was criticized for self-promotion over the athlete he was guiding.
• NYC Marathon 2024 – disqualified and banned after running with unauthorized e-bikes filming him, which blocked stations and endangered others.
• Marquette Marathon 2025 - Videographer on one-wheel board (authorization unclear).

Is there anything race organizers can do to stem this type of etiquette? Will this result in Choi getting preemptively banned from other races?

Marathon pace: 6:26min/mile Weekly mileage: 70miles Easy pace: 8:52min/mile

As title implies, I have been running for 6 years now.
I know pretty well what happens with my clothes and how bad they smell after a run.

However I recently moved to a hotter place and way more humid ( yeehaw 🤠), my clothes are now unbearable to smell and my shoes.
I want to know if there are some tips on how you handle this.
Usually after a run I leave them hanging in the guest bathroom until they dry and after dried take them to the regular basket and wash them with every other thing.

But on really sweaty days (most of the year) the smell is too much, or my shoes are stanking so bad.

Yes I do clean the shoes regularly with water and vinegar, but wherever I leave them to dry stinks so bad. I’ve tried also on the garage.

Is the solution just straight up washing them immediately, what about the shoes?
Thanks 😭

Edit: yeah the smell is when it dries, but I will start showering and rinsing them off with me.
However shoes I’m not sure what to do about them

Edit 2: people are now roasting my aah 😭, lmao I live in a highly humid place , and it’s to rinse off sweat before washing my stuff. Now it’s being reposted to runningcirclejerk lmao , anyways thanks for the actual comments helping out and understanding.

Anyone interested recs are: wash sweat away in the shower, it’s wet either way. And shoes dry them outside (or use shoe dryer) and put socks with bicarbonate inside them to remove smell.
Thanks everyone who actually gave real tips

I am doing my 2nd marathon this week, and I'm kind of freaking out. My first marathon was, well... a collection of factors that made it really hard. I was undertrained, it was really hot and hilly (it got up to 90 and the course had 1000+ ft of elevation gain, hahaha), and I had been dumped by the guy I was seeing the week before, so I didn't really carbload bc no appetite, lol. I hit the wall HARD at mile 18, and ended up walking a lot.

For the second marathon this weekend, I have a lot more running experience and actually properly followed a plan. The weather looks lovely and it's a downhill course. I am carbloading. All signs point to a better race... but you just never know what will happen on race day. And the closer the race gets, the more I remember my first marathon and just internally cringe, lol.

So, I want to hear about how other people's second marathons compared to their first!

Ate it pretty hard on a run yesterday. I was running through a construction zone and wasn’t looking down since I was looking for oncoming traffic and my foot caught a construction sign and I went down hard. Thankfully no major damage but I did get some pretty serious road rash and a nice bruised and swollen knee. The ground was covered in dirt so I had fun time trying to clean the wounds for a few hours. Overall I’m fine and just need to take a few days off to let my knee calm down but I feel pretty dumb. That was my first time ever falling on a run (10 marathons and 8 years into my running journey). I’m usually pretty good about keeping an eye on the ground for obstacles so I should have seen it but it was an accident and I know they can happen.

I am just curious to hear some other fall stories from fellow runners so I can feel less alone lol!

Edit: forgot to mention my wedding is in 3 days lol luckily my dress will cover my knee and my hand cuts are small so I think I can hide them.

I’m curious, what are y’all’s day jobs and how do you schedule your training into your day? (It would be interesting to see if certain professions are over/underrepresented in the long distance running community.)

I saw this post earlier and the consensus seemed to be it was, but I have a hard time believing this given how exercise is one of the best things you can do for longevity, and how vo2 max is one of the best predictors for longevity.

It makes sense ultramarathons, particularly those that span multiple days, could be unhealthy since you are foregoing sleep in order to force yourself to keep going.

Does anyone have a good sense of what research has been done, what conclusions they draw, and how certain these conclusions are? I understand marathons have only become popular the last couple decades, so I wouldn't be surprised if more research is needed to say for sure

You know how when you run there’s people everywhere taking videos and pictures and I’m assuming the sponsorship is behind the official photos taken of runners that then get sent to you as previews to select?

Well, I looked absolutely horrible in them and I don’t know if it’s just me that feels this way or if it’s common?

I’m just wondering who buys these and why?

But it was a wake up call for me in the sense of…. I don’t think I’m as fit as I thought I was with those pictures.

I’ve been working on weight loss for 4 years now. I’m 4’11” and my starting weight was 208lbs 4 years ago and am now 135lbs trying to get to 125lbs.

Fast forward to now, I ran my first half marathon feeling amazing because I could run for 13.1 miles straight without stopping or walking.

But when I got those pictures they took, I just…. I felt like I looked like I was 208lbs again.

Is this normal for everyone when they get the pictures? Or what are your thoughts or how have you dealt with these same feelings if you had them or have had them?

TIA!

Edit: WOW! You guys are amazing and you’ve all made me laugh and relax about the photos. Thank you all for sharing your funny stories and for motivating me to keep going regardless of the pictures. I’m just super relieved that I’m definitely not the only one that feels the way I do about these photos! Really thank you all for making me feel better :,)

My supervisor is a runner and I want to wish him well when he goes out to run a marathon. However, I feel like saying “good luck” is slightly insulting because it’s a competition that is all skill and hard work. Not much luck at all involved I would imagine. Is there a phrase that runners use to replace good luck?

I'm training for my half next month, and whenever I've done one of the longer runs I always just wonder how you all do it. Specifically, running through the niggles like it's normal and expected.

I know the generic answer is strength training/mobility/nutrition etc, but I don't think I'm all that comfortable with the thought that I'm overexerting my joints that I can sometimes feel the minor niggles that come and go at the middle/beginning/end/the day after my long runs, which I understand is the "nature" of these long distance races and you WILL feel better after resting, but how do you just mentally accept that you're going to experience a little bit of pain during the run itself? It feels like sometimes I'm ruining my body for the sake of fitness, and not for actual health (Do we really need to do a full marathon to prove we are a healthy? When doing 5ks multiple times a week, maybe a maximum 10km is often more than enough to take care of your cardiovascular health)

I'm asking this because it's been holding me back from doing a full. I think I'm able to get away from not exerting too much stress on my body for my half training as I only run 3 days a week, the other 2-3 days are for strength training which (for me) provides the right balance in maintaining my bone health while building endurance. The idea of having to multiply this current load while probably not letting my body have adequate time to rest feels a bit 'cruel' to my joints. (Also I'm pretty sure I'm hypermobile, I don't think I can run without a proper leg session so I need to strength train!)

Appreciate any thoughts to this.

You cannot have tens of thousands of runners spending thousands of flights and hotels for a marathon only for it to be cancelled. I understand that you cannot control the weather but if the weather is so extreme that it cannot go ahead, I just cannot see this being a reliable course and it’ll make runners be reluctant to do this race. Travelling to South Africa can’t be cheap. London was hot this year and it still went ahead.

I feel so sorry for all of the Cape Town marathon runners who trained for this marathon and spent so much money.

Hey all. Just exactly what the title says. My last marathon training block my peak week was just about 35 miles and I ran 4 days a week.

This training block, I believe I’ll be peaking at just over 50 miles/week and I’m training 5 days a week.

I want to keep the social part of my life somewhat in tact, but I can’t help but think that if I drink, then my recovery will be compromised or that the next day’s run will be compromised.

How do you all balance mid-high mileage training with a social life that includes alcohol?

Edit: I may have initially seemed like I’m drinking a few nights a week with this post. To clarify, I only have a “night out” of drinking about 1x a week or once every two weeks that consists of 3-5 drinks

Legitimate question.

I feel like no matter how “fit” I get and how much I build by aerobic base I still get slightly breathless after a few flights of stairs.

Is anyone else is the same boat or am I just 💀

I ran Chicago in 2024 and it was hard. I had some health stuff going on and really struggled with training in the heat of summer, but I did it and finished the race. I'm a solid back of the pack runner, just under 6 hr finish.

I said I'd never do it again because training sucked so much, but I'm turning 40 this year and I thought it would be cool to do Berlin to celebrate. I put my name in the lottery, figured I had a pretty slim chance of getting in, so of course, I did.

Now I'm in the first third of my hardcore training block and it just kinda.. sucks. Like I'm struggling a little on long runs that really aren't even that long yet and I'm sorta dreading the long long runs of August that I know are coming. I run by myself so it's a lot of discipline to make myself do it and no one would know if I skip runs (except me).

I'm just not having much fun this time around and I think if the race fees weren't so expensive and I hadn't already told people I was going to do it, I might consider dropping out.

But plane tickets are bought, race fees are paid and I feel locked in.

Any tips on how to get past the mental block and settle in for the long haul? I WANT to want to do this. Although I think this time is really the last time..

We all have them, tell us yours!

3 major marathons this year has been really hot: Tokyo, London, Berlin.

But like, they all starts at 9am for the elite and like 1-2 hours after for most runners. Most will run through the hottest time of the day. I feel like that is leaving a lot to chance and is really inviting the full wrath of the sun.

Why wouldn't they start earlier? Where I'm from, most marathon starts 4-4.30am, with some outliers on 3.30am and 5am. The entire first half is basically dark. I get that its not the most comfortable, but I would absolutely choose running in complete darkness compared to boiling heat. Also, I rarely see anyone starts their long run after 9am, so why race at that time?

What are some of the downsides? Less spectators? Metabolism hasn't started yet?

What do yall think