Race · Sunday 27 September 2026 · 42.195 km
Berlin
I coach people to run to a number, so mine goes up before the race rather than after it. Everything below was set on 16 August and has not been touched since.
The target
The floor is 3:15, which is 4:37 per km. If the day goes wrong, easing to 5:00 per km still finishes around 3:15. Walking costs far more than easing off.
Marathon best going in is 3:29. So the target is a nineteen minute personal best, and I would rather write that down in public than round it off afterwards.
Where the number came from
Two of my own runs, not a race predictor. The Battersea half in July came out at 1:28:56, and the standard conversion off a half puts that at 3:05 for a marathon. Then an 8 km at 4:32 per km in mid August ran with 21 beats of heart rate still in hand, which said the pace was aerobic rather than borrowed.
3:05 is what the conversion says. 3:08 to 3:10 is what I am actually going to run, because the conversion assumes marathon endurance I have not proved yet. My longest run before this block was 20 km.
How I intend to run it
One rule sits above all of this. Nothing quicker than 4:28 per km before 32 km, whatever it feels like at the time.
Fuelling is a gel every 30 minutes from 40 minutes in, six or seven of them, water at every station. The gels are not optional at 20 km when everything feels fine. That is exactly when the problem at 35 km gets built.
What could still change it
The target is confirmed or adjusted by one session, a 32 km on 6 September with the last 12 at race pace. If that holds, the number stands. If it drifts past 4:35 in the race-pace block, the race opens slower and 3:11 or 3:12 is the honest read.
It does not get raised in race week. Feeling fresh during a taper is the taper working, not new fitness arriving, and that is the most common way a good build turns into a bad race.
This is the same thing I do with the people I coach. The plan is a hypothesis, the sessions are the test, and the number moves when the data says so rather than when the mood does. That is the coaching →
Result
Empty until 27 September. Whatever the clock says goes here, including if it goes badly. A target published in advance is only worth anything if the miss gets published with the same weight as the hit.