 I ran my first marathon in April 2012. I was 42 years old. Hello, welcome to Paris. That's my number. 3, 5, 7, 3, 9. I'm green, which means I'm slow. Until then, I'd been a casual runner. Of course, I ran at school, and occasionally went jogging on the sea front near my home, but I'd not entered a race or done any serious training until 2010, when I entered my first 10K race. How'd you feel? That's the fastest time I've done it in. Congratulations. Is that the last time you ever ran it? Yes. A half marathon followed, and before I knew it, I was on the slippery slope. Over the next eight years, I started to do trail marathons. I joined a running club. Then I started to do long distance ultra races. My marathon time gradually improved from around 330 average to 315, and eventually in 2016, I ran the London Marathon in 309. Training to achieve a sub three marathon takes years. Okay, there are some people who are gifted or genetically primed and can run under three hours with minimal training or preparation. But for the rest of us, it starts when you first start running. Once you step out of the door to run your first mile, you can run for a sub three marathon. Initially, it's about building a strong aerobic base and conditioning your body. New runners will often suffer niggle after niggle as their bodies adapt to regular running. It can take many years of consistent running to get to a stage where you rarely get injured, where you can get up in the morning and run 10 miles without breaking a sweat and run a half marathon without drinking any water. Once you've got that base fitness, the next step is volume. Gradually increasing the number of miles you run each week. And again, this can take years. I was running about 40 miles a week for quite a few years before I upped my game and started running a consistent 62 miles or 100 kilometers a week. And if you want to break three hours for a marathon, that's the kind of mileage you need to be looking at. In the six months prior to my sub three marathon I ran at least 100 kilometers a week and had some weeks at 130 kilometers, some weeks of 140 kilometers and one week of 150 kilometers. I adopted an 80-20 strategy whereby 80% of your sessions are at a very slow pace. This enabled me to achieve large volumes but without getting over fatigued or injured. But I also included 20% of the hard efforts, either on the treadmill or outdoors. I did high intensity interval sessions or short, sharp 5K time trials where I'd make sure my heart rate reached zones four and zone five if I could, at least some of the time. I tried to stay clear of that comfortable zone three void. It's unavoidable that you spend some time in that zone but I'd never plan a session to be a zone three session. No one is going to hand you a sub three marathon on a plate. You need to work for it. In all likelihood you should be running an 1835K Absolutely shattered. 1833 or a 38 minute 10K or a one hour 25 half marathon That's a PB, by two minutes to be within the ball park of being able to achieve a sub three marathon. In terms of a taper, two weeks before the marathon I reduced my mileage from 130KM down to 100KM and then in the week of the marathon I think I did about 30KM before the marathon so that whole week including the marathon was about 70 odd kilometers of running. In the weeks prior to the marathon I ate a normal diet. I do tend to be flexitarian so hardly any red meat but perhaps some chicken occasionally I do find it hard to resist the cookies and milk though. What? Seven days before the marathon I did a three day carb depletion so I ate very minimal carbohydrates for 72 hours and then went back on the carbs with a slightly higher ratio of carbs to fats and proteins. I wouldn't call it carb loading. I don't really do carb loading. It's just a slightly altered ratio of macronutrients so slightly more carbs than proteins and fats and certainly in normal circumstances I would just eat a balanced diet. Eat bread and desserts then just get all fat and fancy. Race Day Breakfast was a tin of rice pudding and a couple of cups of coffee. Rice pudding sits easily on my stomach. It's a great source of slow release complex carbohydrates. During the race itself I ate one half of a banana at 20 miles and drank one small bottle of Purdy's fizzy fruit drink but it could quite easily have been a can of coke or red rum. Basically a bit of slow release complex carbohydrates in the banana and a hit of high GI simple sugar from the fizzy drink. That's it. It was a cold day and I didn't lose very much fluid as sweat so I didn't drink anything else for the duration of the run. So just to be clear on this I didn't drink or eat anything during the marathon for 20 miles you may have heard the term fat adapted. If you're looking to run long distances you might want to look into running some of your training runs on empty. You don't need to take lots of food with you you don't take any food with you especially if it's not a long run you know anything around 10 to 20 kilometers you don't need any food at all I often just go out with just a cup of coffee inside me no breakfast and what I think is that that teaches your body to burn fat more efficiently which means you need to use fewer gels or sugary drinks in order to give yourself energy to run. That may not work for you but a lot of the gastric problems in ultra running, in long distance running are caused by too much sugar intake overload of coke or gels. Hi guys. And I think if you can cut down on that then all the better. It was cold when I did my sub three marathon attempt so on a warmer day you probably will need to drink more water because you'll lose more fluid through your sweat. However on a cold day I honestly didn't need to drink anything at all because it was so cold at the start of the race I did wear a light montane fleece over my race singlet. I did three laps in that which is about 10 kilometers and then I threw it to the side of the road I kept a thin light pair of gloves on and a cap for the whole race. I wear compression shorts not for any medical or physiological reason per se but maybe I find them more comfortable than regular shorts. My compression shorts are from a Spanish company called Hanca. I also wore Kalenji seamless running underwear to help prevent chafing but I didn't have any anti-chave cream on. On my feet I wore Injinji toe socks. These are the same ones I tend to wear for my 24 hour 100 mile adventures very comfortable and no blisters. I also wore the next percent Nike vapor flies these are carbon-plated shoes they're legal and they help you go faster so why not wear them? I only wear them for races and never in training My current watch is a Garmin Phoenix 6X sapphire. It's what I use for most of my training and races it's quite big and bulky and it's probably overkill for a flat road marathon When it comes to pacing I am a huge fan of even splits and negative splits so I would try to run most of my kilometers at exactly the same pace and then speed up at the end if I had anything left On the main screen I had average pace in kilometers per hour and lap pace in minutes per kilometer. I'm a regular treadmill runner so I'm quite used to seeing my speed displayed in kilometers per hour. For a sub three marathon you need to run 14.1 kilometers per hour or 4 minutes 16 per kilometer or about 650 per mile Ideally a little faster than that to account for any extra distance you might accrue by not sticking to the exact racing line Obviously in a race you may well be weaving around people but that is adding distance so crossing the line at 42.2 kilometers is highly unlikely it's much more likely to be a little bit more than that Lap pace was difficult to keep constant because it was quite windy on one side of the track and calm on the other side so some kilometers were slow into the wind whilst others were fast with the wind behind me all still Prior to the race I'd looked at various online race predictors and they all told me that I was right on the cusp of a sub three marathon some said just over three hours some said just under three hours but all of them with a margin of error and unlike many of my other marathons and I've now done 120 of them it was not a case of fingers crossed and hope I have a good day this was a matter of running as I knew I could running as I knew I should and executing a plan that I was perfectly capable of doing I had run an 1835k in a race just a few weeks before I'd also done a test half marathon where I ran really comfortably at one and a half hours for a half marathon my heart rate low so I knew I could get at least there all I had to do was concentrate focus and carry out the plan right it's PB day here at Goodwood we are going for a sub three marathon I'm nervous, it's freezing cold it's been a stressful morning but hopefully we're going to get it done I crossed the line in two hours 58 minutes 57 seconds on my watch the distance was 4km so an extra 200m run I did have to sprint the last little bit just to make sure I got in under three hours come on Richard right Richard how was that for you cold and hard and I think I probably matched my PB so I'm pretty happy 303 it was just disgusting into that wind wasn't it I dread that little bend so the loop is about 4km long loop and 2.5km of it is into a wind even if it's like a mild day which today is you're into a wind because it's quite exposed so you're kind of dreading that 2.5km every lap and it's like 11 laps still 303 for Richard and my first ever sub three 258 59 ish something like that I can now retire I never have to run another marathon ever again and I do no so that's it from the Goodwood Marathon we are off home it's very very cold here don't realise how cold it is till you stop running but we've had a fantastic day first time ever under three hours for a marathon so happy with that and we're off home to enjoy the rest of our Sunday apologies there hasn't been loads of film it wasn't a filming day today it was a running quick day today so there we are right take care guys see you for the next one bye bye and that's it that's how I achieved my sub three marathon after 8 years of running marathons I'm finally there and now I think I'd be disappointed to get close to a sub three marathon every time