Running Over 4,500 Miles Just to Run a Minute Faster In The Marathon

Running Over 4,500 Miles Just to Run a Minute Faster In The Marathon

A personal best is a personal best

Photo of the author from the Baltimore Road Runners’ Club

I was monitoring my watch very closely, and when I turned the corner, I saw the time. I ran a minute personal best in the marathon. I ran a 2:34:38 marathon last Sunday, compared to a 2:35:40 a year and a half ago, and am one step closer to hopefully qualifying for the Olympic Trials in 2032 or something like that.

Finally, I was a much better runner than I was before.

I had a lot of thoughts on running a personal record (PR). First, going in, I wanted better and I knew I could do better. I still think I can do better, but I ran this huge personal best all while working quite a lot at my new job and some not so ideal running circumstances.

My new job as a lawyer is a lot busier than being a special education teacher was. It is more flexible in some ways, but there are definitely some weeks where the miles I run and hours I work are scarily close. With having to work more nights and weekends, there is less time to run, and I have to be a lot more efficient with my time than I was before to be able to hit the mileage.

I’ve been trying to jump from a 2:35 marathon down to a 2:30 marathon for a bit more than a year now. I trained hard and ran a lot of months of over 300 miles. I ran 80 miles a week for a long time, and in the time between my last personal best to my current personal best, I ran around 4,500 miles.

I wanted more and expected more from myself, but I knew that if I did not run 2:30, my A goal, then a B goal was just running a personal best on the day. I had a big breakthrough when I ran from 2:39:55 to 2:35:40, so this was a breakthrough, just not as big a one as last time. But I could have run 2:35:39 and still been very happy. I had other bites at the apple to run personal bests, and this one was the one that finally clicked.

In baseball terms, it would have been a double, but not a home run. And that’s completely fine — not every run can be an A or a home run because I’m at the point where those home runs just don’t happen all the time, and a double is still a big success.

Results from the Annapolis Striders

The journey here was a confirmation that things are getting better, that I am pushing beyond my own limits. There is a part of me that is happy I didn’t get worse. I’m at the point of marathoning where I am continuously chasing big improvements and jumps, but reality is different.

There is a lot of plateauing at this stage of fitness unless I do some training I’ve never done before, like run 100 miles a week. It seemed like I plateaued in the marathon for four years after my first marathon, then plateaued for another year at 2:35. I ran great races in other events, especially on hot and humid days, but I did not run a personal best in the marathon.

For most of my running career, I hated plateauing. It felt like I was so stagnant if I plateaued. I hated running 5:03 miles over and over again as a freshman in high school when I aimed to break 5 minutes. I coach many of my high school friends who are new runners (“coach” is a liberal term for sending them weekly mileage and workouts every week), and they improve by minutes every time they run a 5k.

Sometimes, they run a personal best in the middle of a workout. I am beyond ecstatic and excited for them, and their excitement for being new runners and running personal bests is contagious to me being a more seasoned and sometimes more jaded runner.

At my stage of running, I am not running a personal best every time I race. On a bad day, I’m well off my personal best. There was a time when I first started running that every run was a personal best. I think back to my K-12 education— the fact that I went from a 9:56 to 4:59 mile in the course of two years is a level of progression I will never experience again. I think the difference between a 4:40 and 4:30 mile, for example, is the difference between a 7 minute and 6 minute mile. The better I’ve gotten, the harder it has been to improve.

I have documented running 80 miles a week for quite a while last year. I think that more than anything gave me the baseline to run a big personal best now and hopefully in the fall as well. I knew that I needed to maintain that level of training.

80 miles a week. One workout could be a threshold workout. A long run with 3–4 mile pickups at goal marathon (around 5:42 mile) pace. With how busy my new job got, maintaining was probably the best I could do.

However, that became a bit harder to do in this last training cycle. I’ll give a chronicle of some days that explain why.

January 3rd, 2026. The new year was just a few days ago, and I am in a “near year, new me” kind of mood. I have been wanting to run a whole 41 mile local trail where I do a lot of my long runs at the Northern Central Railroad trail. The longest I have gone before was 30 miles. I get around to it on this Saturday, armed with only my fully charged phone and six gels. It is cold and there is snow all over the trail, but I feel good until around mile 35, and I just need to muster one last bit of energy to the finish. I do 41 miles around 7:40 pace, my longest run ever while maintaining a decent clip. This run gives me a lot of confidence in my aerobic base and ability to maintain 7 minute mile pace for a very, very long time, exceeding my previous conception of my limits.

January 25th, 2026. I do a run in the middle of a major winter storm. It’s supposed to snow a foot or so, which is unusual in my region. I run 9:34 pace overall for 6.5 miles, but am trying to avoid falling as I slip over the snow coming down. It’s quiet and peaceful, and occasionally I run into some neighbors clearing snow off their cars as they prepare to move out. I take pictures of the snow, and I finish the run, realizing I have to shovel quite a bit to be able to pick up my wife from the airport the next day. Unfortunately, later in the day, it’s so cold that it goes from being snow to big chunks of ice, which makes it more an exercise of breaking the ice and then throwing it out of the way.

February 7th, 2026. Most of outside is still unrunnable. It hasn’t gotten to over freezing. The snow plows have plowed the roads, but not sidewalks, so I spent one run before this day weaving in and out of oncoming traffic, which spooked me quite a bit. Thus, I run yet another day on the treadmill — a 16 mile run with a 6.5 mile progressive tempo on the treadmill. I look around and feel bad at various points because every treadmill is taken, and here I am running for almost two hours on the treadmill, but it is what it is, as we try to get used to the new normal for a bit.

February 15th, 2026. I had signed up for a local 5 mile race that has quite a few hills. It was supposed to be on February 1st, but it got postponed for two weeks because of snow and freezing temperatures making there still a lot of ice in the area. This makes them modify the course to be almost completely flat. I recognize a few people at the line, and once we start, I run with one other guy for about three miles before he drops me. I get 2nd, but run a great time, running 5.2 miles at around 5:20 mile pace. It’s confirmation that I’m in shape and right back where I left off from the last training cycle.

February 22nd, 2026. Another race. It’s supposed to snow later in the day, so it’s up in the air whether it’s canceled or not. I get an email very early in the morning that the race is still on. There is still snow covering various parts of the course, so the course is modified. I realize it gets modified in a much more difficult way than the race I did the week before— there are two more very difficult hills, so I run a slower time than I wanted to run. But so does everyone. I run 56 minutes flat for 10 miles, which is 5:36 pace, on a cold, rainy day with a hillier than usual course. I finish first on my club team to help score, and it’s not like it’s a fantastic race, but it’s a good sign that I’m ready for the marathon.

February 27th, 2026. I run 29 miles. I turn 29 the next day, and I and some other runners in my area and I do a tradition where we run the age we’re turning for our birthdays. I run with three friends, and the run feels pretty easy. It gets hard and lonely at around mile 22, but I come through the marathon around 2:58. I do it on the Friday and not the Saturday because I have to get lunch with my family the day after. It’s a bit of a mistake because I start the run at 6 a.m. and then have to hop back on the computer and work the rest of the day, so it is not the most productive day at work, but it all gets done. Another huge aerobic day that gives me confidence about my endurance for a full marathon.

March 15th, 2026. I run 15 miles in the morning, and then 3 miles in the evening. One of my high school friends I coach ran a 20 minute personal best in the half marathon, so I am beyond hyped for him. After my double run, I sit in my office chair for a long time, doing some work and having a therapy session. When I get up, my lower back is very, very sore from an angle I sat in. It’s a bit concerning, but in my experience, it’s nothing some stretching won’t take care of.

March 19th, 2026. I don’t feel the lower back pain while running, but I do every time I get up and sit too much. Stretching my glutes helps, as well as avoiding sitting too much. But I’m a lawyer and I pretty much sit all day for my job. I try not to think about it and I hope it just goes away. I try to find solace that it’s not pain I feel while running, but in my sedentary life. Inevitably, I start thinking about whether I can run this marathon I have in about a week at all if this pain persists. As much as I share about my runs on Strava, I don’t mention this pain. I don’t want to give it any power or psyche myself out. Maybe the 80 mile weeks, 29 and 41 mile runs, are starting to catch up to my body at this point, but I blame it on the sitting.

March 21st, 2026. Back pain has not gotten any worse, any better. I have gotten a new office chair at this point, not the cheap one I had, but an ergonomic one I found for $60 on Facebook Marketplace. This much more comfortable chair makes my pain a bit better, but the pain has not gotten away. I am worried now, and I keep stretching. I wonder if I can squeeze in a last minute session with a physical therapist to see if the issue is resolved before the marathon.

Later that evening, however, I start feeling around the area of pain and its surrounding regions — my hip, glutes, and the area between the two of them. I realize the area between my hips and glutes is the problem. I stretch out that part by swinging my leg to the side while stationary. The pain magically gets a lot better, but there is still some pain when I get up. Stretching that area ten times on each side throughout the day seems to make it go away. I Google what that part of my body is called — the gluteus medius. I text a couple runners to see if they have lacrosse balls I can use to massage the area.

March 22nd, 2026. My last long run before the marathon. Let me see if I can do a 16 mile long run to hit 40 miles on the week and be pain free. If I could run 16 miles and have no pain in my sedentary life after, I’m good. I stretch quite a bit the day of the run. In the morning and afternoon, we get brunch with my wife’s cousins in Washington D.C., and then we return later in the day. I have some first-year litigator work to do for trial-related discovery, so I really don’t have time to run until much later in the day. I’m pretty tired, and it’s 8 p.m., but I know I need to get out to run for the miles and also to prove to myself the back is not a problem.

I run 16 miles, most of it on the track, a lot of it under 7 minute pace. I have this college basketball game between Iowa and Florida playing in my headphones most of the run, and I am shocked, like many, to see 9 seed Iowa crushing the dreams of 1 seed Florida. But I am much happier that there is no pain on this run at all. No pain when I get back. No pain after sitting for another hour of work. Some annoying, nagging pain every time I get up from sitting after an hour, but nothing some continued stretching won’t take care of.

March 28th, 2026. The day before the race. The pain is completely gone after I continued to stretch the area. I run 3 miles pretty slow, and then do 4 strides. I don’t feel fantastic, but I don’t feel bad. I help my dad move, then drive back an hour later. I have some trouble sleeping thinking about the race, but I keep my eyes closed the entire time for about eight hours. It was one of those nights where there was a possibility I didn’t fall asleep and just kept my eyes closed the whole time. I don’t know, and I will never know how much I actually slept, but I just press on in my ignorance the next morning, assuming I slept 8 hours.

The race

The day is around 35–40 degrees Fahrenheit, with some wind, but not much. I run a familiar course with some slight inclines, but not a lot of hills. I knew it would be hard to get a better day than this, especially as April comes and in my region, so this is a day where I really have to go for it.

The gun goes off, and I let the leaders charging off the line go — I don’t know whether they are running the marathon or the half marathon. During mile 1, I feel great. I chat with some half marathoners who were running the pace I wanted to run. They tell me they were running the Boston Marathon and that this race was just a tune up, and I ask if they would mind if I just drafted off them for a bit. They do not mind.

Unfortunately, they are going slightly faster than I want to go. We come through the first mile at 5:40. It does not feel bad at all, but I’ve done enough marathons to know that a pace that does not feel bad at mile 1 can feel incredibly bad at mile 22 if not paced well or if going out too fast. I decide to let them go a bit and drop my pace. The goal for the next three miles or so is to chill and not look at the watch too much. I am on an island for a lot of this period — people are either 20–30 meters in front of me or behind me.

I keep going, and eventually, I catch up with another half marathoner. He is going roughly the pace I wanted to go, and it is easier to sit on him than to push or calibrate the pace myself. He also does not mind, and we chat a bit about his goals in the half marathon and my goals in the marathon.

Over miles 6–13, half marathoners I try to run with start speeding up as they get closer to the finish of their races. I am trying to run the same pace or slow down slightly, so I gradually let them go over and over again or else I might get myself into trouble for the full marathon.

I run 76:27 through the half marathon. I feel not bad, but not great at this point. I know I need to maintain, but it might be better if I back off a bit. I think about worst case scenarios. If I slow down and just run 6 minute miles the whole rest of the race, I should run around 2:35, so I have some cushion. I continue not to look at the watch and just run.

I feel great until I don’t. At mile 16, the guy in second place overtakes me. He gaps me by about 20 meters or so. Instead of trying to just stick behind him, I remind myself that I am trying to hold back at this point of the race. I let him go and let the gap just maintain its same distance.

However, I slowly reel him in. By mile 18, I have passed the guy again, and I am just focused on my pace. I can hear the second-place person breathing the whole time, so I know he is right behind me or not far. I push a downhill stretch because we had been going uphill for a long time. It feels great and it feels freeing to feel good at mile 18. A mile later, however, I pay for it as he makes another pass and I cannot respond like I did before.

Miles 20–23 are the most difficult miles of the race. The guy now in first place starts pulling away. I can feel myself slowing down, and my mind starts thinking again about worst case scenarios of blowing up, dropping out, etc. I don’t even let myself look at my watch until certain checkpoints: 1:55, 2:05, 2:15. I certainly do not let myself look at how fast I’m going. I could be going 7:30 mile pace, 7 minute pace, or 6:30 pace. I know whatever it is, realizing how much slower I’m going is going to psych me out, so I don’t look.

At mile 24, I finally look at the pace. I had just run a 6:05 mile, which is honestly faster than I thought I was going. I see that I crossed mile 24 around 2:21, which meant that a PR was within striking distance. I would need to run around 6 minute miles to guarantee a PR. I could do that, but I am hurting badly at this point, and I need to conserve enough energy for a finish.

I start running 5:45 mile pace at some point as the finish gets closer and closer, but I check myself and hold back because I know it could backfire later, and want to play it a bit safer. I feel a big spasm in my calf at one point, and scale back the pace a little bit. I make sure to keep my strides short and quick to avoid putting too much stress on my calves.

I cross mile 25 around 2:27. I am still in a lot of pain, and my watch heart rate of around 195 (looking back) seems to corroborate this. But I have a personal record in the bag if I could maintain, keep putting one foot in front of the other, and make it to the finish line. All I can think about was how much the race was hurting at this point and how great it would be when the suffering ended.

Mile 26 is around 2:33:15 or something like that. Now, I had to absolutely go and give it everything I had. The first place guy is getting closer and closer, but I have let too much of a gap build to pass him. I have to get to the turn to make it to the finish line, and once I make the turn, I see the time on the clock. I saw the time at 2:34:20, and then the seconds tick and tick as I sprint to the finish line.

I give it everything I have as I come through the line at 2:34:41, which means I ran a minute personal best. Someone gives me water, and another person gives me a tissue to blow my nose, both of which I accept graciously. I see later that the chip time was three seconds faster than what my watch got, which was even better.

Screenshot from the author on Strava

I think there are changes I can do in my long runs and workouts. I can run more of my long runs harder, especially towards the end of the long run. I can do longer interval repeats rather than mile repeats. I can just run more miles than 80 miles a week.

Consistency is more important than intensity. I will keep going for it. I realize I still did my best to train during this training cycle. I spent almost an entire month running only on the treadmill because of a winter storm that left sidewalks inaccessible.

In my new job, sometimes I after I spend 10 hours reviewing contracts and documents, I lack energy. It’s nothing like my old job in the school system, but I do sometimes get very busy and have a similar kind of brain fog. Running is the antidote against that.

Historically, I always had a lot of energy, but I lacked focus and direction. When that ambition and determination had nowhere to turn in earlier parts of my life, well, I thought too much. But given that ambition, I set pretty lofty goals for myself and historically got upset when I did not meet those goals. Now, however, I have a healthier mindset. A personal best is a personal best, and it’s always something to celebrate.

There are things I can do to run more personal bests. I can find easier courses. There are some courses that are infamous for helping everyone churn out personal bests, like the Chicago Marathon or the California International Marathon.

Second, I can choose courses with a lot more competition. I was a lot more in charge of my own pacing and being solo in this small, local race for more than half of it. That is fine. But if I am in a race with 30 other people running 2:30, there is a sense of camaraderie in that, but also ease. I can just sit behind that whole group and not think about pacing and tactics as much as I usually do.

Still, it takes time. It takes continuous trying and bites at the apple. I will keep fighting, keep swinging. At the end of the day, I spend countless hours running each week, month, and year, only to try to run a few minutes faster over the course of a roughly two and a half hour race.

It sounds silly when thinking about it, and it sounds silly that I continue to do it, day after day, year after year. But I have come back to it time and time again over the last 16 years.

The progress comes in the weeks and months of consistent volume, but the joy, I’ve found, comes in the days — the days of barely being able to squeeze in a run because of travel or my work schedule, and the days of hard workouts or running 41 miles and trying to test my limits. It’s a struggle to run personal records, and sometimes it doesn’t happen, but I’ve finally embraced the joy of the effort and journey.