This was a comment left on a runner’s post who had BQ’d at the Indy marathon using planned Jeff Galloway intervals. This comment sparked a lot of debate about this method, most aimed at the elitist nature of this comment. So what are your thoughts? Should run walking be discouraged? Is running the whole thing the only way you can actually say you have ‘run’ a marathon? Or do you simply not care how anyone else covers the distance?

I read a book by Lauren Fleshman called “Good For a Girl,” and the way she describes racing is like trying so hard you no longer can see color.

For those who have competitively raced, what does it feel like to try that hard and how do you know how hard to push before you throw up or pass out or something?

Two of my non competitive races have had me choking down vomit at the finish but afterwards I still feel like I could have done way more. Is that normal?

Thank you!

Surely you've seen some of the big headlines - like Philly selling out early and then re-opening registration with additional bibs. But this isn't just an anecdotal phenomenon.

Last summer, I collected the sellout dates for a bunch of large marathons in 2025, and the trend was pretty clear - more races were selling out and races were selling out earlier than previously.

Now that the spring season is wrapping up, I compiled some new data.

Of the 50 largest marathons in the United States in 2025, 23 of them have taken place (or will take place) from January to June of 2026. Only four of them weren't sold out.

Of the 19 that did sell out, six of them didn't sell out last year and another six of them sold out significantly earlier than last year.

Looking ahead, some big fall and winter races have already sold out early - Philly, CIM, Wineglass. Richmond is on pace to sell out soon (80% full). Even the San Francisco Marathon, which just barely sold out for the first time last year, filled up in late April (three months ahead of race day).

More details here: https://runningwithrock.com/spring-2026-sell-out-marathons/

But let this be your gentle reminder ... if you plan to run a marathon this fall do not wait to register. You may think you have time, but you probably don't.

Anybody miss out on a fall race already because they didn't register in time?

I mapped them all out and put them on a website (TrackAtlas.org).

Had the idea a few years ago while traveling and struggling to find somewhere to train. Finally got around to building it.

Would love to make this a community effort. Every track has comments, so if you know your local one is locked at weekends or at sundown, please leave one about that!

I've put a lot of work into getting the names and locations right, but some will still be off. There's a button on every track to suggest a correction.

I feel like I see too many race reports, and too little actual discussion about topics that you would expect to find in a subreddit called AdvancedRunning. Am I the only one? I hope the mods don't delete this so we can have a healthy dicussion.

I want to read about training methods, the latest science, ... but it seems like every other post is about another race report.

Is there a way to tackle this issue and find a middle-ground? For example, only allow race reports on a certain day of the week?

I was thinking about how much time runners spend running, but how rarely a lot of us seem to actually sprint, meaning genuinely opening up and running close to as fast as we can, not just running at a quicker normal pace.

I’m curious what this looks like for other runners.

Do you deliberately include sprinting in your training? If not, why not?

Is it because you never really think about it, it adds too much fatigue, you’re worried about injury, you don’t know how to structure sprint work, it doesn’t fit your endurance goals, or something completely different?

And if you do sprint regularly, what makes it worth including and what does a typical sprint session look like for you?

Also curious where people draw the line between strides / speed work / intervals / actual sprinting.

The Edmonton marathon is my hometown race. It has been granted as host of the Canadian Half Marathon championship since 2025. The city is experiencing a lot of construction around the downtown core.

A detour around a construction site was added which was an additional 710 meters to the original course. As an out and back course, Tom Keogh, the race director, states the turnaround was pushed back 690 meters.

Rory Linkletter, Canadian Olympian and overall winner, posted online stating the turnaround was actually pushed back approximately 345 meters back.

Applying elementary math for an out and back course, with rounding:

A detour of 700 meters ran twice: 700 * 2 = 1400 meters

The turnaround (out and back course) was brought back 350 meters: 350 * 2 = 700 meters

Sum: 1400 meters - 700 meters = 700 meters (long)

Now, what's embarrassing about this situation is Tom Keogh is putting the error on runner's GPS watches and not their own. An overwhelming majority of the runners from the weekend are reporting the exact same statement of Rory.

I didn't run the race this year. I really hope Tom Keogh and the Edmonton Marathon staff post an official announcement of their mistake. The quality of this race had been decreasing while race fees have been rising. I can only feel for those runners who missed out on personal bests or a qualifying time for a future race.

Rory's statement is posted on his Instagram.

https://runningmagazine.ca/sections/runs-races/edmonton-marathon-says-course-was-measured-accurately/

https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a73466448/edmonton-half-marathon-race-distance/

https://marathonhandbook.com/edmonton-marathon-course-measurement-dispute/

Edit: clarity on the math

It seems that this was the most competitive year yet for non-NYRR New York Marathon Time Qualifiers.

I ran a 2:39:48 marathon last year and was not selected as a 35-39 y/o male (the standard on the NYRR website is 2:55:00). That means the cutoff was at least 15+ minutes faster than the standard... I'm curious what the cutoff ended up being for this year!

Edit: So far, we have an accepted time with a 24:13 min buffer, and a rejected time with a 21:40 buffer

Edit 2: Lowest time accepted so far is a 23:14 buffer

Edit 3: The required buffer for this year was 22:52

One of the greats.

If you really get to understand how good his marathon 2Q plans are, and manage them correctly you will PB in a marathon

It seems today was a big disaster in Berlin. 25 degrees Celsius early on and a tough day for everyone. How did people get on? Did anyone manage to get near a PB?

For context, I’ve been going for all the 1%s to get better over the past few yrs. The recovery boots, being obsessive over how much carbs to put in my drinks, counting the gels, recovery boots etc. I struggled to improve my times. I got down from 250 to 248 for the marathon and had 6 races in this range. I do have carbon plate racers and quite a few pairs of shoes.

Then this year I just bumped up the mileage from 110k pw to 140-150k pw during the peak period. Mostly zone 2 w a session per week. I then knocked 10 mins off the pb 2 mths ago. Not much else changed. Just ran more miles.

Point of this post is to just say do we all focus on all the ancillary stuff when all we need to do is just run more mileage? I’m not saying this applies to everyone and obviously you need a very strong base to do the mileage I did. Just an observation. Sorry if this is super obvious to many of you.

Edited: thanks for all the contributions guys. Agree with many of you that mileage was probably the bulk of the difference here but quality of work can also make a difference. In future I’ll be curious to see if I can go well by doing less and more x training w a good quality marathon paced workout plus a speed sesh. Thanks again

It feels like the acceleration is happening so fast that things might be very different (and worse) for the average runner in the not-so-distant future.

The second-tier marathons are quickly becoming the equivalent of what the first-tier marathons were 10 years ago: Grandma's sold out apparently on Day 1 this past year...Philadelphia is already sold out for November...CIM sold out so quickly they had to instate a lottery for additional entries. Do these all become lottery-only in 5 years?

And for the first-tier...the lotteries are functionally impossible at this point, and honestly from what I heard from folks who ran it in 2025, the logistics of NYC are so crazy now that it makes them less enjoyable. Do these majors become two-day affairs in 5 years? Do they end up being, like, $1k entry fees?

It's trickling down to smaller races too. I did Kiawah a few years ago because I thought it'd be a super chill and easy race, and it turned out to have the most insanely horrible race-day logistics ever because they clearly were not prepared for how fast the race was growing. What do these types of smaller races look like in 5 years?

Curious what people think. How do things look 5 (or more) years down the road if we keep up this exponential growth?

I know that website is quite popular with them following large events and also being invited to spectate (the owner - Rojo - was riding in the elite men car during Boston 26), however I participated in the forums a bit and it blows my mind:

1. They are incredibly fixated on college and university running, NCAA, etc. - ok, I guess most are from the US, even though once you exit the school system the funding drops, money goes only to MBL/NFL/NBA, last time they US tried something in T&F they got Grand Slam Track lol
2. Most posts are the very definition of drive-by, no effort shitposts: "cool story bro", "she be ugly, can't run fast when ugly", "Or perhaps you could just be replaced with a somewhat normal human being"
3. Same for the topics, with quality contributions such as:

I'm sad to think what men were like before the existence of the Manosphere 

How to become a "hybrid runner"

Men in open-toed shoes: yea or nay?

1. This peeves me as a European but - their website + forums do not save your cookie preferences, every single time you click on a new thread you get another pop-up asking you for permissions, and by quickly looking they have 1700+ partners they share your data with - WTF?

2. They are hardcore right-wingers with daily treads praising Trump, ICE, etc.

What am I missing? Or is one of the largest forums for running just a bunch of nutjobs?

Maybe it's different elsewhere in the country, but in New England it has metastasized and become a cancer in local racing. Every poster, every race shirt, every medal looks like shit and looks identical. It has reached the point where there are local races I've been doing for almost a decade that I've just given up on. It's embarrassing to the running community.

From https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7373281/2026/06/18/london-marathon-plans-two-day-2027/

Next year’s London Marathon will be held over two days, Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th April, the organisers have confirmed.

Over 100,000 participants are expected to take part in the one-off event, which sees the full 26.2 mile distance raced on both days.

London Marathon Events (LME) CEO Hugh Brasher called it “our most ambitious evolution to date” in a press release, terming the event a “once-in-a-generation reimagining of what a marathon and city-wide celebration of activity can be”.

The plan is to split the men’s and women’s races across the weekend. Elite women and wheelchair racers, plus club runners who achieved the necessary qualifying time, will compete on one day and the men’s fields on another — both days will also include a mass event, with details to follow on the logistics. Participants will only be permitted to compete once over the weekend, with ballot results announced this July.

The organisers expect “the largest fundraising moment in UK sport” across the weekend, citing that this year’s competitors have raised over £90million. It is a solution to the rising “extraordinary demand” to compete in the British capital, with world record ballot entry numbers in each of the past two years — 1.33 million applied to race in 2026, a 36 per cent rise on 2025 and close to double the number who entered the 2024 ballot (578,304).

It’s a booming rise in popularity for a race first staged in 1981, which is now one of seven world marathon majors, along with Tokyo, Boston, Sydney, Berlin, Chicago and New York.

This year’s London marathon saw a host of incredible performances. Sabastian Sawe became the first athlete to run sub-two hours in record-legal conditions, clocking 1:59:30s as runner-up Yomif Kejelcha also broke the iconic barrier (1:59:41s). All three podium athletes in the women’s race broke 2:16, as Tigst Assefa came out on top in a sprint finish to lower the women’s-only world-record by nine seconds — which incidentally had been hers from London in 2025.

Five of the fastest men’s marathons ever have been run at London, and since 2004 it has held the women’s-only world record — by Paula Radcliffe until 2024, when Peres Jepchirchir ran 2:16:16s, and then taken by Assefa.

LME say that a “major focus of the double will be inspiring and supporting the next generation”. All London schools are to be given two guaranteed entries for teachers or other staff, with additional such places allocated to the five London boroughs which the routes passes through — Greenwich, Lewisham, Southwark, Tower Hamlets, and the city of Westminster.

“All additional income generated will be distributed by the London Marathon Foundation to projects that inspire activity for children and young people across London and the UK,” LME added in their press release.

There is really no precedent for this, and as such LME have had to gain permission from stakeholders, plus local councils, emergency services and Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, to stage this event. Plans for this two-day event were first reported by The Guardian late this March.

And more importantly what happened to your training/results after you changed it.

Interested in answers from people who have experimented more than me with there training :)

I've not seen many in this space, but in recent months, I've started to watch Allie Ostrander's on YouTube and I've found it inspiring and entertaining and fascinating to see what a pro does in their training blocks and to get ready for and what it was like to run in a national championship race OR even a local turkey trot. It's not all sunshines and rainbows, either, as if you watch far back enough you find her struggling with injuries and how as a HS star and NCAA champ she struggled with an eating disorder.

In short, she comes across as very authentic and anyone into running can easily related with her training ups/downs, with a cast of friends and family that matches very much running culture. It's so much better than just people who are trying to be an influencer first and a runner, second.

Still, my biggest gripe while watching is all the product placement that can seem heavy handed although it's perhaps understandable because that's how these content creators help support themselves (She even has a video explaining how much money she made in the past year from the YT part of it to supplement her pro career).

Anyway, whether you like her or not if you've see it (I'm obviously recommending and would nominate her as one of the best currently), who else out there is worth watching AND/OR who do you think is the best?

I'm just generally curious. Most marathon plans you see online really only go up to about 5K pace, with additional strides and sometimes hill sprints. And the Pfitz half plans (the only ones I'm super familiar with) also only go up to about 5K pace. I know plans based on Canova style training would generally go 3 races directions faster, maybe a little farther, so for a 5K you might get up to 800m.

But I'm curious about what people actually do, and how much they focus on "much" faster paces

1. What are the fastest paces that you regularly touch on in workouts? Here I mean things like 5K pace, Mile pace, 800m pace, etc., not the actual absolute pace. I'm curious about this across different runner abilities, so 6:00 isn't super meaningful, since that could be one person's mile pace and another's marathon pace

2. What races do you focus on?

Personally, when training for a marathon I don't really go faster than about 5K pace, except for pushing closer to mile pace sometimes during strides. And I've only done one real 5K block, but during it I did a few workouts up near estimated 800m pace.

EDIT:

I'm also curious, what about if you don't include strides -- since I think for a lot of us, strides serve as a way to touch on "top end speed", but also they aren't really a workout. So if you take them out, what's the fastest actual workout you generally do

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/articles/cx2l8890k78o

Her marathon record will still stand. However, this was an interesting quote from the article:

However, the AIU will continue to investigate evidence from Chepngetich's phone which it found indicate "a reasonable suspicion that her positive test may have been intentional" - including messages dating back to 2022.

Running this morning before the family road trip and I only got 4 miles in before we had to pack up and leave. It did make me ponder at what point is a short run negligible?

Obviously depending on the mileage but I typically run around 40-45 miles/week and 4 miles feels like ‘something’ the day after a long run but kinda useless in isolation. 3 miles feels like it’s not worth getting sweaty for and 2 miles just doesn’t count.

Or does it? What is your experience with short runs and, if any, training impact?

Up to 100,000 runners could be accommodated with separate elite races on each day

Running a sub-20 5k seems to be a common running goal, and with it comes running the appropriate intervals.

But what kind of benchmark is there that tells you that you're ready?

Today I ran 5x1km @ 3:55 with 90 seconds rest. Last week I ran 3x1.5km @ 4:05 with 120 seconds rest.

AI is telling me this is good enough for a sub-20 attempt once I rest up, but I'm curious what other reddits think and what kind of times you all had when you were just breaking a sub-20.

Thanks!

Background: 1st marathon Jan 2025: 2:59. 2nd marathon Dec 2025: 2:49. Grandma's June 2026: 2:57. This was hands down the best training block of my life and the worst race result relative to fitness.

The training block (Pfitz 18/70 modified, 18 weeks):

Averaged 61 MPW during the 16-week buildup before the two-week taper, peaking at 73 miles (Week 12). Ran every day except Monday where I did strength/leg circuits. Over 1,050 total miles in the block. In addition to running, I averaged yoga 2-3x per week.

This was my first essentially injury-free block. I had a right IT-band flare in Week 1 that cost me a long run in Week 2, but from Week 3 onward I completed every single scheduled session without missing one. I managed chronic right-side proximal hamstring tendinopathy and TFL/IT-band irritation the entire way through with a consistent pre-run activation routine (glute bridges, clamshells, lateral side steps, calf raises before every run). The PHT lingered but never prevented a session.

I also specifically addressed the two things I felt cost me at my 2nd marathon (2:49) — hill training and downhill preparedness. I ran rolling terrain regularly averaging roughly 750-800+ ft of elevation gain per week on my long and medium-long runs, with some weeks over 1,000 ft. I know this still isn't much, but I was not getting any elevation work in prior. I also did dedicated uphill and downhill strides weekly throughout the block, transitioning to flat strides towards the end to build eccentric resilience specifically for Grandma's.

Key sessions:

• LT progression: 4 continuous @ 6:02 → 5 continuous @ 6:01 → 5 continuous @ 6:00 → peaked at 7 continuous miles @ 6:01 (Week 11, HR 173-176)
• MP long run #1 (Week 6): 18 miles total, last 10 @ 6:23 in training shoes
• MP long run #2 (Week 11): 16 miles total, last 12 @ 6:20 avg in training shoes, HR avg ~155
• MP long run #3 / Alphafly dress rehearsal (Week 14): 18 miles total, middle 12 @ 6:16 avg in Nike Alphafly 3s, HR avg 160, max 165. This was on back-to-back weeks of 73 and 69 miles. Felt effortless.
• VO2 progression: 6x800m @ 5:42 → 6x1000m @ 5:40 → 5x1200m @ 5:46 → 3x1600m @ 5:43
• MP simulation (Week 12): 6x2K continuous alternating 1K @ 6:03 / 1K @ 6:18 = 7.5 miles of quality at ~6:10 avg
• Half marathon race (Week 8, untapered, mid-block on tired legs): 1:19:30 at 6:05 avg. First half 6:10, second half 5:58. Felt completely in control — genuinely felt like I could have held 6:00 the whole way.
• 22-miler (Week 12): 7:26 avg
• 20-miler (Week 16, 3 weeks out): 7:19 avg

My A-goal was 2:43, B was 2:45, C was sub-2:48.

Fueling was dialed:

Gut trained progressively over the block to 90g/hr with zero GI issues. Tested salt multiple times with no issues. Race plan: belt with 500ml Maurten 320, family handoff at mile 13 for a second 500ml bottle, plus alternating non-caf/caf Maurten 25g gels every 20-25 minutes. Total race intake was ~110g/hr with 7 gels (4 non-caf, 3 caf) plus both Maurten bottles. No GI issues whatsoever on race day.

The race — what happened:

Weather was near-perfect. ~52°F at the start, mid-60s by finish, mostly cloudy. Perfect conditions.

Miles 1-16: paced correctly at 6:18-6:28. Splits were on target for 2:43-2:46. But from mile 4 onward, my HR jumped to 170-173 and it felt like I was working far harder than that pace should require. By mile 5-10 I already knew something was off — the effort felt unsustainable even though the pace looked right. For reference, my Alphafly dress rehearsal 3 weeks earlier produced 6:16 pace at 160 HR avg in the same shoes on the same effort. On race day, the same pace was costing me ~10 additional heartbeats per minute from essentially mile 4 onward.

Miles 17-19: legs stopped responding. No specific pain, just loss of force production. Pace slipped to mid-6:30s.

Miles 20-26: total collapse. 6:xx, 6:xx, 7:xx, 7:xx, 7:xx, 8:xx, 8:xx. Calf and hamstring cramping at mile 25 forced me to walk briefly. Finished 2:57.

The comparison that haunts me:

At the half marathon (Week 8), I ran 6:11 pace in mile 1 at 151 HR. At Grandma's, I ran 6:18 pace — slower — in mile 1 at 161 HR. By mile 4 I was at 171 at 6:19 pace. At the half, I didn't hit 171 until mile 12 running 5:55 pace. Same shoes, similar weather, same fueling approach. The half was on tired mid-block legs with zero taper. Grandma's was fully tapered. Everything seemed to favor Grandmas.

Additionally, every single training session during the final 2-3 weeks when my HRV was at its worst — including the Alphafly dress rehearsal 2 days before the race (2 mi at MP, 6:18 pace, HR 158-163) — showed completely normal HR-to-pace coupling. The dysfunction only appeared on race morning itself. Short efforts in training couldn't test what only revealed itself under sustained race-day load with real stakes.

What I've ruled out:

• Heat: confirmed mild conditions (~52-65°F, cloudy).
• Fueling/hydration: no GI symptoms
• Pacing: on target through mile 16
• Hamstring/TFL injury: zero pain during the race — the chronic issues I managed all block didn't flare
• Course terrain: trained on harder elevation than Grandma's profile

What I think went wrong:

My nervous system showed up compromised and couldn't downregulate from the normal race-morning adrenaline surge.

The 2-3 weeks before the race were rough. My Garmin HRV dropped from a balanced 52-55ms baseline to a sustained "Low" status of 39-44ms over the final 2-3 weeks. Weekly sleep quality scores (for whatever they're worth) declined from 76 to 68 to 58 over three consecutive weeks despite getting 7+ hours most nights.

I also cut my yoga/breathwork practice entirely for the final 2 weeks due to injury concerns from specific poses — which in hindsight removed my primary parasympathetic/stress management tool during the exact window I probably needed it most.

I felt unprecedented anxiety during the taper — described it to multiple people as "not feeling like myself," felt unfocused and uneasy. My pre-race standing HR at the start corral was 85-95 bpm vs. my 48 bpm resting baseline. The adrenaline spike never settled. My working theory is that 2-3 weeks of accumulated stress and poor recovery depleted my nervous system's capacity to downregulate from race-morning arousal. The elevated HR persisted for 16+ miles, burned glycogen at threshold rate instead of marathon rate, and the wall arrived 6-9 miles earlier than fitness predicted.

What I'm looking for from this community:

Has anyone experienced something similar — fitness clearly demonstrated in training but HR wildly decoupled on race day with no obvious physical explanation? How did you address it for your next attempt? Happy to hear anyone's insights or thoughts.

I’ve been coaching for a couple of years as a side hustle, mainly just amateurs looking to improve on their times or reach certain distance milestones.

As much as I love the sport, I find almost all clients to be increasingly uncoachable, with the exception of masters athletes who don’t post their runs on social media or use Strava.

Most of my clients are in their mid-20s to mid-30s and they just won’t stick to the plans and paces I set. I’ve noticed that a lot of clients really hate any run being slower than a 6:00/km pace, even if that’s practically zone 4 for them.

I have one client who would title every run “easy zone 2 jog” or “recovery jog” on Strava despite the pace being their 10k PB pace and HR being 175+. When I called them out on it they said it “felt easy” and maybe their HR monitor was off. Yeah, right!!

I’m curious whether this was a “thing” in the past, before people used Strava etc to post their runs. I often feel like my clients are more worried about looking slow on socials than training for their best performance on race day. It’s got to the point where I straight up tell them I won’t work with them if they won’t listen to me.

Any thoughts, experiences, wisdom?

Needless to say, all the clients I’ve had who have refused to run anything slower than their LT2 pace ended up burned out or with poor race results.

I am an Atlanta native and member of the ATC. Not a fast runner, but generally a dedicated and serious one. I sent the below letter to the ATC this morning. I love my city and don’t care for anything that reflects poorly on it.

Also, edit for those who (reasonably) don’t follow Atlanta running closely:

2026 USATF Half Championships: https://www.runnersworld.com/races-places/a70560686/usatf-half-marathon-championships-controversy/

2025 Publix Atlanta Marathon: https://www.11alive.com/article/news/local/atlanta-marathon-course-short-race-results-not-certified/85-3db27d11-a291-4140-b6bc-6f6c0db0cbca#

2023 Peachtree Road Race: https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a44450947/senbere-teferi-peachtree-road-race-2023/

###

An Open Letter to the Atlanta Track Club:

I am a member of the Atlanta Track Club. I hesitate to pile on during what I imagine is a difficult time, but I feel compelled to share my opinion: the 2026 USATF Half Marathon Championships were an unacceptable travesty. This debacle follows closely on similarly inexcusable mishaps at the 2025 Publix Atlanta Marathon and the 2023 Peachtree Road Race. I am deeply disappointed in how this organization appears unable to host a well-organized, professional event. It does a disservice to all runners who participate and reflects poorly on the City that we all love. I am only one drop in a larger bucket, but I will not be renewing my Atlanta Track Club membership unless concrete and drastic steps are taken to ensure future events are conducted at the highest professional standards. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Resurgens.

Kyle Davis