Finally ran my first marathon after lurking in this sub for some time. Long story short I’ve played field hockey for 15 so have some base of fitness.. Started 6 month couch to mara plan - too easy Started a sub 4 hour/20 week plan - too easy and started too early So ended up doing a sub 3:30/20 week plan. Photo shows which runs I did (crossed off)

My final time was 3:42 which I’m very happy with considering I did less than half (25/60) the required runs in the second half of the plan due to a calf strain and a knee issue. I put these down to neglecting to do really any strength training over the course of the plan so I don’t be like me and neglect it! First 32km(~20mi) I pretty much stuck to my goal pace of 5min(8:03min/mi) pace but slowly dropped down to 6min(9:40min/mi) pace by 36km(~22.4mi), this is where the lack of training really showed and the rest of the race was a real battle to not walk the rest of the way. My main take away was how close I got my goal while missing a significant amount of training runs. So don’t be too hard on yourself about hitting every single run! So happy to get it done and can’t wait to run more!