5 days ago
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6
Posted On: July 21st 2026, 11:05 am
I set a world record last month — the fastest marathon anyone’s run in a kilt. 3:11 at the Gold Coast.
And I still can’t tell you, hand on heart, whether my training actually worked.
Because a marathon in a kilt and a wool jacket is its own brutal event. My heart rate hit 167 in the first kilometre and never really came back down. So the result and the training got tangled together, and I can’t cleanly pull them apart.
But strip the kilt away, and the block still taught me plenty.
6 honest lessons:
1️⃣The volume trap. I peaked at 110k weeks and ran six 36k long runs back to back. But chasing that weekly number quietly became the goal itself. My 4th 36km long-run in the block, I stood on the side of the road for ten minutes with nothing in the legs, thinking “maybe I just don’t have this pace.” The volume had stolen my speed without me noticing.
2️⃣ I didn’t nudge my threshold enough. I hit my weekly speed sessions — but I leaned too hard on VO2 and anaerobic work and not enough on threshold. I’m not sure how much I really moved my floor or my ceiling.
3️⃣ I was too rigid. The discipline got it done, but I worshipped the number and ran hard even when my legs were flat. Bad sessions stacked on top of each other. A bit more flexibility would’ve served me far better.
4️⃣The solo grind nearly broke me. Every run outside the long one was 90+ minutes — alone, in the dark, done before sunrise. It started to drain me mentally. I should’ve run more of them with mates. Company beats a few “perfect” kilometres every time.
5️⃣Respect the marathon. I treated a kilt marathon like a run in fancy dress. It absolutely was not. The jacket cooked me, my HR sat pinned from the gun, and I spent most of the race in zone 5. Prepare for the conditions you’ll actually face.
6️⃣I felt the pressure. It built in the days before. Negative thoughts crept in on race morning. And crossing the line? It felt like relief, not triumph. The joy came later with family and friends.
I’m sharing the debrief because we are always learning.
👇 so tell me whats your biggest lesson from you recent marathon training block?
And I still can’t tell you, hand on heart, whether my training actually worked.
Because a marathon in a kilt and a wool jacket is its own brutal event. My heart rate hit 167 in the first kilometre and never really came back down. So the result and the training got tangled together, and I can’t cleanly pull them apart.
But strip the kilt away, and the block still taught me plenty.
6 honest lessons:
1️⃣The volume trap. I peaked at 110k weeks and ran six 36k long runs back to back. But chasing that weekly number quietly became the goal itself. My 4th 36km long-run in the block, I stood on the side of the road for ten minutes with nothing in the legs, thinking “maybe I just don’t have this pace.” The volume had stolen my speed without me noticing.
2️⃣ I didn’t nudge my threshold enough. I hit my weekly speed sessions — but I leaned too hard on VO2 and anaerobic work and not enough on threshold. I’m not sure how much I really moved my floor or my ceiling.
3️⃣ I was too rigid. The discipline got it done, but I worshipped the number and ran hard even when my legs were flat. Bad sessions stacked on top of each other. A bit more flexibility would’ve served me far better.
4️⃣The solo grind nearly broke me. Every run outside the long one was 90+ minutes — alone, in the dark, done before sunrise. It started to drain me mentally. I should’ve run more of them with mates. Company beats a few “perfect” kilometres every time.
5️⃣Respect the marathon. I treated a kilt marathon like a run in fancy dress. It absolutely was not. The jacket cooked me, my HR sat pinned from the gun, and I spent most of the race in zone 5. Prepare for the conditions you’ll actually face.
6️⃣I felt the pressure. It built in the days before. Negative thoughts crept in on race morning. And crossing the line? It felt like relief, not triumph. The joy came later with family and friends.
I’m sharing the debrief because we are always learning.
👇 so tell me whats your biggest lesson from you recent marathon training block?
Comments (6)
4 days agoslowrunfast
Six honest lessons, especially the volume trap. Weekly mileage targets chasing a number instead of protecting key sessions is such a common trap.
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