With 10-Minutes of Breathing Room, That’s a Marathon Pace of 8:46 /mile, or 5:27 /km

“Everything you ever wanted to know about yourself, you can learn in 26.2 miles”

Lori Culnane

I recently saw a clip on Instagram captioned ‘when you sign up for a marathon immediately after you complete your first 5K’, accompanied by a voiceover asking where the protagonist drew their self-belief from. This was followed by a one word answer – ‘delusion’. It’s a clip that resonates deeply with me.

If you’ve been keeping up with my journey, you’ll know that I’m attempting to run a marathon only 24 weeks after becoming a runner, and only 27 weeks after having spinal fusion surgery. Running a marathon is a monumental feat for anyone, but it’s even more unlikely considering the above. Should I really be thinking about pace?

To clarify how hard it is to run a sub 4 hour marathon, let’s look at some recent times from the 2022 London Marathon. The average clock time for women and men of all ages was 4:57:26 and 4:21:09 respectively. The slowest person to finish crossed the line in 11:20:56, joining four other entrants crossing the line in over 10 hours. While a large number of people will be new to the distance, many of these will be seasoned marathoners, themselves trying to break 4 (and many, 3) hours. Like the Instagram clip, only delusion can explain why I have this as a loose goal.

So what pace do I need to run for a sub 4 hour marathon? Well, a 3:59:59 marathon requires an approximate pace of 9:09 /mile or 5:41 /km. While I’d be completely ecstatic with said time, it would be wise to aim for more of a safety net than 1 second. To finish with 10 minutes to spare, a pace of 8:46 /mile or 5:27 /km would be required. While running at said pace is fine, the need to sustain it for 26.2 miles (or 42.2kms), particularly when you enter unknown territory (most training plans tap out at 20 miles), is another prospect entirely.

What’s more, I only recently completed my first half-marathon. While I’m really pleased with my time, a respectable 1:52:22 after only 10 or so weeks of running, you’re usually expected to be running your half considerably faster than your target marathon pace. Inputting my half-marathon time into a race predictor (this one, if you’re interested), reveals a predicted time of 4:21:52 (right around the average male finish time at the 2022 London Marathon).

As it was my first half, it’s tough to say how representative of my abilities that performance was. Moreover, I’m about 9 weeks out from the marathon, so who knows what shape I’ll be in on the actual day.

Should you set a time-based goal for your first marathon?

In all the marathon-related literature I’ve read, most advise against setting a target time for your first marathon. Instead, they advocate for enjoying the experience, seeing how you fare at the distance, and aiming to come out the other side as unscathed as possible. This feels like sensible advice, and I completely understand the rationale behind it. Nonetheless, I’m the kind of person that needs a more specific target in order to motivate the long training sessions. What’s more, as I know it’s a wild ambition, and as I don’t underestimate the distance, I know I’m not going to be disappointed if I don’t hit the target of sub 4 hours. I’ll be thrilled to cross the line at all.

I decided to ask followers on Threads whether they thought people should set time goals for their first marathons. There were 92 votes, with 23% answering ‘Yes’, 37% ‘No’, and 40% ‘It depends’. Lots of people explained their choice in the comments section, and I’d highly recommend checking it out if you haven’t already. I’ll leave the link here.

While some were highly opposed to the idea (their own experience of doing so providing enough clarity to answer), others stressed that it was perfectly acceptable if you were able to hold the goal loosely – that is, not be upset if you don’t achieve it. Others advised tiered goals, something I’d already looked into, where you set an A, B, and C goal in order of importance (or likelihood).

Those three goals would likely look a little something like this, at least at the time of writing:

A – Finish the marathon in (reasonably) good shape
B – Under 4:30:00
C – Under 4:00:00

Conclusion

Whether you decide to set a time-based goal in your first marathon is entirely at your own discretion. While it’s regularly discouraged, it’s important to do whatever keeps you motivated and disciplined. What I wouldn’t recommend, however, is time-based goal-setting if you’re the type of person whose happiness is tied to the attainment of said goal. If this is you, you’ll likely leave yourself to susceptible to disappointment, or worse, depression. It’s important to remember just how difficult running a marathon really is. Whether it’s a Boston qualifying time, sub 4, or 10 hours, you’ve just joined a unique and truly impressive club and you should be exceptionally proud of yourself.

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