On April 26th, 2015 I ran my first marathon and had a similar blog post published (from back in the day when I wrote more regularly on this blog). On March 2nd, 2025 I will run my 11th marathon, this time in Tokyo.

Of all my marathon training cycles this is the one with the fewest kilometres, a mere 500km so far. Reasons are two injuries, one of which still plagues me, and a high work-load at my day job.

Progress

Over the past 10 years I have improved my marathon time from a 3:17:38 in Hamburg to a 3:01:19 in Amsterdam last year. I have completed five of the six World Marathon Majors, some of them even three times. With Tokyo I will complete all six of them and will come home with the coveted Six Star Finisher medal.

Goals

With a mediocre training cycle like this I have no goals except for running with my heart and enjoying the heck out of this long run. In this regard, my 11th marathon is not that different from my first, where I also had no idea what I was capable off. It would be cool to have a 3: in front of the final time (London 2023 so far being my slowest with 3:49:50, a week after the Berlin Marathon - not advisable), and it would be a stretch to finish under 3:30:00. Regardless, if necessary I will walk the entire 42km, the time limit of seven hours should allow for that.

What's left

Getting to Tokyo healthy and with as little foot pain as possible. My wife is coming with me, so we will explore the city Wednesday to Friday, eat ramen and sushi, and have a good time. Then Saturday will be the boring "feet up" hotel-room day and on Sunday I'll run 42km through Tokyo. I'm excited. I think.