Race Information

• Name: Wineglass Marathon
• Date: October 4 2026
• Distance: 26.2 miles
• Location: Corning, NY
• Website: https://www.wineglassmarathon.com
• Time: 3:28:36

Goals

Splits

Training

I followed the Breeze plan from John Davis' (u/running_writings) book Marathon Excellence for Everyone, which is the lowest mileage plan he has. The plan gives two options for mileage, one peaking at 40 mpw and the other at 50 mpw. I typically landed somewhere in the middle, with my 3 highest weeks of mileage being 45, 46 and 47 miles. The plan was 18 weeks long, so I started the first week of June. That first week I was on a cruise, so I missed two scheduled workouts (we hit some weather and running on a rocking ship was... not it) - and those were the only two workouts I missed all summer. The first base building portion of the plan goes off 5k pace. I raced a 5k the first week of the plan in 22:22, so I used that time for my 5k pace (7:10/mile).

I ran the Richmond Marathon last fall and my time was 3:46. That race was my first marathon in 12 years and was a 11 minute PR. For this year, BQ for my age group is 3:30, so I set a somewhat big and scary goal for this year to break 3:30, even though that would be a massive PR from what I did in 2025. The second half of the training plan you base your workouts off marathon pace, so I used for 7:45-8:00 pace for that, and managed to hit pretty much all the workouts on pace, so I locked into that for race day. I did 2 long runs in the rain, and that helped me not panic when the 10 day forecast was saying rain before the race.

Overall, I would say I nailed the training, waking up before work to get my runs in all summer. I also strength trained 3-4 times a week pretty consistently, though the last few weeks of training I was getting pretty fatigued and dropped down to 2x. I was also experiencing weird core/adductor pain - not sure if I pulled a muscle or what but went to PT 1x per week and got some exercises to work on that as well. I told the PT my goal was just to get through this marathon and not get any worse.

Pre-race

I drove up to Rochester to visit friends and family the Wednesday before the race. We tried not to plan too much walking activities. I did a carb load on Thurs/Fri/Sat - managed to hit over 450g carbs each day (goal was 500 but we'll take it). Saturday afternoon I drove down to Corning, picked up my bib, did a 2 mile shakeout run, and looked at parking options for the next morning. I was staying in Hornell, about a 40 minute drive away.

I actually slept fairly decent for the night before a race, and woke up early at 4:00. I got on the road at 4:45 to be to Corning by 5:30. While driving I ate a Barebells protein bar and half a bagel. I was planning to park in the main parking garage in Corning, but there was a huge line, so I ended up just parking at the YMCA across the river. That honestly worked out perfectly and I would park there again.

I caught the bus to the start line with no issues. When we arrived I went to the warming tents which got super crowded. I found a seat, and I ate my pre-race graham crackers and sipped on some water and got my vest organized. I didn't have any gear to check, so ended up leaving the tent around 7:30 and doing a short warmup jog before getting in the line for the bathroom. The portapotties were arranged in a circle which made the lines in the center somewhat chaotic. Afterward, I ended up behind the circle in a nice little paved area where people were stretching/warming up. I hung out there until the last possible second, when I stripped off my throwaway clothes and jumped into the start line.

Race

I jumped in the start line somewhere between the 3:20 and 3:30 pacers and we were off right at 8:15!

For fueling: I was wearing my vest (UltraSpire Basham Vest - I love it! Room for all my gels, my phone, and 2 water bottles) and had LMNT and gels. I took a gel at every 2.5 miles all the way through. It was cold so I did not drink as much as I probably should have, I wasn't feeling as thirsty as usual.

It was quite crowded at the start since there is not really any separation between paces at the start (no corrals or signs or anything) and the road is not too wide, and I was also pretty cold. After two or so miles it spread out a bit and I tucked on behind a group of girls who were going around my pace and stuck with them. At mile 3 my hamstring started tightening up badly and I seriously wondered if I was going to have to stop and all my hard work would have been for nothing. Thankfully, it figured itself out! There is really only one notable hill on the course, around mile 5. My training is really hilly, so I did not think it was bad at all. I was with that group of girls all the way until the halfway point, when I peeled off to pee at all the portapotties at the half marathon start. The core issue mentioned above seems to get worse with a full bladder, so I decided it was worth the 40 seconds it cost me. The water stops only had 2-3 portapotties at each one, and the last few stops they were all full when I went by, so I thought I might as well stop where there are 100 and not have to wait. When I jumped back in, it seemed like it had really thinned out and I was really missing my pace group. I just tried to jump from person to person picking people off. I finally linked up with another guy who was going my pace and we went back and forth until around mile 20. Another poster mentioned an awful downhill around 21 and I agree, I really felt that one! Miles 21-24 are basically a blur of me just trying to hang on to the pace. By the time I got to 24 I knew I was a) almost done and b) could do the math to know I was going to hit my goal of 3:30 unless I really crumbled. At mile 25 I stepped down weird and popped a blister I hadn't even felt until that point - but I sure felt it then. Blood straight through my shoe, ugh. At the end you go over a bridge and come around a corner and can see the finish line, so I tried to sprint it in the best I could, for a chip time of 3:28:36.

Post-race

When I finished I was so happy! 18 minute PR and BQ (not enough of a buffer to get into the race, but still a qualifier!)! In the finish area I got my picture with the PR bell, grabbed some food (Wegmans chicken noodle soup!), and then got my picture with my finishing time on the screen. I saw two of the people I was running with out on the course, so celebrated with them a bit. It started to rain at that point, and I didn't have any warm clothes beyond the heat sheet, so I walked across the bridge back to the YMCA to shower. Unfortunately, while nice of them to allow runners to shower there, there was no hot water, so it was not exactly the most enjoyable post marathon shower I was dreaming of! Once I was clean, I headed home, with a car full of snacks!

Overall, Wineglass was a beautiful fall race with a fast course. The trees along the finish line were all colorful. The weather ended up being pretty perfect (though later finishers got a bit wet). I didn't use the on-course hydration, so I can't speak to that. Of course, I mayy be looking at the race through PR goggles!

Made with a new race report generator created by u/herumph.

Tagging this as a race report, but it's really less about my race, and I'm also interested in advice from others who've paced someone else in a marathon.

• Name: Marathon Beneva de Montréal
• Date: October 11, 2026
• Distance: 26.2 miles
• Location: MONTREAL, QC
• Website: https://couronsmtl.com/marathon-beneva/accueil/
• Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/20544003931
• Time: 3:10:05

Goals

Pre-Race

A colleague who has already demonstrated enormous marathon potential in Ironman competitions wanted to try to run a sub-3 in his second standalone marathon. Last year at this marathon, he ran 3:11. This April, he set a new Half-marathon PB of 1:24 l, but then had a very triathlon-packed summer, and did his last half-Ironman of the season only 4 weeks prior to this marathon. As such, he wasn't able to focus all his energy on running until the time when one would normally start tapering before the marathon. The sub-3 goal was based on extrapolations from his marathon time during the full Ironman this summer rather than on goal-specific training.

This was my 9th marathon, my current PR is 2:47, and I was already registered for the NYC Marathon three weeks later. I figured a 3-hour marathon would be a fine last long run before tapering for NYC.

The week before the race, he told me he thought he had only a 30% chance of breaking 3 hours but he wanted to try anyway. I told him he couldn't allow any doubts to already start creeping in.

This was my first time pacing anyone to a marathon goal. I had another colleague pace me to a sub-1:20 in the Montreal half-marathon in April, and it was a great experience, so I wanted to pay it onward.

The days before the race felt quite different than any marathon I've run for myself. By now, I have a pretty fine-tuned internal checklist of everything I need to do (and to avoid) on Marathon Eve, so I wasn't really that stressed about anything. On the other hand, I felt like the most important factors determining how they race would go were completely out of my control. Normally my own level of fitness on race day is my primary concern, and I just make adaptations based on the factors that are beyond my control, like the weather. But this time, it seemed like my own fitness was of secondary concern.

I exchanged several messages with my pacee the day before, and we talked on the phone through what nutrition each of us would carry during the race.

Race Day

The conditions were absolutely perfect, classic fall marathon weather. We found each other in the front of the corral and saw the 3:00 pacer. Our plan was to stick with that pace group for the first half, and then try to negative split. As such, we were surrounded by lots of other runners for the first 10K, and although I was frequently checking around me to make sure my charge was in contact, Ididn't really feel like I was doing much pacing work yet.

At some point during the first third of the race, my guy came up to tell me that his legs were feeling good, his cardio was good, but he was getting side stitches. I offered such classic breathing gems as 'in the nose, out the mouth' and "get tall in your torso' and also concluded that the official pacer was slightly ahead of 3-hour pace, so we could hang back and I would bridge up to them when he was ready.

We kept the 3-hour group in sight for several miles after that, but I could tell things were starting to unravel for my boy. The seeds of doubt were starting to germinate, and as we passed through his neighborhood around 17k, he told me that if I wasn't there, he would turn off and go home. Jokingly, I thought.

At the half-way point, we were on 1:29:30, so still technically on pace, but it didn't really seem like things were going the right direction. The middle third of the course is a really pscyhologically challenging stretch, as it's a long out-and-back along the Boulevard Saint-Laurent, the main thoroughfare that divides the island of Montreal, where the crowds thin into non-existence. The way out is slightly downhill, but too slight to really feel it, and after a short loop through a neighborhood with at least some spectators, you come back on St-Laurent, and the same angle is of course much more noticeable when it's an incline.

It seemed like everything was going wrong for my man physically at one point or another. At times it was the legs, at times it was his breathing, and then his feet started hurting. I was grabbing him water at aid stations and carrying the bottle that had his Maurten mix, but was running out of other ideas to help. I told him to try the Kipchoge smile, even if it made him look like a grinning idiot. He tried, but it was hard for him to force a smile when his feet were hurting that much; he was running in Asics Metaspeed Rays, which are incredibly lightweight but unstable. By mile 16/17 (25/26k), things were getting so bad that when I offered to give him my shoes (even though they are a size bigger), he was just desperate enough to try. So we actually stopped on a curb, did a quick shoe exchange, and took off again. His feet did start to feel better after that, but we'd really only solved one problem, and others were starting to present themselves. He was having gut issues, at a moment when it seemed like he really needed fuel. He told it felt like he was running through Jello.

Unable to transfer any of the strength in my legs to his, I tried to use my surplus energy in the second half to stir up any crowds we passed into as much of a frenzy as they could manage. No group of spectators we passed was too small to hype up, and as we started to get back into more populated areas with denser crowds, I was shamelessly beseeching them to share their energy with us. My friend told me that at first, he thought it was cringe, but it actually really helped. At a weird, seemingly unnecessary U-turn in the 21st mile, I did a Japanese U-turn and the crowd went wild.

One of our other colleagues, who had cheered us on much earlier in the race, suddenly appeared next to us with only about three kilometers to go, running alongside for just long enough to give the final boost that we needed to get to the finish line. I was giving encouraging predictions about how much time he was still going to take off his PR. My forecasts were slighltly inaccurate because my watch had auto-paused when we stopped to swap shoes, but still, we finished in 3:10:05.

After the race
My friend headed straight to the first chair he could find after the finish, which was right by the medical tent. He was quickly swarmed by vigilant medics and peppered with questions, but told them he just needed to sit for a minute, and got back on his feet quickly.

It was a PR for him, but admittedly not the most satisfying. It was also undoubtedly a learning experience for both of us. He has some things to consider for his training next season. I will run NYC in just a few weeks for myself, but I'm also already thinking about pacing again, and wondering: what can I do better? What do you do as a pacer when the runner you're pacing is struggling?

Looking for some advice on how to proceed with my taper after suffering a back injury 3 weeks out from my goal race (NYC Marathon Nov. 1).

I completed my final big long run of the build on Oct. 11, exactly 3 weeks out from race day. This was a beast of a workout that consisted of 33km (20.5 mi) total with the last 90 minutes at goal pace (continuous), and I felt incredibly strong. The next morning, my confidence quickly vanished after I tweaked something in my lower back when putting my socks on in the morning. My hips and torso have been in a permanent shift to one side since then, and it's been a challenge to even walk properly. I've been to multiple physio and chiro appointments this week and they think I likely have a minor disc bulge in my lower back. They are mildly optimistic that I can return to running before the race.

Assuming they are correct, how would you structure your final weeks before the race? I have taken this week off entirely (i.e., 3 weeks before race day) and have seen some improvements. Let's assume I can safely return to running mid-week (i.e., ~10 days pre-race) without pain or altered running form, how would you structure those days, knowing you just had a 1.5 weeks of zero running? My tissues are likely well 'ahead of schedule' in the recovery process when compared to a typical taper, but does that really matter?

I feel like I know the answer (only return when you can run pain free, don't overdo it, don't try to cram in extra runs after taking time off, hay is in the barn, etc.), but I'd love some additional opinions. Thanks.

TL;DR - hurt my back 3 weeks out from race day and had to take 1.5 weeks completely off. How would you structure your final 1.5 weeks before the race?