Race Date: Sunday 27th April 2025

Report from Phil Gregory

Training and Nutrition

With a PB of just under 3:17:56 from Manchester last year I followed a training plan on the Caffeine Bullet website discovered by simple Googling “sub 3h15m marathon plan” giving an idea of what the aim was coming into this. It had the usual mix of speedwork, easy runs, some tempo work and the Sunday long run.

The first weeks were tricky as Sheffield was frozen solid in early January. However, some Exospikes from MyRaceKit enabled me to hit the TPT rather than slaving away on a treadmill. I then had the opposite problem as I went to Sri Lanka for a week to run in 30+ degrees. Training included a number of races: Brass Monkey (Jan) Stamford 30k (Feb), North Lincs Half and Ashby 20 miler (Mar). Times suggested I was doing ok, gave me confidence and had me thinking that I could even go close to three hours. (Editor: 83:48 at North Lincs after a precarious start was certainly an indicator for sub three.)

This was the first time that gels (SIS Beta Fuel) had been used in training for the long runs. Basically, this meant that every casual Sunday long run was now costing £6-£8 in nutrition but the effect was noticeable as I felt fine during and after so they were probably doing something useful. Coming into Hamburg this was probably the first time I’ve not been injured or significantly unwell during a training block. Feeling good and quietly confident goals were: A sub 3:00, B sub 3:05 and C sub 3:10.

Hamburg

The Expo was good with German efficiency. The goody bag included his and hers deodorants, CBD oil, and a chocolate milkshake.

Raceday weather was borderline good creeping up to about 18-19 degrees but was cooler at the 09:30 start and a good chunk of the route was tree-lined and well shaded. Sympathies go out to all Manchester and London runners. Runners started in pens A-Z. Elites had their own individual announcements and a 30 second head start. I was in Pen C and crossed the start line shortly after the 3 hour pacers.

Pacing strategy was going to be the 10-10-10 approach, but on the day I didn’t like the idea of needing to rely on an all out last 10k to get a goal time so I decided to aim for even(ish) splits, get to halfway in just under 90 minutes and then see if I felt I could carry it through. The start was fairly chaotic with some very optimistic runners in the A and B pens but managed to settle into target pace and felt comfortable.

A massive thing at Hamburg was The Blue Line. This is the racing line painted in blue on the road marking the optimal route meaning you don’t end up doing a 43k marathon. I didn’t follow it initially and was weaving through traffic but noticed after 3k that my watch was already 100m+ out from the official distance markers. (Editor: tall buildings, bridges and sharp turns can also affect the gps reading.) Mental arithmetic told me this would be horrific by the 42k mark so after this point I stuck as close to the line as possible and by the end I’d only done an additional unnecessary 100m.

I caught up with the 3 hour pacers well before half way coming through in bang on time in 89:40 and feeling great. Staying with the pace group for a while it felt super easy and at 24k it all seemed to be so much fun. At 25k the number started falling off, I missed an aid station and it suddenly felt very hard. The pace group was good in some ways but made aid stations pretty full on being dog eat dog with limbs everywhere. The volunteers must have been soaked. The pacers got away eventually but were never out of sight and close enough that I could still use them.

At various points between 25k and 40k I either thought I was going to run sub 3:00 or I was going to stop and have a walk but distractions like trying to open a gel (every 8k), scrumming at an aid station (every 5k), reattaching a safety pin (a different one every 3k), slight ups and downs in the course and the huge crowds meant the distance ticked by and I was just about maintaining sub 3:00 pace.

The hardest part, reflected in my splits, was around 37k where there was a very slight up hill, no shade and there was a sound system blaring out Coldplay. Dark German humour at its finest. At 40k I knew I could go sub 3:00 unless the wheels really came off as I felt I had enough in the legs to pick up my pace slightly before a mandatory sprint to the line but the last kilometre, before the red-carpet finish, is uphill so there was still some peril.

The red carpet was lovely underfoot but even then I saw a guy collapse less than 5 metres from the finish line, attempt to stand up a few times, give up, and crawl it home for a sub 3:00 by 7 seconds – I’ve checked. Hamburg Marathon YouTube 3:45:30

Delighted to come in at 2:59:42s taking about 18 mins off the Manchester PB from a year before and felt so much stronger from 20 miles when the real race starts.  The combination of incident free training, using gels, proper carb loading which was easily done in Hamburg with every other shop selling pretzel and fancy Adidas super shoes all contributing. These were fine margins though as less than half a second per km slower and I’d not have gone sub-3:00 although I guess there’s more to life than that even if it does have a nice ring to it.

In summary for those looking for an alternative to London this race is thoroughly recommended being well organised with a proper big race feel, very well supported and a nice route too.