Race-Prep

The first time I asked AI for a training plan, I wasn’t training for a marathon. I was trying to figure out how to bridge from marathon fitness into my first ultra trail block, and I wanted the plan to actually account for elevation gain, not just weekly mileage. What came back read like a marathon plan with the word “trail” swapped in: sixteen weeks, four phases, a taper, all correctly labeled. Nothing about elevation. Nothing about hiking the climbs instead of running them. It didn’t know how many miles I was running that month, or whether Saturday or Sunday was my long run day. It didn’t know that my left IT band starts complaining somewhere past 90 minutes on flat ground, let alone on descents.

I ran my first World Marathon Major in 2018. Seven years later, I’ve completed 3/6 of the original races: Chicago, Berlin, and Tokyo. I’ve also finished Sydney, which Abbott added to the roster in 2025. That leaves three originals still to go: New York, London, and Boston. The question I keep coming back to is a simple one: can I complete the original six before 2028? That would be ten years start to finish — which sounds like a long time until you understand how the entry system actually works.

Training gets you to the start line fit. What gets you there calm, with the right kit, documents, and plan, is a different skill. StartLine is a simple checklist app I built that keeps travel, logistics, and gear in one place so you can focus on preparation instead of last-minute scrambles.

You’ve signed up for a running competition, and trained for it for months, and here we are, a few days before the race. The pre-race anxiety is ramping up. Today, I’ll share how to best manage it with my own few tips.