Sub 3 Club by Jake & Tiago

A sub three hour marathon is something of a golden barrier in running. For quite a while, Tiago and I have spoken about our admiration for various OTCF athletes who have entered the sub 3 club over the last couple of years we have both been members.

Maybe it was our time to step up and have a go, maybe it was our time to join the sub 3 club!

Boston was quickly chosen as our race, flat, fast and not to far from home.

As similar paced runners, the idea was to train together and see how we go. Like any good marathon training block, niggles and life meant that many solo miles were ran in preparation for the day. Tiago struggling with niggles from December till February, then Jake struggling with niggles from the end of February till April, typical!

As the months went by, training went well, pessimism turned to optimism, we’d talk about trusting the process, something that echos around the head of an OTCF athlete, keep plugging away and our time will come.

Preparation is key, don’t leave anything to chance, nothing new on race day, we all know the drill.

Race day and we met Coach Steve and Andrew Weaver on the start line. Steve informed us of the wind speeds and directions, which was great, cause neither Tiago or I knew the route. We knew we wouldn’t be at the front so just follow the people ahead of you, right? Steve warned us of headwinds after the half way mark, he wasn’t wrong.

The miles ticked by and we hit our goal pace mile after mile. Encouraging each other and remembering to fuel at our prepared spots. In training we had focused a lot on fuelling and race strategy. The headwind arrived and we found a nice little group to hide behind, before passing through them and moving on. As the final 7km approached, we had reached the “see what we have left” part of our run. Sadly at that part of the marathon, the number of runners had thinned out. We both battled to stay on race pace, taking confidence from every runner we passed.

Tiago works in Kilometers whilst I work in Miles. This had been a great asset to us throughout the run, as we had multiple pacing references, but the runner math was real as we got into that last 3 miles. Neither of us being able to work out if we were still on for the sub 3.

As the final corner approached we were cheered home by our family and friends, the timing clock began with a 2. We had done it, we had realised our dream to become members of the sub 3 club! When’s the next one?

Thanks to Steve on putting a great coaching plan together for us both to help us join the #sub3club