Race report – Patrick’s Copenhagen Marathon

Coming off the back of some really great progress in my 2024 marathons, I’d truly developed an appetite to see what more I can do. I came out of Valencia Marathon in December with a strong PB and a quick recovery, so figured I would ride off the tailwind of that race into my spring Marathon training block. The decision to select Copenhagen was one born out of the naïve assumption that I would be able to easily nab a spot in a solid second tier spring marathon a few months in advance. After surveying the options and throwing myself on a couple of waitlists, I wound up landing on Copenhagen; with a forgivingly flat course in lovely city, a solid 21,000 or so competitors and a cool climate, I figured this was the perfect option. Even more fortuitously, my Dad would be over from New Zealand at the same time, and would be able to come and support.

I feel like there is always a bit of trepidation starting out a new block. Some question marks hung over this race; whether I would start to plateau, succumb to some niggly injury or just lose drive along the way. I chose to set the goal of attaining a sub-3 hour marathon, because it felt within reach and also, who doesn’t love a nice round number? To do this I knew I would have to put in more graft and invest more than I ever had into the process. This meant more volume, more structured sessions, stretching, strength work, less drinking (still some pints… I’m not a monk). But mentally I felt like I had the wind in my sails, and the secret sauce of some amazing Thursday Pad Rec and Sunday long runs with some of the guys from QPH.

After a very solid training block, including a half marathon PB in Malta (negative elevation

notwithstanding), I came into tapering feeling really strong, with only minor niggles and a lot of confidence in my fitness and game plan. One of the great things about being part of QPH for the last couple of years has been learning off what others do and trying it for yourself. Case in point, I chose to lean into Fred’s gel strategy for the race: take them early and often. Adopting a less gung-ho approach than I might have previously, I properly primed my gut to handle the volume of gloopy sugar paste it would have to endure.

I flew into Copenhagen on the Friday night to make sure Saturday would be as stress free as possible before the race. While it certainly isn’t the cheapest city around, it is definitely a lovely one to visit, with an incredibly easy metro system and an excellent culinary scene. My general sense of maranoia kept me from getting stuck into the seafood pre-race, which took some discipline for me despite knowing it would be only 24 hours until anything goes. After a bit of a light sleep on race day morning, I woke with a fair bit of nervous energy and forced down my standard oats, banana and coffee, and trundled off to the start line a short walk from my Airbnb.

The event was well organised, with the expo, start and finish all located in same park in the north of the city. I go in a bit of a warm up and set off for the start, which was perhaps the only part I would describe as a little chaotic since they didn’t really have clear separation between pace groups. Nonetheless, I was here at the start line in good nick, with absolutely perfect race weather and all the training behind me.

I had planned to guide my approach to the race by periodically checking my heart rate to make sure things weren't getting out of control. Garmin chose today of all days to throw accuracy to the wind and pronounce me to be anywhere from clinically dead, to having a VO2 max approximating that ofan Olympic athlete. Justifiably assuming I was neither, I opted to go for the tried and true "run by feel". I could tell as the KM markers ticked by that Garmin was also running a little hot, at which point I was extremely glad to have drawn up a little makeshift target pace band for my wrist.

With a very clear target of sub-3 hours, I wanted to make damn sure I stood an excellent chance of hitting it, even if I lost time somewhere on the course, so was training to a pace of 4:10 per KM (4:16/KM being what is required for sub-3). I knew that I probably wasn't going to be disciplined enough for negative splits, so opted to build a strong margin through the halfway point and hold pace from there, knowing that slippage could come as the pain sets in later on.

As it turned out, this race plan did exactly what I wanted it to. Coming up to around 25km I knew this was where I'd have to set about my work. Pleasingly, I was able to really dial in and settle into my pace, so by 32km in I knew I was on for my goal and it would only be mental demons, rather than physical ones, that would stop me. Evening coming into the final few kilometres, the headroom I’d built up allowed me to actually really enjoy the last leg. Finally, I cruised across the line absolutely elated with a big PB of 2:57:59 and collected my suitably minimalist medal, only to notice while walking out that the medal fell off the lanyard, so got to enjoy the experience a second time round.

For anyone searching for a class Spring marathon, Copenhagen really put on a great atmosphere. Even as a city of well below a million people, it manages to draw crowds lining most of the course. My choice of going without headphones turned out to be a great one, letting me soak in the vibes at the big checkpoints along the way. The good people of Denmark clearly love an EDM banger anyway, so that kept me pumping along nicely. I'd love to say I got a bit of site seeing in around the course, but my mental space was fully occupied in keeping myself on track. Turns out I left a lot of my visual memory out on the course, though it has lovely wide streets, is very clean and has really great minimalist architecture.

A massive congrats to the other Harriers who also had the pleasure of running Copenhagen 2025; definitely wasn’t the only one to bag a big PB. Gutted I didn’t manage to run into any of you on the day. And now, after resting on my laurels for all of about 5 minutes, already feel like I’m ready to crack on with some Summer League races, and straight into Autumn training… no rest for the wicked.