Greater St. Louis Marathon 2026

On April 11, 2026, I ran the Greater St. Louis Marathon. The full race FPV/POV video can be viewed on YouTube here:

For this race, I continued to train by following a Garmin Coach plan. This race was not the training plan’s goal race.

This was my first marathon where the race is in a different timezone than home.

The day before the race I probably walked too much visiting tourist attractions like the Gateway Arch.

I also ate Toasted Ravioli which was created in St. Louis.

Travel

I flew from DCA to STL direct via Southwest Airlines on April 9. I have flown out of DCA many times and was always curious why it was called Terminal 2. As it turns out, there is a Terminal 1 with only “A” gates and that is where Southwest and a few other airlines are. Terminal 1 is a lot smaller and a lot fewer dining options. I do not know if there is a way to transfer between the two terminals without entering security checkpoint. Terminal 1 is located south of Terminal 2 and while I was following the signs towards it, I was curious if I was going the right direction because there was nobody else heading the same way. Terminal 1 is unfortunately quite a trek from the airport Metro station. It is about 0.40 miles measured by my watch tracker.

While in flight, I was surprised to find my GoPro recording while in my bag. The button to record was somehow hit while in the bag so it was recording for an hour before I found and stopped it. Being trapped in the bag, it was quite hot to touch. I have been curious if it was possible to accidentally start recording while it was in my bag, and that curiosity has an answer now.

To get into the city, I used MetroLink light rail. Each trip cost $2.50 and day trip options are available. There are bus routes in the city, but none seem to stop by any of the places where I wanted to go. My main interests were the Gateway Arch and Union Station but walking seemed the fastest way to get to those locations from my hotel.

I stayed at Tru by Hilton St. Louis Downtown. I stayed three nights. It is weird since the building has two hotels, both by Hilton, and they share the same reception desk. The hotel has complimentary breakfast which is convenient.

There was a Schnucks grocery store about a 10 minute walk away where I purchased fruit and vegetables. I purchased those sushi boxes at least three times because I could not decide on a real restaurant to eat at.

The travel home was fortunately mostly uneventful. I took the MetroLink back to STL airport Sunday morning. The issue I had is I was meant to take the Red Train but accidentally boarded the Blue train, easy fix. I left my hotel around 8:00am and was through security by about 9:25am. On the flight home, Southwest did not offer drink service due to turbulence. Although, it did not feel like the plane was shaking that much. But oh well whatever.

Expo

The expo was held at Union Station. It was my first destination leaving the airport. I arrived just before 3pm local time which was the open time for packet pickup and got in line. The marathon and half-marathon bib pickup was grouped together. The other distances had a separate pickup tables. They assigned numbers at pickup so you had to wait as the number and bib was assigned. This of course causes a time to wait and makes a delay. I guess it saves them the time in pre-assigning bibs.

The shirts were distributed on the lower level of the building. There were exhibitors both inside the building and outside the front of the building.

Carb Loading

Since the race was Saturday, I started eating extra Wednesday morning. This time, I decided to count the amount of carbs consumed each day.
Wednesday: +410g
Thursday: +518g
Friday: +511g
These were a minimum based on available nutrition labels and estimates. Some stuff I did not bother estimating so those are not included.

Race Day

Weather

Leading to race day, I noticed the forecast change several times between chance of rain and no rain. The weather was nice at start and warmed up at finish time. It was a partly cloudy day.
At start around 6:43am, the temp was 49F with 44F dew point.
At around 12:50pm, the temp was 68F with 53F dew point.

Extra Stuff

As per usual, I was wearing my recording gear:

• GoPro Hero13 Black with Headstrap 2.0 and Contacto
• Anker Portable Charger

Nutrition

Before the race started, I ate two serving of licorice which is about 48g of carbs.

Carry:

• 2x Bonk Breaker Green Apple Energy Chews
• 4x Sport Beans(R) Jelly Beans Assorted Flavors
• 8x Mott’s(R) Assorted Fruit Flavored Snacks
• LMNT (~70% of a packet mixed with water in 550mL bottle)

I decided to try something different this time. I doubled my consumption. I recently watched a video How Many Carbs Do You Really Need? (Lab Test Results!) comparing a 3-hour marathoner with a 6-hour marathoner and the amount of energy intake needed. The recommended is between 80-120g per hour. I counted what I usually eat and it is less than ~40g per hour. I decided to see how increasing intake affected my marathon. I would eat a Mott’s pack or a Sports Beans pack every 15 minutes. At the end of the race, I still had both Bonk Breakers and two Sport Beans unopened because at some point, I stopped having the appetite to eat.

On the course, I skipped the first few water stops but then did start visiting them a few times after mile 15. I skipped any food stations as usual though. I probably should have stopped by since they were offering Huma gels I think and thought maybe I could take home to sample.

Race

From my hotel, I walked to the start line very near by, about 1/2 mile away. I think I left my hotel around 6:10am and got to the start line around 6:19am.

I started the race at around 9:30/mi. My heartrate stayed surprisingly steady throughout the race. I guess the coolish weather contributed to that. Getting to the end was still a struggle however. I was feeling some digestive system trouble so did not want to aggravate that. I felt like barfing at times so walked during those periods of uncertainty. I guess me doubling the amount of carbs taken during the race contributed to this. I knew I had a PR time slowly slipping away due to this. Fortunately, I was still able to make it to the finish line in time for a new PR. I view it as a great accomplishment since this course has quite the amount of elevation gain.

Some other thoughts:

• The race course has obstacles to watch out for such as potholes and some terrain changes as it traverses both roads, parks, and bike paths.
• I accidentally dropped a sports bean at least twice. Never has that happened before.
• I normally store trash in a pocket to dump at a trash can. And for the first time ever, I think some trash fell out of my pocket accidentally since I could’ve sworn I should have had more empty wrappers than I did.
• I stopped at a potty on the race course which took some time but probably helps to reduce the water weight. It added about 1:00 to my time.
• I do not recall when my legs started hurting but I guess my quads were getting overworked since I was having front knee pain.
• As I was near the finish line and trying to go faster, my legs started cramping. Luckily made it the end without stopping.