Welcome back, and thanks for your patience between updates.
Once I got into the New York build, I really wanted to stay present — to live fully in the days and moments leading up to the race — and decided I’d take time to reflect and write only after it was all over. That also meant stepping back from daily Strava updates.

In this newsletter, I’ll break down the 12-week build, how I approached race day, how the race itself unfolded, and what’s next from here.

The 12 Week Build

The build began exactly where it was set to end — twelve weeks out from race day. OAC Roads coach Laura Thweatt and I flew to New York to run the marathon course. Both Laura and Dathan believed that seeing the course firsthand would help me better visualize key sections during long runs and workouts over the next twelve weeks. At the time, I didn’t fully appreciate how valuable that experience would turn out to be.

In this recap, I’ll highlight a few key ways this 12-week build differed from the traditional training I’d done in the past.

1. Increased volume

The first major change in this build was an increase in volume. In past training blocks, I usually topped out around 110 miles per week, and only for a few weeks at a time. This time, nine of the twelve weeks were between 120 and 125 miles, with the only exceptions being the two race weeks and the taper week leading into marathon week. Mileage is often viewed as the gold standard for predicting long-distance performance, so I was curious to see how the higher workload would affect me.

Surprisingly, I hardly noticed any extra fatigue — one of the biggest takeaways from this block. Many of the top marathoners in the world log upwards of 140 miles per week during certain phases, and based on how well this build went, I wouldn’t be surprised if Dathan and Laura decide to experiment with slightly higher mileage in the future. Or maybe we’ll look at adding volume in other ways, like boost runs or sessions on the underwater treadmill.

2. Effort is King

After running the course with Laura on the e-bike, I realized something interesting — we never once talked about pace or splits when she described how her own races in New York had played out. Instead, she spoke in terms of feel: how each section of the course demanded a certain level of effort, and how aggressively runners tended to attack or hold back at different points.

When I got home, I started digging into past races and noticed the same thing — there were clear patterns in how the course typically played out. That insight helped us shape our race plan, but it also changed how I approached training.

From that point on, I stopped running by the watch and started running by effort. Every workout became a simulation of a section of the New York City Marathon. I’d ask myself, if this were mile X of the course, what should this effort feel like?

Here are a few examples:

Week 7 – 2×10K Workout
This session was on a flatter, but rolling loop — a perfect opportunity to practice how I wanted to run through Brooklyn, which covers miles 2 through 13. It’s one of the fastest stretches of the course: smooth, gently rolling, and deceptively easy to overrun early in the race. From what I’d learned, not much happens strategically in Brooklyn — the pack usually just flows together up and down the hills. So during this workout, I focused on staying smooth and controlled, finding that rhythm I’d need on race day. Dathan from the bike broke up that rhythm instructing us to put in a surge mile from 5-6 on the last rep at 4:32. Something that could happen in the race.

Week 5 – 21K Fartlek (1K @ 2:55 / 1K @ 3:05–3:10)
These paces roughly lined up with half marathon and marathon pace. I thought of this as a simulation of the Queensboro Bridge and First Avenue stretch (miles 15–20), where the race really starts to get serious. I imagined how it would feel to surge at mile 16, when the fatigue is real but the momentum of the race starts to build. This was one of the hardest workouts of the build — we hadn’t done much continuous alternating work at that intensity — but it was a great checkpoint for where my fitness still needed work.

Three 25-Mile Long Runs
These were the cornerstones of the build. Dathan somehow mapped out a 25-mile route that mimicked the New York course almost perfectly — the major climbs even lined up with the same mile markers. Across the build, we did three of these long runs, each one aiming to get closer to true marathon effort.

• The first was about learning the rhythm and distance — we averaged 5:41 pace at a steady, even effort.

• The second was meant to run a stronger but consistent effort, averaging 5:31 pace for the full 25 miles.

• The third, three weeks out from race day, was when we wanted all the marathon support work to come together into running about 95% of race effort for the full 25 miles. 20 miles at 5:21 pace, then closing the final five miles at “marathon effort,” which came out in the 4:50s.

For all of these long runs, we never discussed pace beforehand and had no expectations about splits. The only goal was to run the right effort for the terrain — to let the course and effort, not the watch, dictate the rhythm.

3. Limit Your Sugar, Limit Your Performance

From the very first week of this build, Dathan emphasized how important fueling was — something he’d learned firsthand working with Hellen and seeing the difference it made in her performances. He didn’t give me specific carb numbers to hit or a detailed gut-training plan; he just said, “You need to be drinking carbs during every workout and every long run.” That kicked off a 12-week process of dialing in exactly what I’d do on race day.

At first, I wasn’t sure where to start. I’d seen some people mention that 100 grams of carbs per hour was on the higher end of what marathoners typically take in, so that’s where I began. Pretty quickly, though, I realized I was finishing that amount much faster — getting through an hour’s worth of carbs (100g) in the first 30 minutes, and taking down what was supposed to last an entire two-hour long run (200g) before I even hit 75 minutes. I double-checked that my bottles were mixed correctly and confirmed I was drinking what I thought I was. My first thought was, Well, this won’t be hard on race day.

Then I reached out to my friend and sports scientist, Jonah Rosner, to tell him about my fueling routine — 100g per hour — and see what he thought. That’s when I learned some athletes were experimenting with even higher intakes. Since I was tolerating 100g so easily, I decided to test out 150g per hour on my next long run.

Unsurprisingly, I felt a little fuller in my stomach, but what surprised me was how strong I felt — I finished 20 miles on Magnolia Road feeling as fresh as if I’d just done an easy run. Even the next day, I felt ready to train hard again, or honestly, go for another run that same afternoon. I didn’t know (or really care) about the exact science behind it — I just knew that 150g per hour worked better for me than 100g.

As race day got closer, I wanted to simulate what that intake would feel like under real conditions. In New York, athletes get seven personal fluid bottles placed on the course (at 5K, 10K, 15K, 20K, 25K, 30K, and 36K), so I mixed my carb drink at my usual concentration, filling each 400ml bottle to the top. This meant about 55 grams of carbs per bottle. Finishing all seven would give me roughly 385 grams of carbs and just under 3 liters of fluid over the marathon — about 190 grams of carbs per hour if I drank everything as planned.

I used my last two 25-mile long runs to practice this exact fueling strategy, and it went exceptionally well. After my final long run, when Dathan asked how I felt, my first words were, “I could run a 4:20 mile right now if I had to.” That was a huge contrast from before I started fueling at this level, when I’d usually finish a long run barely able to make it back to my car and spend the next day or two stuck on the couch, only managing easy runs until I recovered.

On race day, I managed to finish five of my seven bottles. At 20K, I only drank about half — the race was starting to heat up, and I could sense the pack getting ready to make a move, so I threw my bottle aside and locked in. My 36K bottle was the same story; I took about half. I didn’t physically feel like I needed the full amount, so I compromised by drinking half before locking back in for the chase down Fifth Avenue. This means over the 2 hours and 10 minutes I took in 330 grams of carbs and about 2.4L of fluid.

Race Day plan and Execution

If you watched any of the podcasts or interviews leading into race weekend, my mantra was simple: Execute. (Linked here; Hammer and ax, Coffee Club, Citius mag)

After my final 25-mile long run, everything felt like it had come together perfectly. I remember wishing I could just fast-forward the next three weeks and replicate exactly what I did that day — the same effort, the same fueling, the same focus.

We started the year in Houston with big goals, and relative to those goals, it was a swing and a miss. Going into New York, we didn’t want to lower our expectations, but we did want to be realistic about what would define a successful debut. What would an “A” day look like? What would count as a solid “B” day? And what was the minimum that we’d still consider fine? The goal was to get something strong on the board — something we could build from.

Before the race, I wrote down my benchmarks.

• A day: Top American and 5th–8th overall.

• B day: Top three American and top 10 overall.

• Fine day: Top five American and top 12 overall.

My race plan was to stay with the main pack through 16 miles. I knew that if a group of 10 or more broke away before that point, it would likely mark the main race split and I would go with it. But through 16 miles, that rare big move never came. The pace stayed steady, with small surges and resets.

At mile 16 — just after the second biggest downhill on the course — things finally started to pick up. This was the moment I had to trust my plan and let several runners go. I wasn’t fading; I was staying consistent, holding the effort I knew I could sustain. Historically, this part of the race sees a lot of athletes overextend and pay for it later in Central Park around mile 24. Without a watch, I focused entirely on effort and rhythm, holding roughly five-minute miles up First Avenue, through the Bronx, and onto Fifth Avenue by mile 21.

This was where the plan, if executed right, should start to get fun. I knew that if I nailed my pacing and fueling, I’d feel strong over the final five miles — just like I did in my last 25-mile long run — and begin catching runners who had gone too hard earlier.

Up Fifth Avenue, I passed two athletes. In Central Park, I started to spot a splintered group ahead but wasn’t sure if I’d have enough real estate left to reach them. I kept pressing, though my confidence wavered a bit, until I made the turn onto Central Park South at mile 25 and saw five runners clearly laboring. I dug in, caught four of them, and moved into 10th place overall and 3rd American.

I trusted the plan and executed it — and it paid off with a solid B day. I was proud of what I accomplished, but I also left Central Park that day with a spark of curiosity — wondering how, next time, I might take a few more risks to turn that B day into an A.

Whats Next?

If you’ve been following along, you know this marathon came at the end of 15 straight months of training — which itself followed the biggest injury of my career, nearly 6–8 months with minimal running. Because of that, I’m planning to give my body a proper reset: about two to three weeks of easy running and light workouts before diving back into more serious training.

After the marathon, Dathan and Laura both felt it would be good to work on speed and focus on some shorter races — half marathons, road 10Ks, maybe even a 5K — before a likely spring marathon. As for which specific races or which spring marathon that might be, nothing is confirmed yet. My agent is working through the options to find the best opportunity.

The Klecker Mile on Spotify

I put together this playlist as my pre-race soundtrack for New York, inspired by what I imagine my dad was listening to back in 1978 when he lined up for the New York City Marathon. He’ll admit his time and place that year weren’t his best by his own standards, but it was still pretty special for me — and for my sister, who finished 17th overall in 2:40:44 — to literally run in his footsteps. A special shoutout to Bit, who lives and trains unsponsored in New York while working full-time as a graphic designer at Warby Parker. My dad ran a 2:29 that day but holds a PR of 2:15:20 for the marathon and is the former world record holder for 50 miles in 4:51:25.

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