Logan Smith starting to dream after huge Frankfurt Marathon PB

Norfolk athlete Logan Smith talks to Mark Armstrong about his Frankfurt marathon PB that puts him among the leading GB marathon runners this year and what’s next for him.

Mark: Take me back to those last few miles in Frankfurt on your way to 2:15:49, what were you thinking? Anyone that’s run a marathon will know how quickly things can still unravel even late on... when did you think ‘I’ve got this’? 

Logan: Probably not until the last couple of miles, really. It was quite a surreal experience during the race. I guess it's one that anyone that's run a marathon knows it's quite difficult, it’s difficult throughout the whole race.

I got to halfway and saw 68 (minutes) on the clock and I was like I might be feeling good now, but that doesn't mean I'm going to be feeling good in the next one kilometre, two kilometres, 10 kilometres... At any point I was thinking, it could pop. This is a marathon, isn't it? It can all go wrong. I saw James (Senior, coach) at about 37 or 38k and he shouted 2:15:45 to 2:16. That's when I was really like, ‘okay, this could go well today. You've managed to get to 4 or 5K to go – all you need to do is actually hold on’. I normally work in miles but I was just ticking off the kilometres by this point.

When I got to 40K, I didn't even know what I needed to run to get 2:15. The 40K split in my head was never going to be a 2:15 – maybe 2:17 on a good day, 2:16 if everything goes amazingly. But yeah, 2:15 wasn't really a time that I'd ever thought of at this point. It was a much bigger leap than I expected.

Mark: There are always moments of self-doubt for many people when they run a marathon, how do you shut those thoughts down? Is it something you’ve learned how to deal with? 

Logan: I never really doubted myself. I was always aware that the next time I put my foot down on the floor it could be game over. But it was just more trying to keep positive, reinforcements to myself. It's like right 5K, just get to the 5K, then get to someone that might be ahead on the course. Then get to that station. I was lucky enough to have my own drinks for the race at each 5K station, so I was just ticking them off thinking about different things. Whether that's thinking about what drink I was going to have, the gel I was getting next or whatever. I was always keeping my mind busy and focused so there wasn’t time to let any bad thoughts in.

Logan Smith on his way to a new marathon PB at Frankfurt (Image: Frankfurt Marathon)Mark: Can you talk me through your fuelling strategy 48 hours beforehand and during the race... 

Logan: So before Valencia (Marathon in December 2023) I didn’t really focus on specific grams per kilogramme of bodyweight and carbs. I just ate a bit more pasta, ate a bit more rice, had a bit more bread, took another carb drink. It wasn't really focused as much. This time all of us on the trip really focused on everything we ate and drunk. I went to the higher end but I think the advice is generally 8-12g of carbs per kilo of bodyweight. I went for 12g as I usually eat quite a lot as it is and I know my body can handle it. So I had 780g of carbs on the Friday and the Saturday. It was mainly rice, we went white rice for the big carb intake and malt loaf was a godsend – I ate a lot of that on the Friday. On the Saturday we also cut out any fibre as well to try and avoid any stomach issues.

Mark: Did you find it quite hard to get the food down? 

Logan: It was actually alright. There was one point on the Saturday when it took me like 45 minutes to eat a bowl of rice but I didn’t really have any issues.

Mark: What was your fuelling like during the race? 

Logan: Every 5K I was having some form of carbs whether that was a gel or drinks. I took on a couple of caffeine gels as well. I was due to have another gel at 40K but I just sort of swirled that around in my mouth with some water and spat it out. I just wanted to stimulate my taste buds into thinking I was having another gel without putting another in my stomach.

Logan Smith cruises on in Frankfurt (Image: Frankfurt Marathon)

Mark: How did the training block go as a whole for Frankfurt? 

Logan: I was really lucky – I didn’t have any injuries and I pretty much hit everything that I wanted to. I had my biggest mileage week, I think out of the 16 weeks, six of them were PB mileage. Some weeks got up to nearly 130 miles so I put in a lot of dedication.

It hasn't been easy with some of it, juggling everything - full time work, moving house and we're renovating the house we're moving into as well. It’s been a transition phase at work with the business being taken over and trying to make sure that takes place smoothly. Obviously, Anna (partner) has helped out a lot, she's made sure that she's been the manager of the house to keep it all in check! I've had a lot going on, but I think I’ve kept it under control without getting an injury and hit some big sessions. I did a lot of 5K sessions... 4x5K or 5x5K... but this block was about doing big mileage and we just wanted to be consistent with that.

It's a probably a little bit obsessive, but I think if you want to be the best and you want to be as good as you can be and you want compete at the top, at the sharp end, I think unfortunately that does come with sacrificing things, and it comes with decisions that are tough to make, but it is rewarding. I’m in a difficult position having to juggle full-time work and then trying to be a full-time athlete. But if it means that I get to run 2:15 and have experiences like Frankfurt I’m happy to make those sacrifices and I’ll continue to do it.

Mark: Are you intrigued by what it would be like to be a full-time professional athlete and put all your eggs into running? 

Logan: Yeah, absolutely – getting paid to run – that's the dream, isn’t it? I’d do it for free! But if someone wanted to come on board and pay me to train then it’s something I’d definitely look at. In a full-time job you obviously miss out on recovery time... it’s the getting to bed late and getting up early. I don't get to sit around during the day recovering in between runs. You know you've got to be up, you've got to be on it. At the end of the day if you want to go all in on something, you have to go all in on it. I have probably missed out on ideal recovery and have missed out on going away on training camps, which would be great and be beneficial. But what I'm doing at the minute seems to work. However, if there was that opportunity then I'd like I'd grab it with both hands. Hopefully, it's something that will come in the future, as I think it would help my running career.

Mark: Tell me a bit about your coach, James Senior. What sort of athlete/coach relationship have you got? You’ve been with James for several years now. How does it work? 

Logan: We generally sit down and talk everything through. We discuss what we'd like, what I'd like to do, how I see training going, how the last block of training went, what I felt worked well.

We sat down at the start of July and came up with a plan for Frankfurt. We did a lot of double (run) days. Not necessarily typical double threshold days, we didn't really do that. We sort of did double session days but we did a lot more intensity during the weekly mileage – we were doing 40-45 miles at intensity which worked out well.

Logan Smith with his coach James Senior (Image: Logan Smith)

James has been great, he's not necessarily a marathon coach. He always set out to be an 800-1500m coach but he's got a group of 20-30 of us now that all want to be long distance runners so he’s adjusting. He’s improving as a coach. He's doing research, he's listening to podcasts, he's reading up. He's always doing research on things that could benefit our training. I was like a guinea pig to try that before the rest of the group get to do it and it seemed to work. I think he's keen to try it on other people as well but of course it could be a case where it just works for me – what works for one person doesn’t always work for someone else. I respond really well to high mileage. Anything over 100 miles a week is when I really feel like I’m making progress.

Mark: What are you training for next? What’s the plan now? 

Logan: I’ll definitely do another marathon in April/May time.  In the meantime, I’ll look to get a bit faster over the shorter stuff. We went all in on the 10K earlier this year and managed to drop my time down in the hope that the marathon pace felt easier when we came back to it. Luckily it did it and it worked out well, but I now see myself doing two marathons a year. That's what motivates me, it gets me out of bed in the morning. I love the big mileage. I love the big meaty sessions. Getting out of bed for a 10x400m session at 3K race pace doesn’t excite me – I'll do it because it’s the necessity of training. But what consistently will get me excited is marathon training, so I now see myself doing two marathons a year. I hope maybe there's an England opportunity now. The time (in Frankfurt) is well underneath the England qualification time and top 10 in the UK. So I hope that now gets me selection for England at some point depending on where they send the team.

Mark: What is the ultimate goal? Where is all this heading? 

Logan: Everyone always jokes about the Olympics. It's the ultimate, it's the dream of anyone that takes running half seriously. Could I ever get there? It was always a bit of a joke that I’ve got to knock 10 minutes off my marathon time... but after Frankfurt I’m now thinking it's another mile or so to get quicker over. It's not as far out of my reach as I thought it was. Do I genuinely believe that I have it in me to go faster? How much faster? I don't know. Whether that's five minutes, whether that's three minutes, whether that's seven minutes, I have no idea. But I genuinely backed myself to run faster and run a qualification time. That gets me a GB vest at some point, and you have to back yourself, otherwise what are you running for? If I'm putting this amount of effort into it, you have to back yourself in these situations. Frankfurt has given me that extra confidence that I can actually go a lot faster and be in the realms of names that I look up to. I've got to believe that I belong to be there, as much as it may feel weird saying that or seeing my name in and amongst them. I can't let that get on top of me. I'm supposed to be there and get better and try and beat them now.