Charles Hicks On The Training Rules That Changed Everything | 2:04 Marathoner
episodePreviously titled “2:04 Marathoner Explains Why You’re Training Too Hard” — renamed by the publisher on Sep 14, 2026
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How did Charles Hicks feel running a 2:04 marathon at 25 years old?
Charles Hicks, welcome to Untapped.
Thank you for having me.
Charles, earlier today, when I was made aware of some of your stats, I was literally flabbergasted. You've ran a two oh four marathon. Two oh nine in your debut. Two oh four is your PB in your second ever marathon. You're twenty five years old.
Well like how does that feel? You know, to answer what running a two oh four feels like, I guess first I'd ask, you know, are you allowed to say expletives on your podcast? Uh but honestly it really was just a a sequence of First, I think looking at all the clocks, uh, I think the crazy thing about a marathon is how long you're running by yourself, particularly the faster the race. You know, it really striates as as people just fatigue. And so the first half, you're just racing with 20 to to 50 guys the entire time. It's almost like a a stampede of the best athletes on the planet. And then halfway through the race, all of a sudden you're completely alone. And it's it's the complete opposite experience.
It's all internal. Uh I think there's two ways people take it. I think some people, you know, are elite marathoners because they're incredible at suppressing their physiological symptoms. And then Some people are elite because they, you know, lean into themselves almost, you know, meditatively and are able to kind of control the fatigue. And I think that's that's kind of the way I approached it was how can I like work with myself to to sit on that red line for, you know, an hour by myself and just keep clicking away the times uh that are going to get me closer to at the time, I was assuming I was running. like two oh five to two oh six because that was my like You know, one in a billion moonshot type day.
And it's almost one of those things where the numbers on the clock were so preposterous, my brain couldn't adapt in real time. So I was like, oh, those look great. You know, it's hard enough to remember 26 mile splits, right? So every single time I went through, I was like, oh, that's faster than I thought.
What mental challenges did Charles face in the early miles of his marathon and how did he overcome them?
Must be like 205 something. And it wasn't until I rounded that final corner and I saw 203, because there was a clock right. Right as the home stretch started. And I was like, oh my lord, like I don't know what I'm gonna run. I might as well just the only thing I was thinking at the end was just make it to the finish line because whatever you're running today is gonna be ridiculous. And so I'd say, yeah, it's it's it's uh it's uh weird combination of you're doing the thing that you've prepared most for in the entire universe while also having a outcome that you never even considered for a millisecond of your entire life. And balancing those two emotions, I think was probably the most fun thing about the race.
I mean, I know that you can see me, but for those listening, I'm I'm just grinning ear to ear because it's just so it's so satisfying to hear it so nicely put. You know, I think m so many people run marathons and feel extraordinary pain and suffering and some feel elated and some are joyful. You know, it's it's a real mixed bag of emotions that distance. And so for you just to be pleasantly surprised Like pretty much all the way to the end. Did you have any moments of hellishness, darker times during that race, or did the whole thing just feel like a bit of a victory lap for all of the work that you'd put in?
I would say uh funnily enough, the worst of times were early on. You know, we went out in my half marathon PB. Uh, so I've never run a half marathon as fast as we came through the first half of the race. And I think what's so funny is obviously I could I was able to physiologically maintain those paces. So uh in reality, there was no reason to really doubt myself. But I think because what I was doing was so unexpected. And so just unprecedented for my entire career previously, when I was running those splits early on, I think that's when doubt started to actually kind of increase those negative feelings and those feelings of pain and you know, doubt as to whether or not you'd be able to hold that.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
How did Charles Hicks feel running a 2:04 marathon at 25 years old?
0:02–2:10
2
What mental challenges did Charles face in the early miles of his marathon and how did he overcome them?
2:10–8:14
3
How did COVID‑19 change Charles’s training volume and what does his weekly mileage look like now?
8:14–16:07
4
Why does Charles say easy days must stay easy for hard days to be effective?
16:07–27:20
5
What is Charles’s take on running without music and how does it affect focus?
27:20–37:52
6
Which data points does Charles actually track and why does he ignore most watch metrics?
37:52–54:34
7
How does Charles set goals that feel personal rather than chasing external standards?
54:34–56:40
Speakers
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