The Knighton Runs Podcast · Chris Knighton

74 | How I PR’d by 7 Minutes at 2023 Chicago Marathon (and How You Can Too)

·38 min·1 clip

7-minute marathon PR: How I went from hitting the wall to negative-splitting Chicago

Chris Knighton says he ran the best marathon of his life at Chicago. He is still a little hoarse from a cold he brought home, but the race itself felt unusually good. He finished in 2:46:35. That time was a seven-minute PR over his previous personal best from Boston in 2022, and he says it came after a long run of marathons that usually ended with heavy wall-hitting around miles 18 to 20. Chicago was different. He felt great from start to finish, stayed controlled through the middle, and only found the final two miles a little tough. Even then, he says the final 5K may have been his fastest split of the day. He also negative split the marathon by about a minute and a half, which he does not think he has ever done before. From there, he moves into the training changes that helped make that performance possible. He says he had to change just about everything to reach this goal. He worked through the process with his coach and wife, Erica. One major change was footwear. After racing in the Nike Vaporfly since 2019, he stopped using it for this training cycle because the shoe seemed tied to cramping and muscle soreness in long efforts. He had also seen the same issue show up in long runs of 20 miles or more, which made the choice feel practical. He switched to the Saucony Endorphin Pro 2, a shoe he had trained in for a long time but never raced in. He wanted to see whether a different setup would leave him less fatigued. Alongside the shoe change, he points to higher mileage, more variety, and enjoying what he did again as part of the wider reset. He says those smaller adjustments all mattered once they came together on race day. He keeps the bigger lesson simple. There are many ways to chase running goals, and runners do not need to copy anyone else’s path if it does not fit the way they want to run.

As heard by us

A reflective marathon recap tying a seven-minute PR to several small training changes.

Chris Knighton centers the Chicago Marathon as the payoff for a patient rebuild. He calls it the best marathon of his life, clocking 2:46:35 and bettering his Boston 2022 mark by seven minutes.

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For a practical marathon PR story that stays grounded, not glossy.

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