The Big Mistakes Costing You That Marathon PR

There are so many athletes I’ve coached who have made at least one of these mistakes, whether they’re training for a marathon or an ultra. They want their goal so bad and they’re so deep in the training that it’s hard to take a step back and see what they could do better. We also hear so much information that our thoughts get jumbled, and we end up ignoring what we know we should be doing.

If you’re feeling stuck, you’re probably doing a ton right already. Sometimes you just need one tweak, or a few small ones, that make a big difference.

Here are the ones I see the most.

1. You run your marathon pace long runs too fast.

If you’re doing 10 miles at marathon pace in a long run, it should feel controlled. You might even feel a little bit bored. That’s because if you were actually racing 26.2 miles, you’d still have 16.2 miles to go after those 10. The first 10 miles of a marathon should not feel that hard.

Marathon pace workouts aren’t just preparing your body for the demands of the marathon. They’re preparing you to stay patient.

This is one of the hardest things to get athletes to believe. I coached a runner who always ran his marathon pace workouts a little too fast. On race day, he’d go out too fast too, and every time he’d fade at the end, just trying to hang on for dear life.

I convinced him to trust the process and slow down his marathon pace long runs and things started to change. He felt better throughout the week. His speed workouts went a little better. When race day came, he was finally able to execute a good pacing strategy. He finished strong and even sped up a little at the end to get a big PR.

That’s what patience in training can buy you. Not just a better long run, but feeling good week after week and better executed races.

And if you do a couple of marathon pace workouts that feel too hard, maybe you need to adjust your expectations for race day. That’s not a bad thing. That’s setting you up for a strong race, not for blowing up.

2. You’re trying to do a big VO2 max session and a marathon pace long run in the same week.

If you’re feeling wrecked, it’s because those are two big workouts. VO2 max sessions have their place, but it’s not when you also want to be doing your biggest marathon pace workouts.

If you want to hold on to some of that short speed late in a marathon build, there are better ways to do it. You could do a threshold run and tack on something like 5 x 1 minute at 5K pace with 1 minute easy running in between. Or you could do intervals at 10K pace with a decent recovery so it almost feels like a threshold session.

You keep a little sharpness without stealing energy from the workouts that matter most for the marathon.

3. You’re forgetting that as your training goes up, your carbs need to go up too.

A lot of people forget to fuel a bit more when their mileage or intensity climbs. This doesn’t mean loading up on sugary treats, though there’s room for those too. Think more whole food carbs like rice, oats, potatoes, and fruit.

In 2016, the American College of Sports Medicine, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and Dietitians of Canada put out a joint position statement on nutrition and athletic performance. It gives daily carb targets based on how much you’re training:

• Light (low intensity or skill-based activity): 3 to 5 g/kg of body weight per day

• Moderate (about 1 hour a day): 5 to 7 g/kg

• High (1 to 3 hours a day of moderate to high intensity exercise): 6 to 10 g/kg

• Very high (more than 4 to 5 hours a day of moderate to high intensity exercise): 8 to 12 g/kg

So if you weigh 60 kg (about 132 pounds) and you’re training 1 to 3 hours a day, that works out to roughly 360 to 600 grams of carbs a day.

The statement also makes the point that nutrition goals aren’t static. Your fueling should change with your training, so your biggest weeks deserve more fuel than your base season.

What does under-fueling look like? Often at the start, it’s subtle. If you’re just a little under-fueled, you might feel flat and always a bit tired. If it’s more extreme and it’s been going on longer, you might start noticing niggles, feel much more tired, and even feel like you’re getting a little bit worse instead of better.

That matches what the research shows too. The International Olympic Committee’s 2023 consensus statement on under-fueling in athletes lists a reduced response to training, longer recovery, and more time lost to injury or illness among the performance effects.

4. You’re not staying in touch with your joy for running and what makes you happy outside of running.

This isn’t toxic positivity. If you sit down and think about it, you may notice you tend to recover better when you’re happy, and your running tends to go better too.

I learned this the hard way. Early in my running career, I had so much pre-race anxiety that I’d be in tears the day before a race and not want to race at all. I loved running and training. But I was using doing well in races to help me feel better about myself.

When I was able to separate my performance from who I was, things shifted. I found so much more joy in running and racing. And I took better care of myself, because feeling good and enjoying what I was doing became the priority.

Now, racing feels more free. Still not the same as training (that’s still by far my favorite part!), but better. No matter how I do, I’m okay with it, because it doesn’t define who I am. I get to be curious at the start line and open to all outcomes without stressing about it.

How you handle stress doesn’t just change how racing feels. It affects your body too. A review of 50 years of research on injury in sport found that how athletes respond to stress is the strongest psychological risk factor for acute injury. Your body doesn’t keep separate accounts for training stress and life stress.

This is part of why I care about what’s happening in your life outside of running and I often say that high performance and joy belong together.

Ready for some help?

Sometimes it’s hard to see what needs to change when you’re in the middle of it. That’s where a coach comes in.

We’ve got some great coaches at Higher Running with available spots who would love to work with you. Fill out this contact form and I’ll help you find the right coach for you, or check out higherrunning.com for more information.

Coach Sandi

Sources

• Thomas DT, Erdman KA, Burke LM. Nutrition and Athletic Performance. Joint position statement of the American College of Sports Medicine, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and Dietitians of Canada. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 2016;48(3):543-568.

• Mountjoy M, et al. 2023 International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) consensus statement on Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (REDs). British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2023;57(17):1073-1097.

• Tranaeus U, et al. 50 Years of Research on the Psychology of Sport Injury: A Consensus Statement. 2024.