The Big Mistakes Costing You That Marathon PR

The Big Mistakes Costing You That Marathon PR

by | Oct 12, 2026 | Training

(From BQ to OTQ, and a few lessons that carry over to ultras)

 

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.

Should Your Easy Pace Get Faster as You Get Fitter?

Should Your Easy Pace Get Faster as You Get Fitter?

by | Aug 23, 2026 | Training, Uncategorized

For advanced runners, sometimes your easy pace getting slower can actually be a sign that things are going right.

If you’re a newer runner slowly building your mileage, maybe adding in a touch of speed here and there, you’ll probably see your easy pace getting faster over time. That’s normal, and it’s a good sign your aerobic system is developing.

But no matter who you are, I don’t want you to care about your easy-day pace too much, because here’s what I actually see in well-trained athletes:

Often, their easy paces stay the same. And sometimes they get slower the deeper they get into specific training for a race.

I coach a lot of sub-three-hour marathoners, some even down to 2:30. They have no problem running 9+ minute miles for an easy run the day after a key workout, even though that’s significantly slower than their marathon pace. And it doesn’t rattle them one bit.

I see the same thing with my ultra runners and mountain runners. Big long runs and all that eccentric loading from downhill running can leave a lot of residual fatigue in the legs. When we get deep into their most race-specific training weeks, their easy paces often get slower. And being okay with that is part of what allows them to keep their key runs high quality.

Cumulative training stress from repeated long runs and key workouts leaves you with some combination of glycogen depletion, muscle damage, and residual fatigue that hasn’t fully resolved. When you’re carrying that fatigue, the same pace can feel harder and your heart rate can be higher. So the same easy effort will often simply produce a slower pace.

Your aerobic engine isn’t getting worse. Your legs are just carrying the bill from the work you’re doing.

The days after key workouts or long runs, the goal is simply to maintain or build volume while getting in some truly easy miles that aren’t going to interfere with your recovery from those key runs. That’s it. That’s the whole job of an easy run in that window.

I want your confidence to come from your key runs, and from your ability to handle more of that work over time as you gradually progress. Not from how fast your easy pace is.

If your key workouts are consistently getting slower and it’s not because of something obvious like warmer temperatures, then there’s some problem-solving that needs to happen.

But if you’re deep into a hard training block, your legs are tired, and your easy pace is the same or slower than it was six weeks ago? That’s a normal part of training.

 

Some call this training…

We call this doing what you love.

You might think hiring a coach is just about getting a better training plan, but we think it’s about a lot more than that.

It’s about helping athletes find alignment between what brings them joy, what’s best for their bodies and health, and how running fits into the rest of their lives. And that’s not sacrificing performance, it’s enhancing it.

An athlete can only push harder for so long when they should be resting, or chase goals that don’t actually bring them joy. But an athlete who loves what they’re doing, feels good in their body, and stays focused on the journey is an athlete who can perform well and keep running for years to come.

You can absolutely have a coach who provides an excellent training plan, thoughtful feedback, and high-quality information while also caring about your joy and love for the sport.

We don’t just coach you. We help running become part of a lifestyle built around happiness and health.

That’s what we do every day here at Higher Running. Learn more about our 1:1 coaching here.

He’s Been Chasing a Sub-3 Marathon Since 2018. Here’s why it’s now within reach.

He’s Been Chasing a Sub-3 Marathon Since 2018. Here’s why it’s now within reach.

by | Jun 4, 2026 | Training

More mileage? More speed work? A different training approach altogether? Or do I just need to trust the process and keep going? When you feel like you’re doing everything right but you’re feeling stuck, what do you do next? Those are all the questions my athlete, Harsh, had when we started working together. He has been running marathons since 2017. He’s now done 19 of them and got himself to a PR of 3:07 by his own research and dedication to the process.

3:07 is a fantastic time, but he knew he had more in him. He’d been chasing a Boston Qualifier, which for him means sub-3, since he crossed the finish line of his very first NYC Marathon back in 2018 and thought, “I want to come back and do this faster.”

Harsh had been running 45-55 miles a week, doing workouts like 10 x 800m and 6 x 10 minutes at threshold during the week and long runs ending with 6 miles at marathon pace on weekends. On paper, he was doing a lot of things right. Yet he was questioning whether his training and running knowledge could get him to his goal of running a sub-3 marathon.

When I started looking at Harsh’s past training, I noticed the mileage wasn’t sustainable with the intensity he was doing when he was deep in marathon training, so it could only be held for a few weeks before the fatigue would force him to slow down. Until the body is truly comfortable handling more volume, adding more intensity creates more fatigue, not more fitness.

So that’s where we started.

Last summer, instead of loading up on speed work, we spent a lot of time building his mileage into the sixties. Some hill work here and there, but nothing aggressive. The workouts were light on purpose. The goal was simple – get Harsh comfortable handling more mileage while feeling good doing it. When he kept telling me how strong he was feeling, I knew the plan was working.

This year, Harsh has already PR’d at three races in a row.

A hilly half marathon. A four-mile race, which was 70 seconds faster than his previous time at that same course. And then another hilly half marathon, where he ran 1:28:16 and crushed his sub-90-minute goal by nearly two full minutes.

His half marathon PR a year ago was 1:31:27. He dropped it by over three minutes.

 

When that finish line came, Harsh wasn’t surprised. We both knew from his training that he was ready. His workouts had already told us. On our pre-race call we both acknowledged we knew he was in sub 1:30 shape, the race was just making it official.

What made the difference wasn’t one magic workout. It was a lot of small things done consistently and done right.

Harsh didn’t just tolerate the training. He found a way to enjoy it, to stay curious about it, to trust that the work was adding up even when he couldn’t see it yet. At the end of the half marathon block, he told me he hasn’t felt this confident going into a race in a long time.

Harsh is still chasing his sub-3, but it’s no longer a question of if he’ll get there, it’s when.

We’re going to keep making sure nothing is forced. It’s all just the next logical step up. We know it’s working. He’s in the best shape of his running life and closer than ever to that goal.

If you’re reading this and something about Harsh’s story sounds familiar, like you’re putting in the consistency and smart training but feel like you should be running faster than you are, one of the most valuable things you can learn is how to look at your own training data and know whether you’re making the same kind of mistake he was.

That’s one of the core things we teach in the Breakthrough Lab. How to analyze your training so you can identify exactly what’s working, what isn’t, and what needs to change. And if you’re not sure what you’re seeing in your data, that’s what our monthly live coaching call is for. You can submit your training data directly and get real feedback from both Sage and me on what it’s telling you.

If you want to learn more, you can check out the Breakthrough Lab here or reach out to me directly at sandi.higherrunning@gmail.com. I’m happy to answer any questions.

— coach Sandi Nypaver

You’re within 5 minutes of a sub-3 hour marathon.

by | Apr 4, 2026 | Purpose of Different Runs, Training, Uncategorized

What’s actually holding you back from sub-3?

For some runners, more volume can be very beneficial. For others, the main limiter is threshold fitness or raw speed. It comes down to knowing what’s holding you back. If your 5k-10k PRs are better than your marathon PR (i.e. you’re an 18 min 5k runner or faster) things that might help are more long runs with marathon paced work, a mileage increase, and/or more threshold runs.

Here are some threshold workout examples:

  • 2 x 3 miles (2-3 min easy) at threshold pace (~6:42-6:34 min/mile, 4:10-4:05min/km)

  • 10-12 x 3 min (1 min easy) at ~4-8s faster than threshold pace

  • 2miles -2 miles -2 miles -1 mile (2-3 min easy) at threshold pace, or do a progression starting a little over threshold pace and ending the mile a little under.

However, before you start marathon training or in the first phase of training for a marathon, you’ll want to focus on faster, shorter workouts. This could be everything from 12 second to 1 minute hill reps, to 200s, and 3-4 min intervals at VO2 max pace. Then even as you get more into marathon specific training, you can still add in more touches of speed without running yourself into the ground.

These are some specific ideas:

  • 8 x 30s (1 min easy) or 5-6 x 1 min fast (1 min easy) after the end of a threshold run

  • 10 x 800m (1-1.5 min easy) at ~10k pace

But what if you’re already in your final 8 weeks of marathon training?

If you’re in your final 8 weeks, the goal shifts. You’re not trying to close the gap, you’re building fitness and getting comfortable at sub-3 pace.This could look like 4 x 3-4 miles at current marathon fitness pace builds the endurance and strength to hold your pace on race day. Or, 10 x 1 mile at 6:52/mi (4:16/km) gets you touches of sub-3 pace in your long runs without overdoing it, while still supporting your current marathon fitness.

You’re probably misunderstanding Zone 2

You’re probably misunderstanding Zone 2

by | Feb 12, 2026 | Purpose of Different Runs, Training, Uncategorized

Zone 2 training has become one of the most discussed concepts in endurance running, and for good reason. Easy aerobic running is foundational.

But when runners say, “I trained in Zone 2 for a year and didn’t improve,” the issue is rarely a lack of patience or discipline. It’s usually a misunderstanding of how Zone 2 fits into the larger training picture.

Easy running supports aerobic development and plays an important role in building tissue resilience and durability. It allows adaptations to accumulate through repeatable, recoverable training.

For many runners, “Zone 2” aligns with easy, conversational running. But for higher-level athletes, spending too much time near the top of that range can quietly turn easy days into moderate ones and interfere with recovery.

What easy running does not do particularly well on its own is prepare you for the demands of racing.

Race performance depends on more than aerobic capacity. It requires efficiency at faster speeds, tolerance for higher metabolic stress, and the ability to coordinate force under fatigue. Those qualities are trained through targeted exposure to higher intensities.

That doesn’t mean hard workouts year round. It means that at some point in a training cycle, most runners benefit from introducing small, intentional doses of faster running. This can include strides, tempo or threshold work, and occasional VO₂max efforts. Each serves a different purpose, and together they complement the foundation built by easy mileage.

Easy miles make harder training possible.

Harder training makes fitness specific.

Where easy running matters most is when you’re building the ability to train.

If you’re newer to running, returning from time off, or rebuilding mileage, keeping most runs easy while gradually increasing volume is exactly the right focus. At this stage, easy running strengthens muscles and connective tissue, improves coordination, and raises tolerance for frequency and consistency.

But when weekly mileage is very low, easy running alone may not provide enough total stimulus to drive meaningful performance improvements, particularly for longer events like the half marathon and above. In those cases, progress often comes from a combination of consistency, gradual volume increases, and complementary stress such as short intensity work, strength training, or cross training.

The goal isn’t to rush fitness. It’s to expand what your body can handle sustainably.

The real value of Zone 2 isn’t that it’s a special or optimal pace. It’s that it allows you to train more, more often, without breaking down. By keeping mechanical, metabolic, and nervous system stress low, easy running makes recovery and repeatability possible.

That consistency is where long term fitness compounds.

As weekly volume becomes more sustainable, easy mileage creates room for quality work to actually do its job. Zone 2 isn’t about chasing a number or a philosophy. It’s about building training you can repeat week after week.

How are you responding to your training?

How are you responding to your training?

by | Dec 8, 2025 | Training, Uncategorized

One of the most important questions Coach Sandi Nypaver asks when reviewing an athlete’s program is: How are you responding to your training?

This matters because everyone responds differently. Take high-intensity VO₂ max speed workouts, for example. Some athletes thrive on them because they recover quickly and see big performance gains. Others? Even with great recovery habits, too many of these sessions can leave them completely fried.

That doesn’t mean those workouts aren’t valuable. It just means the way they’re integrated into your training plan should look different depending on how your body reacts. For some, sprinkling them in sparingly is the key. For others, they can be a cornerstone of progress.

And that’s just one example! There are countless ways training can impact you differently than someone else. So here’s the takeaway: Look at your training and ask yourself: Are you benefiting from it, or is it leaving you exhausted and holding you back?

Your response to training is the ultimate feedback loop. Pay attention to it, and you’ll unlock smarter, more effective progress.

Happy running,

  • Coach Sandi Nypaver