After 15 marathons, I think I've got a handle on what NOT to do in training and in racing. Oh, I'll still blow it occasionally, in EVERY CYCLE I'm sure, but still, every time I do a training cycle, I learn something new and change something in order to be better. It got me thinking about all the things that athletes do leading up to a marathon that they could improve upon. There are lots of articles out there highlighting the biggest marathon mistakes, and here is my list.
What are the biggest marathon training mistakes (in my opinion):
1. The wrong training paces.
This encompasses so many different things. Running the wrong pace for each workout, incorporating a "race pace" that is still beyond your capability at that point in training, and having the wrong ratio of training paces. I honestly think this is the biggest mistake that people make and the biggest thing that people misunderstand (or flat out refuse to believe). I ran the wrong pace for YEARS and was too stubborn to change my ways. In the beginning of my marathon journey, I thought that if I expected to run a marathon in a certain pace, I needed to always be able to run that pace. Surefire recipe for running yourself into the ground. I've blogged about this many times. On that same note, easy pace should be 80% of your training. Yes, that much of your training (more on this in #6 below). MOST OF YOUR MILES SHOULD BE EASY...truly easy, not what you "think" should be easy.
2. The wrong time goal
This can go either way. There are plenty of athletes who are too overconfident and overshoot their time goal, especially if they've been running too hard during most of their training. On the other hand, many athletes are afraid of their actual potential and get paralyzed by a pace that seems too lofty to them. I've been there both times. I spent years sabotaging my true marathon ability out of fear, and then after qualifying for Boston, set my sights on NYC qualifying way too soon. I've got plenty of time to try to improve that much (it would be an 11+ minute improvement from my PR). Better to focus on Boston's tougher standards and running there again. New York will always be there and it's a future goal that is exciting and difficult that I look forward to chipping away at.
3. No periodization
This training cycle, I'm going to be better about looking at my training in 4-5 week blocks, with a step back week for recovery before the next big block. Build build build, step back, build build build. Each phase has a purpose as well, leading me to my peak on race day. I spent weeks base building, then a period of adding speed. As I get closer to race day, my builds involve higher volume, longer tempos, and race pace simulation. It all comes together on race day...hopefully! I think right before Boston this year, I peaked too early in my training. I don't want to repeat that, so taking a more serious approach to periodization of my training should help with that.
4. The wrong fueling
Proper hydration and fueling is vital to finding your potential in training and in racing. I think the majority of people undershoot on how much hydration and calories they really need. The summer months here in Central Texas are brutal. I have not seen a temperature below 70 in months and only a handful of times has the dew point been below 70. I'm forgetting what it feels like to run in the cold. All of this means that water AND electrolytes are of utmost importance to my body to be able to continue to build mileage in my training. I've started hyper hydrating (two or three Nuun tabs) before long runs, and recovering with more electrolytes after most of my runs. I'm always with a bottle of water when I'm out of the house.
On that same token....CALORIES! We NEED calories when we are running beyond an hour, and we need them at regular intervals. What works for me is to have a Honey Stinger gel every 45 minutes during my runs, and if about 90-120 minutes into my long run I feel like it's not enough, I'll double up. This past weekend during the first 16 miler I'd run since Boston, I forgot to take my last gel. During that final 15 minutes of my run I felt incredibly sluggish and it was more than just the heat and sun. When I finished I realized I didn't fuel enough...oops. Hopefully I won't make that mistake again. It's especially important on race day to stick to the fueling strategy that you've been practicing. It's not the time to test out something different.
Lastly, fueling isn't just about what you do during your runs. It's about what you are doing day in and day out to keep your body energized and ready for the miles. I eat A LOT. I also eat a lot of the right kinds of food and very little of the kinds of foods that will make me crash, like refined sugar and breads. I am finding that natural sugars like honey, plus whole grains vs. white flour, and a whole lot of fruit (especially when I get a sugar craving) are what my body needs and craves. I don't skip meals, I snack throughout the day, and I try to have healthy snack options in my house that I can easily grab. The constant attention to my fueling and hydrating has certainly helped improve my running the last 2+ years.
5. Letting your mind overrule your fitness
When I was training for my first BQ, I spent so much time "training" my mind. I was taking on a big challenge and getting my mind prepared was just as important as getting my body ready. I read lots of articles and books on the subject (my favorite is Matt Fitzgerald's
How Bad Do You Want It?). No matter how good our physical training, if we don't force our minds to believe our goals are really possible, then we run the risk of sabotaging those goals on race day. The first 16 miles of the marathon are no big deal. It's when we embark on the "I have less than 10 miles to go" portion of the race that our mental game kicks in. It's imperative to start thinking "I only have 9 miles to go so I'm almost there!" vs. "I can't believe I still have to run this pace for 9 more miles." On a similar note, we must teach ourselves that maintaining the level of physical discomfort we are encountering is entirely possible, regardless of how our minds are telling us otherwise. Your training brought you to this place, and your body is perfectly capable of this feat, as long as your mind is also strong enough to carry you to the finish line.
6. The wrong volume vs. quality mindset
Don't underestimate the power of recovery runs. Or easy runs. Or warm ups. Or rest intervals. Repeat after me -
"80% of my miles are EASY"
If you are running 4 days per week, only one of those workouts should be hard. If you're running 5-6 days per week, two of the workouts should be hard, and maybe a bit of your long run when you incorporate race pace miles. The rest are easy miles. Sometimes, you might need to drop a hard workout and replace it with an easy one. You will be doing your body a favor by allowing it extra rest going into the following week of training. Easy miles are QUALITY miles, too, just in a different way. You are improving your cardiovascular fitness with faster paces, but without the proper warm up, cool down, recovery intervals, etc, you could be squandering those gains, or reducing their impact on your overall fitness. Let your body be prepared for the hard work....give it lots of TLC with easy miles. You are not wasting your time, you are not missing out on an opportunity to improve your VO2 max, but rather are keeping your body in tip top shape, allowing it to recover from a hard workout in order to maximize the gains from the next hard workout. Working on endurance and speed separately and then combining them on race day leads to success.
7. Believing the wall is inevitable
You don't have to hit the wall in the marathon. I haven't always hit it. I have negative split several of my marathons, although I admit that's a difficult thing to do and more often than not in the past, I slowed down. As I gain more experience, I am finding that I no longer go into a race anticipating the wall. I figure if it's favorable weather, I've stayed healthy during my training, I start the race conservative for those first couple miles, and ease into my marathon pace, then I will get through it without a lot of difficulty ("difficulty" is pretty subjective; marathons are NOT easy, but they don't have to be exceptionally hard either). Believe in your training, develop and stick to a solid race plan, and believe the wall is fictitious.
8. Letting others guide your training
When I say this, I'm not referring to coaches. LISTEN TO YOUR COACH! I'm talking about your running partners. Running friends are priceless. They keep you company, they make the miles go by faster, they might push you during hard workouts, but they can also derail your training run if you let them. This is particularly true if you are running with someone faster than you. The instinct is to keep up with them instead of running the effort you are supposed to be running. During long runs that are meant to be easy, this problem is especially harmful. I've fallen into this trap countless times and it's my own fault. I know the effort I should be sustaining and yet I can get caught up in what my faster friends are running without even realizing it, and without fail, during those last few miles, my heartrate has climbed and I'm struggling too much. I'm beaten up the next day and it forces me to adjust the next week's training so I don't continue to overdo it. We all do this at some point. Run your own run, run your own pace, fall back if you need to, but don't get caught up in what others are doing if it's not what YOU should be doing.
9. Focusing too much on pace and not effort
In the last few weeks, when our higher temps and humidity are still relentless, I've gotten better about adjusting my pace. I get too caught up in the pace I "think" I should be running, without taking into consideration that 80 humid degrees if just plain awful. A friend of mine pointed out that Hansons has a pace adjuster based on the weather, and I started inputing each morning's data into it to see what my training paces would look like at the same effort if the weather was ideal (their version of ideal is about 55 degrees and moderate/low humidity). Low and behold, what I thought I should be running for half marathon or marathon pace was actually 25 seconds per mile SLOWER. In other words, pace doesn't matter....YOUR EFFORT matters. By slowing down, I quickly found that those quality miles were more easily attainable during the workouts, I wasn't killing myself trying to hit harder paces, and I was feeling much better after the runs. It seems strange to train at slower paces and yet be expected to run faster than that during the race, but provided you have tapered and the weather is more ideal, that's exactly what should happen. My last few tempo runs have felt substantially better now that I'm focusing more on my effort in these difficult weather conditions, versus forcing my body to hit paces that I hit in ideal weather. GO FIGURE, right?
On that same note, for a few runs, don't even look at your watch. Go completely by effort and see what the data shows afterwards.
10. Panicking
This kind of goes along with #5. I read a quote while training two years ago that really stuck with me. "Be mindful of the deceptive paralysis that can take hold when you become intimidated by your increasingly faster paces."
Time and time again, we do a workout that involves "race pace" and time and time again, we freak out over the thought of running that pace for 26.2 miles. If your data is indicating that you can run that for a marathon, THEN YOU CAN. Don't let your fear hold you back on race. Don't let those paces be so daunting that you panic. JUST RUN. And keep running until you see that finish line.
11. Not respecting recovery
Recovery comes in different forms.
There is a reason why recovery runs are on a marathon training schedule. After an especially tough workout or high volume week, our bodies need a little TLC, but they still need to get in mileage. Keeping our bodies moving will speed up the recovery process and prime us for our next hard workout. But this only happens properly if you run RECOVERY pace. While training this time around, my goal marathon pace is 8:35 (not panicking, not panicking, not panicking....). Sometimes my recovery pace is upwards of 11 minutes per mile. My heartrate stays in Zone 1 or very low Zone 2 and my legs feel heavy at first, but loosen up as I continue to slowly jog. It's a SLOW JOG (which is all relative depending on your typical paces).
Recovery might also mean a complete rest day, which I highly recommend if you are more injury prone and/or not a typical high mileage runner. I prefer one day per week of complete rest in the second half of my training cycle. Or it might mean a nice walk or swim or spin on the bike. The key is that it's very easy on your body.
Lastly, we use the term "recovery" intervals during speed workouts. Take them easy! In the summer, many of my recoveries are done at a walk or very light jog. I might speed up a bit in the winter, but if it's a particularly long or tough interval workout, I take extra care to get the right recovery in between intervals.
We grow stronger when we recover. Now, repeat that again. WE GROW STRONGER WHEN WE RECOVER. Respect recovery!
12. Only running
Now obviously the most important sport to partake in during marathon training is RUNNING. It's your main focus and priority when allotting time for training. However, neglecting strength training and/or crosstraining doesn't work for most runners (shush if you're one of those who never gets injured even though you don't strength train). Stronger core means better form means fewer injuries and less fatigue late in the race. Have you seen photos of athletes hunched over as they are coming down the finish chute? Weak core is destroying their form and slowing them down and probably causing unnecessary injuries. On the contrary, a lot of successful runners don't lose form no matter how fatigued because they have spent time working on core strength during the training cycle. In my opinion, after running, core work is the second most important exercise during marathon training. Add in full body functional strength training, and you're well on your way to success.
13. Ignoring injuries
Speaking of injuries....don't ignore them! It's normal to be sore and fatigued during training. But some pains are NOT normal and need to be addressed. Common injuries are plantar fasciitis, IT band syndrome, and runner's knee. Ignoring the signs of impending injury is a surefire recipe for derailing your training. The good news is that there are many sports chiropractors and physical therapists out there who can help you diagnose the problem, identify the origin, and detail a physical therapy plan to get you back to running at your best. I've contacted Airrosti for a few different annoying injuries I've sustained over the years and each and every time, they've accurately diagnosed the problem, the weakness that caused it, and have prescribed a successful physical therapy routine that has improved the injury dramatically. Each time I've ignored a problem, I have had to stop running for a time and often drop out of a planned race. That is never fun. Don't be that guy. Don't ever ignore weird and abnormal pain.
14. Lack of commitment
I probably piss a lot of my friends off when I continually mention this one. But it's one of the most detrimental mistakes I see marathoners make. They don't commit to the training. I am the first to admit that as a stay-at-home mom and wife, I have the luxury of time. I don't have to always worry about trying to "fit it all in" because I have more flexibility. I get that thrown back in my face too many times. Never mind that I still get my runs done BEFORE my kids wake up at 7am (that gets to be a little more flexible when it starts getting cooler out). Yes, I will get a 10 miler in before 7am.
However, let me give you an example of someone who had it far worse than me when it came to time crunches. After I qualified for Boston, my husband, who had never run a marathon or more than 13 miles in his life, decided he wanted to qualify as well so he could run it with me. This is a man that works probably 70 hours per week and is often on conference calls late at night with his Asian counterparts and has to travel overseas several times per year. He's also a very active dad and husband and makes us a priority. He's really busy! But he was determined to give it his all and train his ass off and qualify. He didn't want a first time marathoner's training schedule. He basically used the same schedule I had written for myself, running up to 55 miles per week, and most often 6 days per week. There were mid-week 8-10 milers and he often had to be done before 7am so he could start work. When he traveled, he either ran on the treadmill at the hotel or found running routes nearby. He rarely skipped a run.
Simply put, he made a commitment to himself to do his very best so we could run Boston, and he threw all the possible excuses out the window, buckled down, and EXECUTED THE PLAN. He was so tired sometimes, but he kept his eye on the prize and worked as much of his life around training as he could. His efforts paid off, because he qualified for Boston in that marathon.
When you sign up for a race at this caliber, commitment is of utmost importance. When there are activities that I want to do that might make me stay out late on the weekend, I might have to move my long run to a different day. If my kids have an activity that will interfere with a scheduled run, then I will again shift the training around so I don't sacrifice the quality of the training, but I'm still putting my kids first. Will it be perfect? Not likely. But it doesn't have to be compromised, either.
***
I'm sure there are so many other mistakes out there that I could list here, but I think I've exhausted some of the more common ones. It always helps me when I take the time to write things like this out during a training cycle, especially when I'm starting to feel some doubts and the weather or fatigue has started getting to me. And besides, I always love to put together all the important bits of training advice that I've accumulated from multiple training cycles.
I've got 10 more weeks until RACE WEEK.
