The road to your first marathon or your next marathon PR Races & Places training plan. That’s where a coach, even if online, can help, as they can spot training errors, explain how those missteps can potentially put you on the sidelines (or keep you from your goals), and then put you back on the right track. And with today’s technology, coaches often use training platforms to prescribe workouts, while also analyzing metrics like heart rate and interval splits provided by your GPS watch.
Because online coaches have access to all this data, we asked them to share the common marathon training mistakes that most runners make throughout a training cycle. Read on for top errors and how you can avoid them in your own build-up to 26.2.
1. Running Easy Runs Too Fast
According to Andrew Simmons, a USATF level 2 and Lydiard level 2 run coach at TrainingPeaks, an online training and coaching platform, this is one of the most common problems he sees new runners training for their first marathon make. That’s often because newer runners building up to a marathon distance initially don’t grasp that the pace that feels seemingly effortless for short runs won’t be sustainable for 26.2 miles.
Coaches are typically able to identify this issue by noting spikes in a runner’s heart rate or a big slow-down in their pace by the end of the run.
“Runners often don’t understand the bigger-picture relationship with pace and heart rate," Simmons tells Runner’s World. “I work on explaining to them that if their heart rate is creeping up but the pace is staying the same, this is not efficient training.” Instead, you want your heart rate to stay pretty steady throughout the entire easy run—even the final miles.
“I try to coach my athletes to understand that easy pace isn’t really a pace but more of a feeling,” adds Sara Manderscheid, an RRCA-certified run coach in Boulder, Colorado. “If I have a new runner who may not have a race result to go off of yet, I’ll tell them to try singing out loud when they’re running and if they can’t sing the song they’re listening to without taking deep breaths or are gasping for air, they’re running too fast and need to as this is an area where new athletes can fall into.”
2. Forgetting About Other Stress Factors
One thing that’s key for recreational marathoners to remember is that running is their hobby and not their job. That means you need to take other life factors into consideration, as work stress and sleep play a critical role in how you’re executing your training.
“It’s important to share details [with your coach], like if you work a stressful job because that can absolutely have an impact on your workout if you go immediately into a hard workout right after a high-stress work day,” Simmons says.
The RW Guide to Mastering the Marathon stress the same, whether it’s coming from the physical demands of a run or the mental demands of your job. If you have a particularly stressful week outside of your runs, maybe that means swapping a speed workout for an easy run or taking an extra rest day even the final miles meditation so you don’t get burned out.
Manderscheid echoes this sentiment, noting that she will often be the one to ask more questions beyond running goals to start, including what someone’s job and household responsibilities look like to help determine if they can handle a certain level of volume or intensity.
“Some athletes will say that they want to do six days a week of running when it’s not actually realistic with their life in terms of maintaining balance,” she says.
Why I Stopped Sharing My Run Pace On Social Media research shows that even one night of sleep deprivation can affect your running performance the next day. In other words, sacrificing hours of sleep to get in a workout isn’t usually the best move.
3. Overdoing It in Workouts
Nikkia Young, an RRCA-certified run coach and president of the Richmond Road Runners Club, encourages her athletes to keep group and social runs as part of their schedule, but to also factor that mileage into the training plan, as this is an area where new athletes can fall into overtraining. Young also suggests scheduling easy runs to correspond with group runs and to avoid basing pace goals for harder workouts on what you see others in your run group doing for harder workouts. Keep in mind: You’re running your own race!
“A lot of new runners might think a few extra miles here and there is harmless, but if you’re regularly tacking it onto what I’m assigning for a week’s worth of training, it can be too much, too soon,” Young says. “When I find out someone has a regular group run that they do enjoy, I’ll remind them in their workout for that day to make sure that the group dynamic doesn’t completely overrun them.”
In addition to changing workouts to fit group dynamics, one of the biggest mistakes Simmons sees athletes doing is going for back-to-back workouts. "[Sometimes athletes do this because] they didn’t feel yesterday was hard ‘enough’ or they feel good today so they do a second workout thinking that more workouts equals more fitness,” he says. In reality, lighter sessions are almost always by design to help you recover and prepare for harder sessions. Stacking too many hard sessions into a week can only derail your training.
Similarly, Simmons often sees athletes running extra mileage at a pace or distance that exceeds what’s in their plan. This only limits your ability to gain benefits from future workouts, especially if you finish all (or even most) of your sessions completely spent.
4. Trying to Make Up for Missed Training
If you miss a run, the best thing to do is get in touch with your coach, Young says. A good coach will understand that life happens, or if you skipped a run due to niggles that might eventually lead to a full-blown injury.
If a runner misses a week or more of training, Young typically suggests doing the same work the coming week. “Trying to stack missed mileage at the end of the week can do more harm than good,” she says.
Simmons agrees that trying to make up for missed mileage can backfire: “Yes, you’re training for an endurance event but ‘make-up miles’ often eat into your future profits,” he says. “If you missed miles because of scheduling issues, stress, or illness, you likely needed the rest, and trying to pile them all into an extra run is not the same as doing them as planned.”
If you’ve only missed a day or two of training, Young says there’s no need to overthink it. Just treat it as another rest day and pick up the training plan as it’s written for the next day.
“Missing those miles and moving on and keeping with the rhythm of the schedule is ideal,“ Simmons says. “This allows you to recover from whatever caused the miss and stay on track with your workouts while preserving vital energy (mental and physical resources).”
5. Falling Into a Comparison Trap
In the age of social media, it’s no surprise runners can often feel like they’re not doing enough or should be doing more based on what they’re seeing their friends or even running influencers post on social media platforms like Instagram and Strava. This is a common pitfall Young has to talk to her newer athletes about in an effort to keep them on the right track.
“I often have to remind athletes of their own goal, and that where they’re at and are starting from is okay,” she says. “It’s a common misconception that runners have to get to a certain level to ‘earn’ a coach or the ability to train for something, which just isn’t true, so I constantly work to instill that they’re doing great work [by following their specific training plan].”
6. Not Paying Attention to Fueling
According to Simmons, not fueling sufficiently during a marathon is another big mistakes he sees, often paired with How to Run a Marathon With the 10/10/10 Method. This is typically the result of not practicing and figuring out how much fuel you may need in training and instead just going with whatever has worked for them in a half marathon, he says.
“This often causes athletes to explode near the three-hour mark because they’ve depleted their glycogen stores and did not fuel enough to keep up with the burn rate,” he explains. “This overestimation in pace and ability can be one part of the blow-up, the second is the underfueling.”
Practicing pacing and fueling during long runs in training will help you nail down what to do on race day. The general recommendation for a nutrition strategy: 30 to 60 grams per hour of carbohydrates, though some runners need more than that to make it through the later miles of a marathon. (FYI, most sports nutrition products have about 25 grams of carbs per serving.) Dietitians also recommend starting that fueling “early and often,” which could mean having your first gel 30 to 45 minutes into your run.
“Some athletes will consume one to two gels for a three-and-a-half-hour race when they should actually be consuming five to six gels to fuel properly,” Simmons says, which is why it’s so important to practice and figure out what works for you during training.
7. Keeping Progress and Setbacks to Yourself
If you do have a coach, make sure you actually turn to them when you need them—and even when you don’t.
“Communication is often the biggest hurdle for new athletes to overcome, and having a regular back-and-forth dialogue is key because the data on my side can only show so much, so I know to always ask my athletes ‘how do your lungs, your legs, and your head feel?’” says Manderscheid. “I encourage my athletes to over-communicate versus under-communicate.”
“It’s key for athletes to understand that they should ask for details if they don’t understand Advertisement - Continue Reading Below or workout,” Simmons adds.
Even if you don’t have a coach, there’s power in sharing your successes and struggles with family and friends. They can help you celebrate little wins that keep you motivated, and deal with the disappointment if something doesn’t go your way, reminding you that any step forward is progress—no matter how small or slow.
Emilia Benton is a Houston-based freelance writer and editor. In addition to Runner's World, she has contributed health, fitness and wellness content to Women's Health, SELF, Prevention, Healthline, and the Houston Chronicle, among other publications. She is also an 11-time marathoner, a USATF Level 1-certified running coach, and an avid traveler.
