Dealing with Bad Workouts During a Marathon Training Segment

It’s that time of year again. The middle of summer is approaching and, if you’re training for one of the big Fall marathons, your marathon specific phase is only a few weeks away.

While each training schedule or coach will have a different approach in the last six to eight weeks of your marathon plan, it’s safe to say that the next four to five weeks of training will be your most grueling yet. Marathon simulations, hard 20-mile long runs, and lots of miles in between.

Unfortunately, having a rough day out on the roads is also something that comes along with pushing your limits in training. While bad workouts are never something a runner looks forward to, they can be especially crippling in the final six weeks of training when you want to feel good and need the positive momentum. This is especially true for a daunting race like the marathon, which leaves you in a state of perpetual tiredness and irritability from training and, no matter how many times you’ve run one, is an intimidating distance to contemplate.

In this article, we’re going to outline why having one or two rough workouts in the middle of marathon training is ok – and may actually be a normal occurrence, as well as some specific mental and physical strategies you can implement to bounce back quickly.

Why you might have a bad workout – and why it’s ok

Bad workouts are an unavoidable reality for runners. No matter how talented you are or how much you try to control every variable in your training, you will have a bad workout on occasion. Sometimes the reason you struggle is out of your control or not something you can pinpoint specifically, and other days the cause is quite apparent – bad weather, allergies or a stressful day.

In the last six to eight weeks of marathon training, the likelihood of a bad workout increases exponentially as your training reaches its peak and you push your body further and faster than you ever have before. In essence, you’re walking a tight rope each day, just hoping to maintain that optimal ratio of recovery with getting in the most miles you can handle. When you spend six weeks walking a tight rope, odds are, you’re going to cross that line at least once or twice.

Understanding this reality is something that separates East African and many elite runners from us mere mortals. East Africans generally have the mentality that they are always as good as their best day and bad workout is just a bad workout. They shake off bad runs and understand that the performance was not indicative of their potential or fitness.

On the contrary, the Western outlook after a bad workout is to dwell on the bad performance and question whether they’ve lost all their fitness. It sounds extreme, but after coaching hundreds of runners over the last 5 years, I can attest that the reaction is very accurate.

Moreover, some of America’s best marathoners and coaches even expect to have one or two bad workouts during a marathon training segment. 2:14 marathoner Nate Jenkins admits that he’s “never had a marathon cycle where I didn’t have one or two bad workouts.”  This mentality adopted by elite runners and Easy Africans allows them to bounce back quickly from the bad days and keep their confidence high.

What to do when you have a bad workout

Now that we understand a bad workout or two is part of the normal marathon training experience, it’s time to look at how you can approach the bad days to bounce back quicker and keep your confidence high.

Analyze your workout to find things you can improve

The first step after a bad workout is performing  post-mortem and identifying any potential areas you can improve. Sometimes the reason might not be something within your control – a long day at work or a long drive. A lot of times you won’t be able to pinpoint anything. However, if you do find things you can improve upon for your next workout – hydrating for example – you can prevent yourself from making the same mistake twice.

Be careful with changing too many variables at once. If you believe your bad workout was a fueling issue, don’t try to change your meal the night before, breakfast, beverage or gel frequency all in one run. Otherwise, if you have another bad run, you won’t be able to tell which issue was the culprit.

Find lessons in the negatives

One way to turn a negative workout into a positive is to look for lessons you can learn from. Big lessons, like not going out too fast, will be apparent. However, there are less obvious lessons you can learn from if you really pay attention.

For example, one of my athletes recently ran a half marathon tune-up race and got to the starting line a little late and wasn’t able to start in his appropriate corral. He spent the first mile panicked about needing to get on pace and through the field to where he should have been running. All that surging and stress used up lots of energy, both physically and mentally, and he bombed the second half of the race.

However, after examining afterwards, he was able to glean two valuable lessons. First, I am positive he will not show up late for his goal race. He’s already made plans and a checklist to be better organized the night before his big race. Second, if the start is more crowded or slower than he anticipates, he now knows first-hand that it is better to relax and work his way up gradually. Both of these lessons will help him perform to his potential on race day.

Think big picture

One workout is not going to make or break your training segment. If you’ve trained properly, you’ve had at least 16 weeks of specific training, four to five solid long runs, and countless workouts. Having one bad day is a blip in the grand scheme of your training cycle. It’s easy to lose perspective after a tough workout, but you have to remember all the great workouts you’ve had so far and keep in mind the opportunities you have remaining on the schedule.

In addition, remember that workouts are designed to improve your fitness and abilities as a runner, not to prove how fit you are.

Too often, runners use workouts as a constant barometer to measure improvement and compare themselves to how they will be able to perform on race day. Rarely will your performance in a workout translate to how you will feel on race day, so don’t get too stressed about a bad day.

As you prepare or work through your marathon specific phase, remember not to get too down about a bad workout. When you’re pushing the limits, not every run can be a home run. Put the run in perspective, extract a few good learning lessons, and maintain confidence heading into your next big workout on the schedule.