Why Runners Don’t Make It to the Starting Line on Marathon Day—and Expert Advice for Getting There Feeling Strong and Fast

Just lining up at the start of your marathon is an accomplishment in itself. You spend months training, banking hundreds of miles, and pushing yourself to run farther than you once thought possible—all to get to race day ready to run your best.Unfortunately, some unforeseeable roadblocks can keep runners from getting to the line healthy and ready to go.While you can’t predict a major life event, you can look out for a few subtle signs throughout training that reveal you’ve fallen off the path to success. And these signs can show up for new and experienced runners alike, says Sean Fortune, New York City-based run coach and founder of Central Park Coaching.“The biggest thing about getting newbies to the line is setting the expectation that marathon training is going to be really hard, particularly the middle portion,” says Fortune. “They’re ready to put in the work, they hire a coach, and six weeks in, the reality sets in, where your body is just fatigued all the time. There’s a drop off in enthusiasm for doing the work that’s necessary to get them to the starting line.”Many experienced runners also wind up skipping or deferring their marathons because of burnout or other training issues. “They’re questioning whether they’re going to make it to the starting line because their training is not measuring up to their expectations,” Fortune says, or you’re not on track to reach your time goal like you initially thought.If you see yourself in either of these situations, look no further. As long as you’re still in the thick of training, there’s likely plenty of time to turn things around and prepare for your big day.Below are the most common barriers that prevent runners from getting to the starting line. Plus, expert-backed tips for overcoming them so you show up strong, fast, and ready to run a great race.1. Overlooking Beginner or Base PlansRight from the start of training, you might feel tempted to overlook beginner-level training plans, especially if you’ve been running for a few years and have a couple of races under your belt.“A lot of people blow past the beginner plan, even if it’s their first marathon, and even if the mileage is appropriate,” says Cat Fitzgerald, DPT, RRCA-certified run coach and director of clinical excellence at Custom Performance NYC.But, she explains, selecting a plan that’s a little too challenging or has a little too much volume for you often leads to injuries, fatigue, or burnout during the weeks where you’re supposed to be logging quality miles. (And trying to push through only makes those effects worse.)How to avoid it:Fitzgerald’s advice: Don’t overshoot your training. Meaning, if you’re using a training plan, go a step down from what you’re thinking of following.If you’ve already been training with a plan but you’re skeptical about potentially wanting to finish with something easier, it’s never too late to switch. “It sounds negative, but it’s not. You are so much better off going into a race at 85 percent trained versus 115 percent trained,” Fitzgerald says.2. Blowing Past Prescribed PacesFeeling a little overzealous toward your training doesn’t always just apply to your plan; it can also look like chasing faster paces than your current fitness allows. Oftentimes, runners don’t make it to race day because they spend a lot of time training with paces that make them feel fast and fit, but, by the time race day approaches, they’re barely holding on, Fitzgerald explains.More specifically, this can look like overestimating your interval, tempo, or marathon paces, and ultimately pushing harder than you should, even if it feels manageable. For example, maybe your plan lists 3:30 for 800-meter repeats, but your current fitness level really marks your interval pace as something closer to 3:40. Running those 3:30s may not seem like a big deal, but over the course of an entire workout, and across several workouts week by week, cumulative fatigue builds and keeps you from performing and staying healthy. “They’re going to the well on every workout and digging themselves this hole that is really, really hard to recover from. That is very subtle, but very common,” says Fitzgerald.This is particularly common among more advanced marathoners, says Fortune. “A lot of competitive or experienced marathoners tend to work harder than they should, whether it’s overreaching in workouts or going too fast on recovery runs,” he says. This usually comes from having unrealistic expectations around where you want to be and where your current fitness is, he explains.How to avoid it:Knowing your pace and sticking to it is easier said than done. Fitzgerald first asks runners to reconsider matching their workout paces to more accurate reflections of their current fitness. This usually looks like consulting a pace calculator with a recent PR, or focusing on effort level for a given workout.Tacking a few fast or hard efforts on to the very end of your workouts can also get you to hold back more in the beginning of your workout in order to mentally prepare for those more intense reps. That can look like a few hill sprints, strides, or even a short threshold bout that you anticipate doing at the end, says Fitzgerald.3. Skipping Deload WeeksFour months is a really long time to train for a race, so you need down weeks or “deload weeks.” Runners who don’t include deload weeks are more likely to burn out before getting to the line, Fitzgerald says.How to avoid it:Traditionally, deload weeks look like cutting back mileage every fourth week but keeping some intensity. You can consider cutting down on weeks where you know you’ll be away on a vacation or taking a hiking trip; then you can balance hikes with some running, for example, Fitzgerald adds. “It’s important to have [deload weeks] in there for absorbing the training, injury prevention, but you can also kind of move them to accommodate life,” she says.4. Ignoring Potential Injuries or PainWhen you start marathon training, you hopefully feel really good: Your runs feel breezy, your head is clear, and you’re excited for each run. This is a feeling every runner should hope to have, but sometimes it’s the catalyst to ignoring small pains or quiet “niggles” that can creep up on you and turn into a full-blown injury.Backing off of training probably doesn’t seem like the right thing to do when you’re enjoying your build, Fitzgerald says, but your starting-line self will thank you for staying on top of potential problems early on.“In the back of your head, you know that maybe you should take the next run off, but you don’t. That’s moving [the pain, fatigue, or burnout] from being a two-week problem to a four- or five-week problem,” she says.How to avoid it:“No one’s going to feel physically great while training for a marathon,” Fitzgerald says. But if a minor Achilles ache lingers or gets worse for the entire run or throughout your week, for example, it’s time to back off and either skip a day or find some extra recovery time. “It’s not something you feel once, but grows. You have to nip that in the bud,” she says.Missing one workout or one week of training isn’t worth potentially throwing your entire race.5. Making Big Mileage IncreasesWhen motivation drops, you’re more likely to make more training mistakes, says Fortune. For example, you might try to squeeze your 18-mile long run in after not training for two weeks because you want to “make up” for lost training and to get in shape for race day. “What happens is they don’t make it to the starting line because now they’re semi-injured or they have a niggle that’s disrupting their training,” he explains.The goal of your weekly mileage and long run mileage increases is to make them as subtle as possible and build over time, says Fitzgerald. Some runners thrive following the 10 percent rule (where you don’t run any more than 10 percent of your previous week’s mileage), while others can get away with bending it.Even if you think you’re getting away with higher mileage increases because you’re not dealing with any immediate pains or lasting fatigue, the effects creep up about halfway through training or about four to five weeks after the uptick, says Fitzgerald.Sometimes the runner will not even consider the fact that mileage increases could contribute to injuries later in a training cycle because it took a month to appear, Fitzgerald says.How to avoid it:Fitzgerald’s general advice at the start of training is to figure out what the last few weeks of your base training plan should look like to get you to your week one mileage while following the 10 percent increase.If you increased your mileage by more than 10 percent already, don’t panic. Fortune recommends opting for soft surfaces to run on like gravel paths, tracks, and treadmills, and incorporating band work and light resistance training. “That could complement your joints, muscles, and connective tissue to handle the stress of that new elevated norm of higher mileage,” he says.6. Ignoring Feelings of BurnoutBy the time marathon race day rolls around, you might just feel sick of running entirely. And who wants to race 26.2 miles feeling fed up with running?“It’s really common for age group, competitive runners who do one every year (and many do two a year),” to burn out before marathon day, Fortune says.But running should feel exciting, especially when you’re going the distance. “I want runners to feel generally good and kind of be chomping at the bit,” adds Fitzgerald. “You should still be still interested in the plan and what’s happening next. Even after a speed workout, you should look ahead at the next workout, feel confident about it, and not scared.”How to avoid it:“You need to have considerable downtime if you’ve been hitting [marathons] year after year where you can kind of mentally refresh and reconfigure your expectations around how much you’re willing to put into the training,” says Fortune.This might look like cutting down to one marathon a year, stepping away from major marathons like New York City or Boston, and taking three months off from competitive training before you get into your next marathon build.Within your training cycle, Fortune recommends taking down weeks to at least give yourself a mental break. This doesn’t mean you have to lose fitness, but it might look like lowering mileage to free up some recovery time, cross-training more to switch things up, or swapping a workout with an unstructured fartlek to have some more fun.The Bottom LineNo matter what, it’s up to you to decide if you’re capable of making it to the starting line, and get what you want out of race day. If you’ve committed to training and you want to push through minor fatigue or burnout, many runners do that, Fitzgerald says, but refocusing on what you can control in training can lead to feeling strong and confident at the start line.“Be aware of the big picture,” says Fitzgerald. “Don’t focus just on race day, focus on the next three days in front of you and how you can best work through those.”Kristine Kearns, a writer and avid runner, joined Runner’s World and Bicycling in July 2024. She previously coached high school girls cross country and currently competes in seasonal races, with more than six years of distance training and an affinity for weightlifting. You can find her wearing purple, baking cupcakes, and visiting her local farmers market.