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Marathon Tips: Running Injuries, Anxiety, and More
Attack of the Nagging Fears
What are you afraid of? Injury? Blisters? The wall? Whatever it is, there's a way to fight back when running anxiety strikes
By
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Hurdle Your Running Worries
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1
Getting Injured
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2
Falling Behind
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3
Tackling Hard Hills
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4
Failing to Hit Speedwork Goals
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5
Coming in Last
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6
Falling Off the Treadmill
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7
Hitting the Wall
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8
Gaining Weight
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9
Facing Resistance from My Family
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10
Feeling Exhausted on Hot Runs
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11
Getting Blisters from New Shoes
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12
Saying Goodbye to Personal Bests
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13
Not Finishing
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14
Needing to Take an Unplanned Pit Stop
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15
Never Getting into a Bucket-List Race
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16
Race-Day Anxiety
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17
Getting Lost or Hurt on Trail Runs
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18
Catching a Cold
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19
Not Running Again
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20
Fear of [Fill in the Blank]
Failing to Hit Speedwork Goals
The Fix: Tweak target times or distances
“Missing goal times is usually the result of a bad day or overly ambitious goals," says Luke Humphrey, a 2:14 marathoner who's head coach of Hanson's Coaching Services in suburban Detroit.
"You can't do much about bad days, and it's okay to completely miss once in a while. But there are a couple of ways to adjust targets if they're too ambitious."
Runners need to slowly increase the intensity over the weeks until they hit their faster goal race time. For runners who lack the confidence to hit a certain pace, Humphrey suggests at first reducing the repeat distance‐by starting with 400-meter repeats at goal pace, say, instead of 800s—to remove the intimidation factor. "It's better to make mistakes in training and learn from them," he says, "than to make them on race day."
Think Positive: "Failure isn't failure if a lesson from it's learned." —Garth Brooks
More: Got a question about your speed, strength, or distance? Consult the resource guide for all things running-related!
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