Are you struggling with marathon training and can’t bear the thought of lacing up your shoes for another training run?
Were you on a roll with your training but then lost momentum?
You might be facing marathon training burnout.
And this can happen to any runner training for a marathon.
You’re cycling between stress (running) and rest (hopefully, you’ve got rest days and rest weeks), but we don’t always get the balance between the two right.
But knowing the signs of marathon training burnout can help you catch burnout before it gets worse.
And if you’re already burnt out on marathon training, you can climb out of it with the tips you’ll find here.
Let’s get started.
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SIGNS OF MARATHON TRAINING BURNOUT
These early warning signs can help you spot when you’re headed toward marathon training burnout.
- Feeling tired during marathon training
- Running paces have slipped (for example, your easy run paces have slowed to a crawl)
- Losing motivation in your marathon training, or no motivation to run
- Feeling more irritable than usual
- Tossing and turning all night
HOW TO RECOVER FROM MARATHON TRAINING BURNOUT
Take a break, especially if you feel tired all the time in marathon training, sore, or sluggish
Any soreness and tiredness (especially if you’ve had a few days of this) is a sign to hit pause on running to rest and recover.
A break might not be what you want to do right now and instead, run through this burnout phase, hoping it might turn around.
But if you continue to push on, you’ll become even more burnt out, you might overtrain (which can take months to recover from), or face an injury, which will prevent you from even starting your marathon.
If you’re standing at the marathon start, know this: You’re really lucky to be there. You made it to the start line and that is huge.
Because making your way through months of training without becoming overly exhausted or injured is an accomplishment itself.
Take a break, and you will find yourself wanting to jump back into marathon training.
Avoiding marathon training burnout also means keeping a close eye on how you feel. And this email freebie has a list of questions that can help you decide when to adjust your marathon training run or take an extra day off to recover.
Check your iron levels 1
No runner ever wants to feel drained while running, but without enough iron, you’ll feel just that.
You lose iron through sweat, urine, gastrointestinal tract, and through monthly blood loss, so not only will you feel drained, but you might also have these symptoms of low iron.
- Weakness
- Fatigue and exhaustion
- A decrease in your running performance
- Higher heart rate
- Shortness of breath, headaches, and dizziness while running
- Cravings for ice chips
But it’s not just iron that’s important, we also need to look at ferritin.
Ferritin is a protein that stores iron inside your cells. This may not be the best analogy, but it’s like a storage shed for iron.
Your ferritin levels have a direct impact on your total amount of iron. Low ferritin levels mean you’ll also have low iron.
As a runner, you should aim for ferritin levels of at least 30-40 ng/mL.
But everyone’s physiology and training demands are different, so these ferritin levels are a starting point, not a rule.
WARNINGS ABOUT IRON
- Do not self-treat with iron deficiency because this puts you at risk for iron overload, which is dangerous. Always get a blood test to confirm any iron deficiency.
- Consult with a sports nutritionist if you have an iron deficiency to guide you through ways you can safely increase your iron intake.
Eat enough food
You need to eat enough to provide energy for your training and for your life as a whole.
And eating enough is crucial for long-term, sustainable athletic growth.
The problems that arise without eating enough food can:
- Lead to menstrual dysfunction
- Reduce testosterone
- Increase your risk of bone stress injury
- Slow down recovery and your running paces (not good if you’re looking for a new marathon personal best)
Eating enough depends on you—your body type, genetics, background, and allergies. If you need a tailored program, it’s best to consider a nutritionist.
You’re demanding a lot from your body right now, so give yourself room to enjoy the foods you want to eat.
Need new food ideas and inspiration from other runners? These cookbooks can give you a head start.
Rise and Run: Recipes, Rituals and Runs to Fuel Your Day:A Cookbook, Shalane Flanagan, Elyse Kopecky
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The Runner’s Kitchen: 100 Stamina-Building, Energy-Boosting Recipes, with Meal Plans to Maximize Your Training, Emma Coburn
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HOW TO PREVENT MARATHON TRAINING BURNOUT
Keep your runs *really* easy
Each run in your marathon training plan has a purpose.
And easy runs help you build your muscle endurance, decrease your injury risk, and make it fun to run.
Your easy runs need to be easy and relaxed enough to give you the energy to do your next run—whether that’s a track workout, a tempo run, or a long run.
Try leaving your watch at home so that you aren’t tempted to go faster on your easy days.
Remember, keep your easy runs easy so that you can do your hard runs.
Do a fun run (or many)
You’ll spend far more time training for your marathon than running the marathon itself, and it can get routine and monotonous.
But it doesn’t have to be.
Go explore a new trail. Or try a themed run where you listen to only classic 80s rock music.
Whatever is going to make running fun for you, bring that into your marathon training plan.
Use traffic light colors to color-code your workouts 2
Do you keep a running training log? One where you write down how your run felt, what you did, and a bunch of other notes? (This running planner has plenty of space for you to record your notes.)
If you don’t, a running log can be helpful for you to spot patterns, prevent injury and overtraining, especially if you color-code your workouts using traffic light colors—red, yellow, and green.
- Red. For those runs where you were tired, sore, felt pain.
- Yellow. For those runs where you were dragging it a bit, and could be better.
- Green. For those runs where you felt energized and great.
Too many days of red are a warning sign—a literal red flag—that you need more rest.
Not into color-coding or these colors? You could change your handwriting to highlight bad runs or use your favorite colors.
What’s important is that your system makes sense and works for you.
CONCLUSION
You’ve got to push yourself just enough throughout marathon training. But that line’s not always clear—how much is enough? When are you running too much?
Hopefully, with the tips here about marathon training burnout, you can catch the early warning signs of burnout.
But even if you’ve completely burnt out on running, you can climb out of it with rest and recovery and a few adjustments.
Finishing a marathon is a huge accomplishment, but so is navigating through months of marathon training and getting to the start line without injury.
Avoiding marathon training burnout means keeping a close eye on how you feel. And this email freebie has a list of questions that can help you decide when to adjust your marathon training run or take an extra day off to recover.
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