I’ve been running for more than 45 years, and I’ve made just about every training mistake possible.
Some of them merely slowed my progress. Others left me exhausted, injured or mentally burned out. A couple cost me entire seasons.
The positive side is that those mistakes taught me lessons that still shape how I train and coach today. Most came from doing too much: copying athletes whose lives and abilities were completely different from mine, training harder than I could recover from or chasing mileage that didn’t fit the rest of my life.
Here are five of the biggest mistakes I’ve made and what they taught me.
Mistake #1: Copying the pros
When I joined my first track club, Sebastian Coe was the best middle-distance runner in the world and the world record holder in the mile. My coach had read about Coe’s training and gave us interval workouts based on what he was reportedly doing.
At the time, this seemed perfectly logical. If those workouts helped make Sebastian Coe the fastest miler in history, surely they would make us faster too.
The problem was that we weren’t Sebastian Coe.
We didn’t have his talent, training background, support system or ability to recover. We were young runners still developing, trying to complete workouts designed for one of the greatest athletes of all time.
Elite training can be interesting, and there are often useful principles we can learn from it. But copying the sessions without understanding the context is rarely a good idea. What matters isn’t whether a workout worked for a world-class runner. What matters is whether it is appropriate for you right now.
The lesson: Train for where you are now, not where your favourite professional runner is.
Mistake #2: Training too hard
My later high-school coach had us doing extremely difficult interval workouts three times per week.
I did improve somewhat. Hard training often produces short-term improvement, especially when you’re young and enthusiastic. But there was a cost.
By the time the important races arrived at the end of the season, I had nothing left. I was physically exhausted and mentally drained. The training that was supposed to prepare me to race well had taken so much out of me that I couldn’t perform when it mattered.
This is one of the traps of hard training: it can feel productive because you’re tired. You finish a workout exhausted and assume that exhaustion is proof that the session worked.
But the purpose of training isn’t to demonstrate how much discomfort you can tolerate. It’s to create an appropriate stimulus, recover from it and adapt. If the training leaves you unable to perform, it hasn’t done its job.
The lesson: Train, don’t strain. Save the all-out running for your races.
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Mistake #3: Doing interval training every day
If three hard workouts per week sounds excessive, one of my university coaches took things even further.
We did hard interval workouts from Monday through Friday, five consecutive days of intensity.
This is very similar to what runners used to do in the 1940s and 50s. And some of those runners survived and ran well, but most didn’t and even the successful ones tended to have short careers.
As it turned out, I ran personal bests in the 1500m and 3000m in my first meet of the season. For a brief moment, it appeared that the program was working.
Then, shortly after, I got injured and missed the rest of the season.
That early personal best probably reflected fitness I had carried into the season combined with the short-term sharpening effect of the intervals. What the program couldn’t provide was sustainable progress. There was too much stress and nowhere near enough recovery.
Hard interval training can be extremely effective, but it is also expensive. It places significant demands on the muscles, tendons, nervous system and mind. The harder the workout, the more carefully it needs to be placed within the overall week.
For most runners, one properly executed quality session provides plenty of stimulus. More isn’t automatically better, especially when the additional intensity compromises recovery and consistency.
The lesson: Interval training is a powerful tool, but it needs to be used sparingly.
Mistake #4: Trying to run too much mileage
In my late 30s, I became convinced that I needed to run as many miles per week as possible. For me that was 65-75 miles per week with a few excursions into the 80s.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with running 70 miles a week. For the right runner, at the right stage of development, with enough time to recover, it may be completely appropriate. Many can do more comfortably.
But that wasn’t my situation.
I was working 12-hour rotating shifts and had a growing family with kids in travel sports programs. I was trying to force high-volume training into a life that didn’t have enough room for it. Sleep, recovery and family responsibilities didn’t disappear just because I had decided on an impressive weekly mileage target.
The result was predictable. I ran well at times, but was burned out and injured more often than not, which hurt my progress and kept me from reaching my potential.
Mileage can be valuable, but your body doesn’t experience running in isolation. It experiences the combined stress of training, work, sleep, family obligations and everything else happening in your life.
A training volume that looks reasonable on paper may be completely unreasonable once the rest of your life is taken into account.
The lesson: Your training must fit your life. Don’t sacrifice consistency to reach an arbitrary mileage number.
Mistake #5: Not having a plan
After years of trying to do too much, I made the opposite mistake in my late 40s.
For much of that decade, I simply went for a casual run several days per week. I raced only a couple of times each year and didn’t have clearly defined goals or much structure to my training.
This approach kept me reasonably active, but it didn’t give me a reason to progress. My performances stagnated, and eventually my enthusiasm began to fade as well. I didn’t see any improvement until I started racing more frequently again in my early 50s.
Not every run needs to be part of an elaborate master plan. There’s real value in running simply because you enjoy it. But if you want to improve, it helps to know what you’re preparing for and why each part of your training is there.
A specific goal gives your training direction. It helps you decide when to build mileage, when to introduce faster running, when to race and when to recover. It also gives you something to look forward to.
The lesson: Set meaningful goals and train with a plan in mind.
What all these mistakes taught me
Looking back, most of my biggest mistakes came from one of two extremes.
At times, I trained as though harder and more were always better. I copied professional runners, completed too many interval sessions and chased mileage that didn’t fit my life.
At other times, I went too far in the opposite direction. I ran without enough structure, rarely raced and lost the sense of purpose that had always made running exciting.
The best approach lies somewhere between those extremes.
Training needs to be challenging enough to produce improvement but sustainable enough that you can continue doing it. It should have structure without becoming unnecessarily complicated. It should include hard running, but also enough easy running and recovery to absorb it.
That’s why my current approach is generally built around one quality session, one long run and one complete rest day each week. Everything else supports those three anchors. It isn’t a magic formula, but it creates a sensible balance between stress, recovery and consistency.
I still make mistakes. Every runner does. The goal isn’t to create a perfect training plan and follow it flawlessly. The goal is to pay attention, learn from what happens and make better decisions going forward.
After more than 45 years in the sport, that may be the most important lesson I’ve learned: the best training isn’t the most impressive program you can survive for a few weeks. It’s the training you can absorb, enjoy and build upon over time.
I loved this read! I’ll be 42 in a few weeks and just got back into running after a LONG layoff. The point that struck me the most was over training as I like to jump in the deep end right away
Solid advice as usual, Dan. The most important thing I’ve learned over forty years of running is “listen to what your body is telling you”. Now that I’m well into my sixties I’ve noticed MY body keeps no secrets AND speaks very loudly. 😄