Running Rut? How to Tell a Bad Race from a Real Plateau

Hey Dominique,

I seem to be in a running rut — I haven't seen much improvement for more than six months now. I run around 80km a week, with a good long run on the weekends.

I had a half marathon last week. I started out quick but fell off after about 6-7km, and was disappointed with my time given the training I'd put in. My training covers all the different speeds, so I'm not sure what to change.

Does this sound common? How do I improve my speed endurance?

Thanks for any tips,
Jay

– Jay, New Zealand

Answer by Dominique: Hi Jay,
Thanks for writing in — and here's my answer, broken down into the pacing, plateau, and overtraining picture, plus exactly what I'd change before your next race.

A bad fade like this usually comes down to one of three things: a single pacing mistake — going out too fast — a genuine plateau, where two-plus months of consistent training brings no improvement, or overtraining, where fatigue has quietly built up. Your letter points mostly at the first, though the other two are worth ruling out.

I'll break my response down as follows:

1. Bad Race or Real Plateau? A 3-Question Check
2. Why a Fast Start Costs You More Than It Feels Like
3. Fixing It: Goal-Pace Sessions and Even-Effort Racing
4. When It's Actually a Plateau: Hard/Easy Balance at Higher Mileage
5. What to Do Next

1. Bad Race or Real Plateau? A 3-Question Check

As a coach, this is the same 3-question check I run through with any reader who writes in confused about a bad race. Before you rip up your training plan, ask yourself:

1. Did you start at or faster than goal pace — or noticeably faster than your normal training paces?
2. Was your taper, sleep, or fuelling off in the days before the race?
3. Has this happened across multiple recent races or key workouts, or was it just this one?

A "yes" to question 1 or 2 points to a pacing or logistics explanation, not a plateau. A "yes" to question 3 is what pushes you toward the fuller diagnostic below.

For you, question 1 is the answer: you told me yourself you "started out quick" and fell off by 6-7km — that's a pacing story, not necessarily a fitness one.

If question 3 sounds like you instead, don't stop here — use the full plateau/overtraining/undertraining diagnostic to work out which of the three it actually is.

2. Why a Fast Start Costs You More Than It Feels Like

Here's the bit that explains a lot: the physiology of why a fast start wrecks a race so completely.

Run even 10-15 seconds per kilometre faster than your goal pace and you're running harder than the effort you can sustain for the whole distance. Your body leans more heavily on carbohydrate, and fatigue builds faster than you can clear it. That is a pacing problem, not a fitness one.

The result is a fade completely out of proportion to the time gained early on. A few seconds a kilometre banked in the first 6-7km can cost you minutes in the second half, once fatigue catches up and effort has to drop just to survive rather than perform.

This is exactly what you describe: quick out of the gate, fading hard by 6-7km, and a result that didn't reflect your training. It reads like a fitness problem. It's a pacing problem wearing a fitness problem's clothes.

3. Fixing It: Goal-Pace Sessions and Even-Effort Racing

The fix starts before race day. Whenever you're building toward a key race, work in a handful of goal-pace sessions in the weeks beforehand — for a half marathon, the double-six is my go-to: six miles easy, six miles at goal pace. If you don't know your goal pace yet, how to calculate and practice your goal pace covers exactly that.

Goal-pace sessions do two things. They tell you, honestly, what pace you can actually hold for the distance. And they train your legs — and your discipline — to recognise that pace, rather than guessing off race-day adrenaline.

On race morning, run the first mile or two a few seconds slower than goal pace, not faster. Judge that opening by effort and breathing, not by how fresh the field around you feels. Fresh legs and a fast field make everyone feel invincible for the first kilometre. That feeling lies.

Fit in two to three goal-pace sessions in the final month before a key race, and even-effort racing stops being a discipline problem and starts being a habit.

4. When It's Actually a Plateau: Hard/Easy Balance at Higher Mileage

If question 3 above was a yes — this has happened more than once — pacing isn't the whole story. At higher weekly mileage, it's easy to lose the real hard/easy split without noticing.

Check your own log against two markers: are your easy runs actually easy, judged by effort or rest heart rate rather than by habit? And are your hard days meaningfully harder than the rest of your week, or has everything quietly flattened out to the same medium-hard grind?

That flattening is what stalls high-mileage runners more often than anything else. You can be doing plenty of running and still not be doing enough real hard/easy contrast to force adaptation. For the fuller framework — including how to tell this apart from overtraining — see the full plateau/overtraining/undertraining diagnostic.

5. What to Do Next

Don't panic, and don't scrap your training. There are two clear paths forward, depending on what the 3-question check told you.

If it was a pacing mistake: fix the execution, not the fitness. Book your next key race, work in your goal-pace sessions, and race the first mile by feel rather than by field.

If it looks more like a plateau: put in a focused 6-8 week block on a short 5K/10K speed block to convert mileage into pace before you come back to the half marathon. Converting existing mileage into raw speed over a shorter distance is often the fastest way to break a stall that mileage alone won't shift.

Either way, the fix is rarely more of the same. It's a smarter few weeks, not a bigger one.

Not sure this is your situation at all? If it's felt more like burnout than a plateau, rule out burnout instead. And if this has been more than one bad race, not just a single half marathon, start with if it's more than one bad race.
One bad race with a clear pacing explanation isn't a rut — it's a lesson for next time. A real plateau needs the fuller diagnostic, not another few weeks of the same mileage. Work out which one you're dealing with, then go and fix that one thing.

One way to tell whether your racing is truly behind your fitness is to put a recent race result into my race conversion calculator and compare the predicted time at another distance with what you have actually run.

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