At some point in every runner’s career, they stop improving. Their race performances begin to stagnate, and it becomes more difficult to set a new personal record (PR).
These performance plateaus are common. They often happen after three to four races without improvement, despite great training. While all indications point to improvement, it simply doesn’t occur.
Thankfully, a performance plateau isn’t a good reason to quit the sport. If you can identify the “red flags” in your training (best by reviewing your running log) that often lead to flatlining finish times, you’ll know how to correct your running and start thriving again.
But before we begin, it’s important to quickly cover many common training errors that generally slow progress. Whenever you’re training hard, or prioritizing a PR, it’s ideal to avoid these mistakes so that your fitness will keep growing:
– Lack of sleep (thereby reducing recovery and adaptation to your workouts)
– High levels of stress (work, family, or relationship stress can release stress hormones that reduce your ability to recover from hard training sessions)
–…
