How best to race when you’re not on peak form

There is a particular kind of anxiety that comes with approaching a race knowing you are not quite where you wanted to be. Paces that normally feel comfortable require a little more effort. Your heart rate is a few beats higher than you would expect. Sessions are fine rather than flying. Nothing is disastrously wrong, but you know your body well enough to recognise the difference between being fit and being at your best.

I’m in that position myself ahead of the Copenhagen Half Marathon. My summer has been more disrupted than usual, with a few niggles, lower mileage than I would normally like and more life distractions getting in the way of consistent training. I’m still fit and still hoping to run well, but I don’t have the confidence that comes from completing an uninterrupted block and seeing all the usual indicators lining up.

Most runners who race regularly will find themselves here sooner or later. Nobody is on peak form all the time. And, as Jakob Ingebrigtsen recently put it, “you can’t fake fitness”. By the time race week arrives, you have the fitness you have. The question is what you do with it.

1. Don’t try to cram in the fitness you’re missing

The temptation when a race gets close is to panic. You missed mileage three weeks ago, so perhaps you can squeeze in another hard session now. Your threshold pace feels harder than it should, so maybe you need one last big workout to reassure yourself. Unfortunately, the training you do now is unlikely to transform your fitness in time, but it can certainly leave you tired on the start line.

If you are at 90 or 95 per cent of the fitness you hoped to have, the objective during the taper is still to arrive rested enough to make the most of it. Turning slightly suboptimal preparation into genuinely poor preparation by overtraining during the final days is about the worst trade you can make. I know I cannot manufacture a different level of fitness between now and Copenhagen. I can make sure I’m rested enough to use what I have.

2. Don’t suddenly start pulling unfamiliar levers

When preparation hasn’t been perfect, there is also a temptation to start looking for things that might stack the odds back in your favour. New supplements, different carb-loading strategies, different shoes, aggressive stretching or some last-minute treatment can suddenly seem like a good idea.

I learned this lesson before the 2024 London Marathon. I had spent a lot of time flying to the US for work, accumulated considerable fatigue and gained a few kilos enjoying the food while I was there. Then, while in California, I spontaneously entered the gorgeous San Diego Beach & Bay Half Marathon and, even more spontaneously, ended up running it considerably harder than planned.

Back in Britain, with London approaching, I decided three days before the marathon to have my first proper leg massage in years. The masseur went deep. Very deep. My legs immediately seemed to go into recovery mode and still weren’t right on race morning. Getting under three hours at London required far more effort than it should have done.

The lesson is simple: when preparation has been imperfect, make the final few days boring. Nothing new on race day, and preferably nothing new immediately before it either.

3. Accept the fitness you have – and recalibrate your goals

There may be perfectly good reasons why you are not in peak form: illness, injury, work, family commitments, travel or simply a training block that never quite came together. But by race week, the reasons don’t really matter. They explain your fitness; they don’t change it.

That is what I like about Ingebrigtsen’s line. You really can’t fake fitness. You can’t talk yourself into fitness you haven’t built, and there is little point blaming everything around you when the evidence says you simply aren’t in the shape you wanted to be. At some point, you have to own where you are.

That also means recalibrating what success looks like. Before London in 2024, I had rather foolishly committed publicly to running two sub-three marathons that year for charity, so there was still a hard outcome I felt I needed to achieve. At least I had abandoned any thoughts of a PB before race day. The objective became much simpler: get the job done and run under three hours.

There is nothing defeatist about adjusting a target when the evidence changes. If your training says one thing and your original target says another, believing harder in the target isn’t going to close the gap. Accept where you are and race accordingly.

4. Learn the lessons

Once you’ve accepted that you’re not in the shape you wanted to be, it’s worth being honest about why. Sometimes there really is nothing you could have done differently: illness and injury happen, and life occasionally gets in the way. But sometimes there are things you can learn from. Was your training too inconsistent? Did you try to race too often? Did you neglect recovery, strength work or sleep? Did you simply expect a level of fitness that the work you were doing was unlikely to produce?

I can already see things I want to do differently next year. I want to improve my body composition, get back to more consistently high mileage, and carefully phase in more strength and conditioning and plyometric work. This summer has also reminded me how much I benefit from long, uninterrupted periods of consistent running. None of that can change the fitness I take to Copenhagen, but it can change the fitness I take to races next year.

The point isn’t to beat yourself up about what went wrong. It’s to avoid wasting a disappointing or disrupted training block. If you come out of it understanding a little more about what works for you – and what doesn’t – it can still make you a better runner.

There can also be an opportunity to use a race when you’re below your best as a bit of a sandbox. Copenhagen could be that for me. Because I’m not going into it convinced I’m in PB shape, I can afford to experiment with something I might be more reluctant to try when everything is on the line. In this case, that could mean trying to run very consistent splits rather than deliberately building in a time buffer during the first half in anticipation of slowing later on. It might not produce my fastest half marathon, but it could give me useful pacing experience for a future race when I am in better shape. The key is to experiment with a clear purpose, rather than simply trying something new in the hope that it works.

5. Remember that this isn’t your last shot

A disrupted build-up can make a particular race feel much more important than it really is. You put it in the diary months ago, perhaps booked flights and hotels, and imagined the shape you would be in by the time it arrived. When that shape doesn’t materialise, there can be a temptation to try to rescue everything on one race day.

But there will almost always be another training block and another race. You might not get the performance you originally wanted this time around, but that doesn’t mean the work has been wasted or that the opportunity has gone. Looking further ahead makes it easier to be sensible about the race immediately in front of you.

6. Take the pressure off

Finally, manage expectations – both your own and everyone else’s. Announcing an unrealistic target does not suddenly create the fitness required to achieve it. More often, it just gives you something else to worry about when you are already unsure of your form.

Lowering expectations doesn’t mean giving yourself permission to run badly, and it shouldn’t become an exercise in making excuses before you have even reached the start line. It means being honest about where you are and taking some unnecessary pressure off yourself. Set a realistic goal, race sensibly and leave open the possibility that you might surprise yourself.

Being in peak form is great when it happens, but it won’t happen for every race. Sometimes the challenge is simply to get the best possible result from the fitness you actually have. There’s a lot of satisfaction to be had in doing that well.