How to Rebound After a Disappointing Race

Bounce back from bad races

We all know that every race we run isn’t going to be a home run. We’d certainly like them all to be, but the truth is, they all won’t be. And that could be for any number of reasons…

Not prepared to race
Hot weather
A long course (I’m looking at you Bangkok!)
Anything related to not feeling well

You get the picture. There are lots of reasons why races don’t go as planned. How you deal with that and how you overcome those bad races truly determines what kind of runner you can be. And think of it this way, while you may be totally bummed your race didn’t go well, it could be worse. You could be one of these runners who had bad races at the most important times of their career:

Jager tripping on sub-8 min pace for 3k steeple

How to Come Back After a Disappointing Race

Focus on the positives
Believe in yourself and your training
Talk to your coach or someone you trust
Get back out there and perform like you know you can

Having a Good Race

But when you do have a good race, it’s really a cause for celebration. Coming off of a poor performance and turning that around to have a good one is not only really satisfying, but makes you feel like all the work you’ve done has paid off.

Such is the case for TrainwithMarc’s Becky who was unlucky to run in the Savannah Half Marathon that had really hot temperatures on race day. She didn’t run anywhere near where she would have liked. We were disappointed – not so much in her performance, but in the fact that Mother Nature didn’t play nice. She could have let that bad half marathon sting her and keep her sidelined for a while, but she jumped back onto the race course and ran a superb 12k race – the USdot 12k in Northern Virginia.

In 2014 she ran this race in 1:27:05 and today I finished in 1:24:00! That’s such a big improvement over 1 year. That’s nearly 25 seconds per MILE faster than last year! Becky called it a “ nice improvement”; I’d call it freakin’ fantastic. She ran negative splits and felt really strong. Amazing job, Becky!