At some point during your marathon, there’s a good chance you’ll feel terrible.
Your legs might suddenly feel heavy. The pace that felt comfortable earlier can become much harder to maintain. You may start questioning whether you went out too fast, whether you’re properly fuelled, or whether you can keep going for another 10 or 15 kilometres.
When that happens, don’t automatically assume your race is over.
Marathons have good patches and bad patches.
Even when you’ve trained well, paced sensibly and practised your fuelling, there can be periods when running suddenly feels much harder. Difficult moments are a normal part of marathon racing, and preparing mentally for them can help you respond constructively rather than panic.
The key is having a plan for what you’ll do when the bad patch arrives.
Expect the Marathon to Get Difficult
One of the biggest mistakes you can make is standing on the start line expecting your marathon to feel good from beginning to end.
It probably won’t.
That doesn’t mean you should expect disaster. It means recognising that running 42.2 kilometres is demanding and that how you feel can change considerably throughout the race.
You might feel fantastic at 15 kilometres.
Ordinary at 25 kilometres.
Terrible at 32 kilometres.
Then surprisingly reasonable again at 36 kilometres.
A difficult kilometre doesn’t necessarily predict how you’ll feel for the rest of the marathon.
If you’ve already accepted that there may be a bad patch, you’re less likely to panic when it appears.
Instead of:
“Something has gone terribly wrong.”
You can tell yourself:
“This is the difficult patch I knew might come. Let’s deal with it.”
That is a very different conversation to have with yourself.
Don’t Make a 42.2-Kilometre Decision Based on One Bad Kilometre
When you’re tired, your thinking can become very short-term.
A difficult kilometre can suddenly feel like evidence that the remaining race is going to be miserable.
You start calculating how far you have left.
Ten kilometres feeling like this?
I can’t do that.
But you don’t know that the next 10 kilometres will feel like the kilometre you’re currently running.
So don’t make a decision about the entire marathon based on how you feel right now.
Deal with the kilometre you’re in.
Then reassess.
Run Through Your Checklist
When a bad patch arrives, give yourself something constructive to do.
Start with the basics.
Ask yourself:
- How is my pacing?
- When did I last take some nutrition?
- Have I been drinking appropriately?
- Am I getting too hot or too cold?
- Have I started tensing my shoulders or changing my running form?
- Have I accidentally increased my effort?
Sometimes there will be something obvious you can address.
Perhaps you’ve missed a planned gel.
Maybe you’ve been pushing harder than intended because you’ve been trying to stay with another runner.
Perhaps you’ve stopped drinking because you were concentrating on maintaining pace.
Correct what you reasonably can, then give your body time to respond.
Your first reaction shouldn’t necessarily be:
“My race is falling apart.”
It should be:
“What can I control right now?”
Check Your Pacing Before You Fight the Pace
If your target pace suddenly becomes difficult, the natural reaction can be to fight harder to maintain it.
Be careful.
There are times when maintaining pace is appropriate, but blindly forcing a number on your watch can make a difficult situation worse.
Consider what’s happening around you.
Are you climbing?
Running into a headwind?
Has the temperature increased?
Are you on a difficult section of the course?
Your watch knows the pace you’re running. It doesn’t necessarily understand why that pace currently requires more effort.
Good marathon pacing is about distributing your effort intelligently across the entire race, rather than demanding identical pace regardless of circumstances. Conservative, controlled pacing is also one of the best ways to reduce the likelihood of creating a major late-race problem in the first place. Runner’s World
Sometimes a small temporary adjustment can be much smarter than stubbornly forcing the pace until the wheels come off completely.
Keep Fuelling
A bad patch is not the time to abandon your fuelling plan.
When runners begin struggling, it can become harder to think clearly about nutrition. You become focused on your legs, your pace and how uncomfortable you feel.
Then another aid station passes.
And another gel gets delayed.
If your fuelling strategy has been practised during training and you’re tolerating it appropriately, keep executing it.
Don’t wait until you feel completely depleted before thinking about fuel.
Likewise, don’t panic and suddenly consume three gels because you’re feeling bad.
Stick as closely as practical to the strategy you’ve rehearsed.
Your training has already taught you what works.
Relax Your Body
When things get difficult, runners often become tense.
Shoulders rise.
Hands tighten.
Facial muscles tense.
Running starts to look—and feel—more forced.
Use your bad patch as a cue to perform a quick body check.
Relax your shoulders.
Unclench your hands.
Run tall.
Let your arms move naturally.
You aren’t trying to magically remove the fatigue.
You’re trying to avoid wasting additional energy fighting against your own body.
A simple cue word can help.
It might be:
Relax.
Tall.
Smooth.
Strong.
Choose something that means something to you and practise using it during training.
Shrink the Marathon
Thinking about the entire remaining distance can be overwhelming when you’re struggling.
If you’re at 30 kilometres, don’t ask yourself how you’re going to run another 12.2 kilometres.
Shrink the target.
Get to the next kilometre marker.
Then the next aid station.
Then the next corner.
Perhaps focus on the runner 50 metres ahead.
When you reach that target, choose another one.
Breaking an endurance event into smaller sections—often called chunking—is a recognised psychological strategy that allows athletes to focus on immediate process goals rather than becoming overwhelmed by the complete task ahead. Plymouth Marjon University Repository
You don’t need to mentally finish the marathon while standing at kilometre 31.
You only need to deal with what you’re doing now.
Don’t Let Negative Thoughts Become Facts
There’s an important difference between:
“This feels really difficult.”
and:
“I’m falling apart.”
The first is an observation.
The second is a conclusion.
When you’re tired, it becomes easy to treat every negative thought as if it’s an objective assessment of your race.
It isn’t.
You might be struggling.
But struggling doesn’t necessarily mean failing.
Your legs might hurt because you’ve run 35 kilometres.
Maintaining pace might require concentration because you’re racing a marathon.
You might desperately want to slow down because you’re doing something genuinely difficult.
None of those things automatically mean you can’t continue.
Constructive self-talk and task-focused strategies are commonly recommended for managing the psychological demands of the later stages of a marathon. Runner’s World
Remember That Feelings Change
One of the most useful things endurance athletes learn through experience is that how you feel isn’t constant.
A bad patch can pass.
Perhaps some carbohydrate and fluid begin taking effect.
Maybe the road turns and the headwind disappears.
You reach the top of the hill.
You find another runner moving at your pace.
The crowd becomes louder.
Or sometimes nothing obvious changes—you simply find another rhythm.
That’s why patience matters.
Give yourself the opportunity to come through the difficult section before deciding that your marathon has gone wrong.
But Don’t Ignore a Genuine Problem
Preparing for bad patches doesn’t mean ignoring warning signs.
There is a difference between the normal discomfort and fatigue of marathon racing and symptoms suggesting you should stop or seek medical assistance.
Severe dizziness, confusion, chest pain, collapsing, significant breathing difficulties or other concerning symptoms aren’t something you should try to overcome with positive thinking.
Likewise, if you develop an injury that substantially changes how you’re running, blindly pushing through isn’t automatically courageous.
A bad patch plan is about responding calmly to normal race difficulty.
It isn’t permission to ignore your health.
Practise Bad Patches During Training
You can’t manufacture every race-day situation during training, but your long runs provide opportunities to practise how you respond when things become difficult.
There will be training days when you don’t feel particularly good.
Use them.
Rather than immediately becoming frustrated, practise your response.
Check your posture.
Use your cue word.
Focus on the next kilometre.
Follow your fuelling plan.
Notice the difference between genuine warning signs and ordinary fatigue.
You’re developing more than physical endurance.
You’re rehearsing race-day behaviour.
Write Your Bad Patch Plan Before Race Day
Before your marathon, answer one question:
What will I do when I start struggling?
Keep the answer simple enough that you’ll remember it when you’re tired.
For example:
Relax → Check pace → Fuel → Drink → Next kilometre.
That’s not complicated.
It doesn’t need to be.
When your brain is tired at kilometre 34, a five-step checklist is far more useful than a motivational speech you can’t remember.
I’ve used the same principle with long-course triathletes: expect difficult periods, avoid emotional decisions, check the basics and reduce the race to the next manageable task. The principle transfers perfectly to marathon racing. Coach Ray – Qwik Kiwi Coaching
Your Bad Patch Doesn’t Have to Define Your Marathon
You can run a good marathon without feeling good for every kilometre.
In fact, part of racing the marathon well is learning how to respond when it stops feeling good.
When the bad patch arrives:
Stay calm.
Check your pacing.
Take your planned nutrition.
Get some fluid.
Relax your body.
Focus on the next manageable target.
Then keep moving forward.
Don’t make a 42.2-kilometre decision based on one difficult kilometre.
Sometimes the bad patch passes.
Give yourself the chance to find out.
Ready to Run Your Best Marathon?
Whether you’re training for your first marathon or chasing a new PB, physical fitness is only part of being properly prepared. Your pacing, fuelling and race-day mindset all need a plan too.
If you’d like help developing a marathon strategy that prepares you for both the good kilometres and the difficult ones, book a free, no-obligation 40-minute coaching consultation.
We’ll talk about your goals, your training, your upcoming race and how you can arrive on the start line prepared to manage whatever the marathon throws at you.
👉 Book your free marathon consultation here:
The goal isn’t to avoid every bad patch. It’s to know what to do when one arrives.