RTTC# 205 When Is It OK to Train the Full Race Distance?

In this episode of Running to the Castle, Dr. Ali explains when it actually makes sense to train the full race distance for a half marathon or marathon… and why most slow, back-of-the-pack runners shouldn’t do it during race training. 

She breaks down why her training philosophy focuses on time on your feet rather than full distance, and how going all the way to 13.1 or 26.2 miles during a training cycle can lead to exhaustion or injury for non-elite runners. 

Dr. Ali also explains the five phases of a successful training cycle and reveals the one phase where running the full race distance can be useful if you need the confidence or mental reassurance that you can finish. 

By understanding when to push your distance and when to protect your body, runners can train smarter, stay healthier, and arrive at race day ready to finish strong instead of feeling broken. 

Learn more about Stronger. Faster. Finisher. !

Ready to cross the finish line stronger, faster, and prouder at your next runDisney race? 

Get personalized support, smarter training, and strategies designed specifically for slow, back-of-the-pack or injury-prone runners who want to build a bigger buffer ahead of the balloon ladies, have time for character photos and energy to enjoy the Disney Parks. Learn more about the Stronger. Faster. Finisher. Program today and be the first to know when doors open!

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  Hi, I'm Dr. Ali
  I've been running for 15+ years and been in the rehab space since 2012 when I earned my Doctor of Physical Therapy Degree. I get injury prone runDisney runners across the finish line without feeling broken.

Transcript

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Hey, how's it going? Today I'm talking about when is it okay to train the full race distance? This is Running to the Castle, a podcast for injury-prone Run Disney runners on a journey to running magical miles. Join me, Dr. Alley, as I share the secrets I've gathered as a runner, doctor of physical therapy, and coach. You'll learn the exact ways I get my clients to the castle strong without feeling broken or held together with KT tape as they cross the finish line. In Stronger, Faster Finisher the other day, we were talking about confidence in completing a half marathon specifically. This does translate to other race distances, specifically talking about having confidence to make sure that the last couple of miles of the half marathon, you feel strong. You're not all in your head, and you you feel good. And so we were talking about it that uh one of the runners did marathon weekend half marathon and felt like she just kind of hit a wall at, you know, the 10 mile-ish mark. I I can't remember the exact mileage that she said, but I'm pretty sure it was around 10. And was like, how do I make it so that I can make sure I feel confident in those last couple of miles? So we talked about it. And there are a couple of things. I'm gonna talk mostly the point of today's episode is figuring out when you can train to the full half marathon or full marathon distance if you're doing a full marathon. Basically, when can you train that full race distance? Because you've heard me say over and over and over again, train up to 10 miles for the half marathon, 20 miles for the full marathon, because doing the full race distance in training is a recipe for exhaustion and a recipe for injury for somebody who's injury prone. Now, I do know that listeners listening to this podcast, not all of you are injury prone, but you do consider yourself slow, back of the pack, going to finish the half marathon in three and a half, four hours, three hours to four hours, I'd say, right? Or a marathon in five and a half, six and a half, seven and a half, eight hours. And I say train up to 70% of race distance, but make your longest long run, your peak long run in training, be the amount of time it will take you on race day. Because then you can prove to yourself you can be on your feet for the full race time, right? Because that's ultimately what we need. We don't need to go the full distance. We just need to be out there for the full time because lots can happen on race day. Stop for a character, maybe a character's 30 minutes. So you're not running, but you're certainly on your feet, right? And we don't actually replicate that aspect of Run Disney in training. And I don't think you need to, uh, you never know how many characters you're gonna want to stop for, how many bathroom breaks. Well, the bathroom breaks that ends up being replicated on training, right? Like, I don't know about you, but if I'm doing a long run for my half marathon training, like I'm stopping for the bathroom once or twice, which is what I do on race day, once or twice, stopping for the bathroom. So that is accidentally replicated. Could we replicate the character stops? Sure. But we don't need to just like stand in quote unquote line for five minutes. We don't need to do that. So we don't replicate it. So I typically recommend in training that that's what you're doing. When is it okay to do more than that and make sure that you can finish that race and do it feeling strong? So, first, I want to back up and let you know there are multiple reasons why somebody may not feel strong. They may hit the wall at the 10 mile mark. Jeff Galloway's programming, their philosophy is you hit the wall at the mileage you train to, which is why they go above race distance in their training. That is one way of thinking. Another thing that could happen with hitting the wall is fueling. You hit a wall because you literally don't have the energy stores anymore. Your gas tank has run out of gas. Nothing coming in, no energy expenditure out. Right? Like you're feeling fatigued, legs are heavy, things like that. Another option is that you went out too fast for the race. Another option is you just aren't trained enough for that race environment, whether it be the race distance, humidity, temperature, what you wore, the excitement, the stress of it all. Like there are so many factors. We can't control all of those factors in that last category. Can't control them. We can't control the temperature, we can't control the humidity. We can do our best to prep and practice in multiple conditions as best we can, depending on when we where we live. And so we do our best to prep for race day. So then let's look at these other things. So the bonking at the distance you train to. I agree to that to a point, which is why I recommend training to the amount of time that you're gonna be on your feet. It's the same concept, right? Just fewer mileage on your body, less pounding on your knees, your ankles, your hips, your back, but you're still up for the same amount of time that it's going to take you on race day without as many steps, like literal steps, one foot after the other, literal steps, which then translates to less pounding, less pressure, less stress on your joints. In the physical therapy world, well, in just the running world in general, you will hear people say, like, marathons are gonna ruin your knees. In the physical therapy world, ruining your knees typically translates to you have arthritis and you need knee replacements. My specialty is arthritis, meniscus problems with a side of Achilles tendinopathy. Achilles tendinopathy, because that's what my research was based on in my capstone course, my final year of grad school and my doctor of physical therapy program. When I went through schooling, we do four internships. And all of my internships, I don't know how it happened because it was not supposed to happen this way. All of my internships had to do with arthritis. I did outpatient orthopedics, and that was a lot of meniscus problems. A lot of people with meniscus problems then have arthritis. But also, spoiler alert, anybody over the age of 20 has some amount of arthritis. We have wrinkles on our skin as part of the aging process with collagen distribution and breakdown. Arthritis is wrinkles on the inside. That is not my quote. I got that from somewhere. I wish I wrote down years and years and years ago where I first found that. But arthritis is wrinkles on the inside. Everybody over the age of 20 has at least a little bit of arthritis. So outpatient ortho, a lot of meniscus problems, a lot of ACL injuries there too, because um we were associated with Brown University. And um, so the rugby team would come in and some other groups, sports teams would come in. A lot of ACL injuries. Then I did a subacute rehab, which is short-term rehab after you've been at the hospital. Like you're gonna only stay for a week or two. I was on the joint replacement floor. So that was a lot of knee and hip replacements. Then after that, I went to um an acute care hospital again, was on the ortho and trauma floor a lot, a lot of knee replacements. And then my last location was outpatient orthopedics again. And it was a lot of sports, recreational sports activities. It was in San Diego and the clinic itself took in all ages, but there's a group of, I'd say, age 40 to 60 was a very common age, and they were all a very active population. So we saw a lot of meniscus and arthritis there. Whole point of this story is I have seen arthritis from every aspect of it, from when they're just in physical therapy. You know, the insurance says before you get a knee replacement and before you get knee injections, you have to go to six weeks of physical therapy to fail it. Saw it from that aspect to the inpatient acute, the hospital aspect where they had just had the knee replacement. We ran the joint replacement program. Like we did the pre-op stuff that they have to go through, the measurements and the education portion of what rehab is going to look like after. And then we ran the class two times a day, daily for five days. And everybody also got treatment in addition to that class. So I saw it immediate post-op and then subacute rehab. I was on the joint replacement floor again. So I saw it in those two weeks after. And then I was an outpatient ortho again. I've seen it. And the people who need the knee replacements, no, not everybody, but the people who tend to have worse osteoarthritis, I'm not talking rheumatoid arthritis, I'm not talking gouty arthritis, I'm not talking like the systemic autoimmune stuff. I'm talking strictly osteoarthritis. The people who had the worst arthritis were the ones who ran themselves into the ground, not literally like running, but activity-wise did too much, or who did nothing. Two opposite ends of that spectrum. Those were the ones who had the worst pain, not necessarily the worst arthritis, but the pain-wise is what ultimately translated to really, really needing that knee replacement, where the doctor wasn't like, okay, like we could or we couldn't. Yeah. They were like, no, no, no, like this is your option. The people who dabbled in the middle and did some, but didn't push the limits too much for their body could live with arthritis and never need a knee replacement or never need a hip replacement. And this is also excluding traumatic events, car accidents and things like that. So we want some activity, but not too much. So that's why I recommend that time on your feet. Like this is where the background of where this philosophy came into play and where I started dabbling with it in the physical therapy world. I would have my meniscus runners, my runners with meniscus problems or arthritis. Well, I want to train for a half marathon. Well, I want to train for a full marathon. And I started researching, well, how far do you actually have to train to to be successful? And with the research I did, it was actually eight miles for a half marathon, but the 10 mile mark is like a sweet spot, right? Like, same thing with the full marathon. 16 to 18 is doable, but 20 is a is the sweet spot where people are like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's quote unquote just a 10K after this. And so that's why I recommend 20, because it's still it's it's still in that like 70 to 80 percent range. Same thing with 10 miles. That's 70 to 80 percent of a half marathon. But could you successfully finish after eight miles? Yes, you could. Cause some of the research out there is saying, well, it's a mental game after that. Like you don't get more quote unquote fit beyond eight miles for a half marathon. And you don't get more quote unquote fit beyond 16 to 18 miles. I mean, of course, yes, you get a little bit more fit, but not like a significant jump compared to leading up to 16 miles. But my runners have said to me, no, I want to get to 20, like 20. 20 is a good number for me mentally. Literally, this is where this came from with me. I had conversations with my runners and they were like, but can I do 20? And I looked into it. Yes, yes, it doesn't go above that threshold. And for 10, 10 is nice for me. Like I like getting to 10. And my runners have said, well, at least 10. Can I do 10? Yes. Because I want you to be able to do what you feel mentally you need and not overdo it. So when you're in the training phase, remember I have five phases to a successful running journey to be able to cross that finish line successfully without injury, without feeling broken, right? The training phase, that's where you actively train for a running race. The taper phase, that's the couple of weeks leading up to the race where you've brought down, you've tapered down from the long distance running and the speed workout and the strength training, and you're gearing your body up, conserving your energy to have the energy for race day. There's race week or race phase, rather, that is happening race week. So if you have a race on Sunday, that starts the Monday of that race week, right? Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday is race day. And then we have rest and recovery. That starts when you cross the finish line. And then you have the build phase. And the build phase is any amount of time between the two weeks after the race, so after rest and recovery phase before your official training starts for your next race. That could be weeks, that could be months, that could be years. It's the amount of time between rest and recovery and when training starts for your next race. So when I say only go to 10 miles for a half marathon or only go to 20 miles for a full marathon, I mean during the training phase, when you're training for that race, you are actively training for that race. It is in your sight line. So training for wine and dine 2026 as an example starts June 15th. Soon as June 15th hits, you are in training phase for wine and dime. If you're training for Dopey 2027, training phase starts June 29th. As soon as June 29th hits, you are in training phase. Let's say you are in the build phase and it's four months long. I added an extra month to correlate with this. Training for a half marathon is four months long. And you feel like you really want to train up to a full half marathon distance before wine and dime. And let's say it's February when you realize this. You have four months before wine and dine training starts. You can train up to the half marathon in that four months. Do your build up adding 10% each week until you get to 13.1 before wine and dine training ever starts. This is exactly what I talked about in Stronger Fast Finisher this week. A runner did the half marathon, marathon weekend, and didn't have any more races at that distance. She's doing some 5Ks, doesn't have any more races beyond the 5Ks that she's doing for fun. They're local, until Wine and Dine two course challenge in October of 2026. Rest and recovery phase started January 12th for her, or January 11th, as she crossed the finish line for the half marathon. January 11th, 2026. She has until June 15th, 2026. That's January to February, February to March, March to April, April to May, May to June. That's five whole months. That's more than four months of training for a half marathon. And bonus, she has already trained up to a half marathon. So we don't need to start at zero again. So training for another half marathon actually wouldn't even take her the full four months. This is her build phase. This is the ideal time to train up to 13.1 miles in training before wine and dying training ever starts. So I adjusted her program so that she'll actually get to 13.1 miles in her training the week of May 11th. And that still gives her one whole month to recover, which I do recommend that she do another rest and recovery from that half marathon distance, rest and recovery for two weeks. Then we'll maybe do two weeks of 5K as a long distance before wine and dying training starts again. Because that gives her body so much time to rest and recover. The reason during training, I recommend only going up to 70% of race distance is because it's so hard on your body. Race day is so hard on your body. Being on your feet for that amount of time, running that many miles is so hard on your body. It's okay to do. I'm not saying don't do it, but it's hard on your body and you need to adequately recover before race day. If you train up to doing 13.1 miles all the way up to race day, your body never, let's say, here, let's do it this way. So when I did my first half marathon, I just hodgepodge put training plans together based on my knowledge of how to train with the research I had done in grad school and the running I was doing. Like I wasn't a runner growing up. I started running in college. I started running because I gained the freshman 15. Turns out it was from a medication I had on. They had got me on. I had chronic migraines. Turns out I was stressed because I was a freshman in the physical therapy program. Stressful. Who would have thought? Hmm. Um, and so I started running so that I could exercise to lose weight and so that I could also study because I felt like when I was working out, I was wasting my time and not being able to study. And then when I was studying, I felt like, oh, I could have just maybe I should have just worked out the studying is not working for me today. So I just combined them for some of the stuff I needed to study. Anyway, I wasn't a runner. And so I studied training plans. And then for my first half marathon, I trained to 12 miles the week before my half marathon. Did I finish? Yeah. Did I feel like I got hit by a train? You betcha. It was awful. Like I think I rested and like did nothing for a couple of weeks. But then I also signed up for another half marathon a um a couple months later. So it was July. I did the race, and then I did another one September 29th. And so I rested and like did nothing. And then I just like jumped back into it and again felt like hot garbage. And I have learned, and that's why my training plans look the way they look. But I didn't know any better. I just like took information and kind of hodgepodge put it together. And then 13 years later, I have done these different things myself and I have put, God, I don't even know. Hundreds? I don't know. How many numbers just aren't working for how many runners I have helped at this point. But well, it's gotta be more than a hundred because I've worked with a hundred Run Disney runners just in the past three years. Yeah, hundreds now. It's a weird realization. You are listening to me realize this in real time. I don't think about this often. Anyway, going through this myself and then working with hundreds of runners, slow runners, this is it works. I have seen it time and time again, not just with myself, but with all these other runners. And the the recommendation 10 miles for a half marathon is just during the training phase, so that your body has enough time to recover before race day, because race day is hard on your body. If you want to Do the full distance, half marathon or full marathon, it has to be outside of training. So this example I gave was for wine and dime. Let's do an example for the marathon. So let's say somebody finished the marathon or they finished dopey or didn't finish dopey. It doesn't matter for this example. And well, let's say they did not finish. They did not cross the finish line at the marathon for Dopey. And they really think that this next time around, they really should finish or train up to the full 26.2 miles when they're training for the next one. That's fine as long as it's in the build phase. So, two ways you could do that, two ways I'm thinking up off the top of my head right now, push your next marathon out another year. Like don't do, let's say you did Dopey 2026 and you want to do a complete marathon training, like 26.2 miles in training before your next marathon. Skip marathon 2027, go for marathon 2028. Because then you have all sorts of time in your build phase, like years. It will be like 18 months, almost 18 months. You can do a slow build to build up to 26.2 miles before you ever hit official race training. Can you do it from dopey 2026 to marathon 2027? Yes, absolutely. There's just a crunch. And so it doesn't, it doesn't leave a ton of room to grieve the the DNF, which the runner may want. And that's okay. It allows for two to three weeks of rest and recovery. And then we're jumping right back in. But is it possible to train up to 26.2 miles for the Disney marathon, before the Disney Marathon to make sure that you can complete 26.2 miles? Yes, it just has to happen before June 29th of 2026. And June 29th is the first day of training for the marathon 2027. So if you did dopey 2026, take two to three weeks rest and recovery. And then you're in the build phase. And you have the build phase for five months. And now typically my training plan for the marathon is about seven months long. So five months, no, that's not the full training, right? But we just trained up to a marathon. We don't have to start at zero again. We don't have to go all the way down to 3.5, excuse me, 3.1 miles, the 5K distance, even, which is what my training plan starts at. We could do two to three weeks of rest of recovery, do a 5K to just like ease back into it, quote unquote, ease back into it. I can't believe I just used that phrase. I hate when like doctors use that phrase. Here I am. I have been influenced. Anyway, let's say we do 3.1 miles as that first long run back. The next week, we could do six. The following week, we could do seven. Yes, it's a one mile jump. We're not doing new miles anymore. It doesn't need to follow the 10% rule. And so this is how we could train up to 26.2. And that's how we could make sure that we're getting to cross the finish line for that full 26.2 miles. If you feel like you absolutely positively need all of the miles and not just the time on your feet, it has to be during the build phase. Has to be. Otherwise, it's a recipe for exhaustion or injury. Running 26.2 miles as your peak long run or more three weeks before race day, you are still going to be exhausted at the marathon race day. Because for a slow back of the pack runner, a non-elite runner, it's gonna take your body about two months to rest and recover from that distance. So we can do it. Let's say do 26.2 miles June 15th. Great, no problem. Then take a week or two to recover from that, or two, excuse me, the two weeks to recover, not a week or two, two to three weeks of recover, of recovery, and then into marathon or dopey training starting the two weeks later. So I guess that timeline's not right. I guess the the 26.2 would need to be like June 7th, and then two weeks off, two to three weeks off, and then June 29th, we're starting dopey training. That's how you make it work. It can be done. This is what I do with my runners and stronger, faster finisher. I look at the timeline. I look, is it possible? And I look at what you have done recently and how it felt. Did you not finish the race? Did you finish the race? How did you feel? Was it, you know, hitting a wall, or did you get injured, or were you in your mind too much? Was it a mental aspect? And I look at that and see how to incorporate adding more miles. If somebody got injured and that's why they didn't finish, and they got injured on the race, and that's why they didn't finish, this timeline that I just explained does not apply. You need to heal that injury, and that would be different, a different build phase while you're healing that injury. This this timeline that I gave is for somebody who was not injured. They either just couldn't keep the time, couldn't keep up the pace, and they got swept, or uh, you know, had were in their head, and it was a mental aspect of I hit 10 miles, oh, I hit 20 miles, and I just, I I need to practice being in my head for a whole 26.2, or it was a fueling issue. But if you got injured and that's why you didn't finish, this timeline does not apply. Take this information, use it to apply to your situation. It is possible to train up to the full distance before your race. It happens in the build phase, not during the training phase.