Training tips for Nashville’s Rock n Roll Half and Full Marathons

Hey Nashville! 

Our Rock’n’Roll race series is approaching quickly… anddd this is around the time that I tend to start seeing a lot of runners in my office due to injury. In order to hopefully prevent that being your experience, I wanted to put together some info to help with your race preparations. 

Important race info (based on 2025):

• Half marathon: 13.1 miles 

• Elevation: 575 ft of gain 

• Marathon: 26.2 miles

• Elevation: 958 ft of gain

**It’s common that race distances are slightly longer than the marketed distance. My most recent half marathon ended up being 13.4 miles instead of 13.1. Just something to keep in mind. 

Top 5 pieces of advice: 

1. If this is your first half or full marathon, focus on getting miles on your legs. Adding speed work and specific workouts is more beneficial once you have a good running base under your belt. Doing too much too soon is THE biggest reason I see a lot of injuries in newer runners. 

2. If you aren’t used to running hills, add elevation slowly and consistently. This is a hilly race. If you aren’t practicing hills during training runs, you’re going to be unprepared. That doesn’t mean you need to run hills during every run, but you should be practicing them a couple of times/week. 

Ways to safely add hills into your program: 

• Gradually add more hills into your easy runs- number of hills per run. 

• Don’t get caught in the trap of trying to maintain your pace up the hills at first. Your “easy pace” will change uphill since that takes more effort than running on flat terrain.

• If you’re adding hills, don’t add another variable at the same time. Ex: make sure you can run hills at an easy pace before adding something like hill sprints.   

3. Be wary of training apps. They work well for some people, but over the last year and a half I’ve seen that they tend to overprogram. That can mean, assigning more runs/week than the runner can tolerate or fit in their schedule or even doing too much speed work.

• Runners with a history of running-related injuries should be more cautious using these apps than runners who have been able to stay healthy while training. Unfortunately, past injuries are the number one risk factor for future pain/injury. This should be taken into account when programming, which most apps don’t do. 

4. Include deload, or cutback, weeks in your training plan. This is a good idea for all training. A deload week allows for improved recovery. This is especially important as you’re getting into longer runs and can be beneficial for injury prevention. 

How to deload: 

• Decrease that week’s volume 

• You can usually keep intensity (speed) similar that week unless you’re feeling really run down 

5. EAT lots of food. You should be increasing caloric intake as you increase your weekly mileage. Honestly, this tends to be one of the most challenging aspects of training for runners. Endurance athletes should not be relying on hunger cues to tell them when to eat. Doing this can lead to underfueling and low energy levels. 

Other important (basic) nutrition advice:

• Practicing fueling during runs is important. This not only provides you with sustained energy levels throughout longer runs, but it helps train your gut to be able to tolerate eating while exerting yourself. 

• I highly discourage training for a race and trying to lose weight at the same time. If you have performance goals, being in a caloric deficit is not only counterproductive, but it can also be dangerous. This causes an energy mismatch that can lead to increased risk of illness and severe injury. 

• And please DO NOT cut carbs while training. Carbs are the main energy source for our brain and any physical activity we partake in.

Bonus tip: 

**Don’t compare yourself to other runners. This is a trap and a good way to find yourself injured and/or really unhappy with the training process. Your training plan shouldn’t look exactly like your best friend’s. We are all different humans with different running experiences/injury histories/external life factors to deal with, and you deserve a plan that takes that into account. 

If you found this information helpful and are looking for more guidance, I offer individualized run coaching to take the guess-work out of your programming. For more information, you can book a discovery call with me here.   

I’ll also be co-hosting an Injury Prevention webinar with Katie Regan, RD in March that will do a deeper dive into the topics above. So, be on the lookout for the signup if you’re interested. Those on my newsletter list will get the information first. You can join by scrolling to the bottom of this page and adding your name.