Beating the Plateau: Why Variety is Key for Continued Running Improvement

We runners tend to be creatures of habit. Once we settle into a steady training routine that seems to be working, we just lock it in week after week, month after month. You know what I mean: a Tuesday track workout, a Thursday tempo run, and a long run on Saturday. Rinse and repeat.

But after hitting new PRs for a few cycles, you suddenly realize your times have stalled. You feel just as fit, but those interval splits aren’t getting any faster. What gives?

Your Body Craves Variety

The issue is likely not a lack of consistency or dedication on your part. On the contrary, your body has adapted extremely well to the specific stress stimuli you’ve been subjecting it to for months on end. And now it’s saying:

“Thanks but no thanks—been there, done that!”

To keep improving as a runner, you need to incorporate more variety into your training. Here’s why:

• Your body thrives on new stresses and stimuli
• Doing the same workouts week after week leads to adaptation plateau
• Varied training keeps challenging your body in new ways
• New stresses force new adaptations and improvements

Where to Add More Variety

There are a few different ways you can shake up your training for renewed adaptation:

Within Single Workouts

• Don’t just do the same 1-mile interval workout every Tuesday. Mix up the durations; try 800s one week, 1200s the next.
• Combo workouts with different stresses are excellent for variety within a session. For example, mix hill repeats with 200-meter strides.

Within a training cycle,

• identify your weaknesses and spend focused cycles directly addressing them through variety in training stimuli. For example:
  • If endurance is holding you back, dedicate a 12-week cycle to pure aerobic base-building.
  • If you lack leg speed, spend 8–12 weeks focused on form drills, plyometrics, hills, and heavy speedwork.

Across Multiple Seasons

• Avoid doing marathon after marathon or the same 10K tune-up race every May. Periodically switch focus to a completely different distance.
• Training for a 5K if you’ve been doing long-distance races, it will force vastly different stimuli and adaptations. The variety will reenergize your continued progression at all distances.

Elites Constantly Vary Their Training

Checkout what the top American runners over the past couple decades like Deena Kastor, Meb Keflezighi, Desi Linden, and Shalane Flanagan, have done.

None of them remained stagnant for long or stuck to just one specialty forever. Instead, they sought variety:

• Deena excelled at distances from 5K up to the marathon
• Meb won Boston in 2014 after taking Olympic marathon silver in 2004
• Desi won Boston in 2018 after focusing on road racing from 1500 m to the half marathon
• Shalane mixed in Boston Marathons wins with a NYC title and a 10,000-bronze medal at the Rio Olympics

The lesson is clear: consistent variety across distances, seasons, and macrocycles delivers continued progression and the avoidance of plateaus.

So break out of the habit rut! Mix up your training formats, cycles, and race distances. Keep your body guessing and adapting to new stimuli. You’ll find that variety itself becomes a crucial consistency element that leads to breaking barriers and setting new PRs year after year.

Just ask Meb, Deena, Desi, Shalane, or any elite runner. Avoiding ruts through planned variety is a pillar of their sustained excellence. Make it one for you too!