Training for a time or pace goal? You’ve finished the distance. Now the goal gets specific.
- Emma O'Toole
- 3 minutes ago
- 6 min read
For many runners and cyclists, there comes a point where finishing the distance is no longer the challenge. The next step is learning how to perform better at that same distance: holding a stronger pace, riding with more control, or hitting a specific time goal.
This article explains why many athletes stall at this stage: their training is either very easy or very hard, with little time spent at the intensity that actually matters on race day. You’ll learn how race distance changes what you should prioritise, why Zone 3 isn’t the enemy when used deliberately, how to introduce race-specific intensity without burning out, and how strength training supports your ability to hold pace under fatigue.
Strength training for runners and cyclists over 30 is a game-changer for performance, resilience, and long-term health.
If you want the full breakdown, check out my Strength Training Over 30 Guides:
TRAINING BREAKDOWN
"What’s missing is time spent at the intensity that actually matters for the race/event."
By Emma O'Toole
Hi there!
I still remember the first time I stopped thinking “can I finish this?” and started thinking “how can I do this better?”.
The distance itself wasn’t intimidating anymore. What mattered was how it felt, how well I paced it, whether I could actually hold the effort I wanted to hold and the time on the watch.
Since then, I’ve seen the exact same mindset change happen with so many runners and cyclists I work with.
There often comes a point in running and cycling where finishing is no longer the goal.
You may have already completed the distance. You know you can get round and now the target becomes more specific, for example:
Run a marathon under 3:30.
Ride 100km in under four hours.
Or maybe it’s simply holding a stronger pace, feeling more controlled, or finishing knowing you paced it well.
This is a natural progression and a sound one.
The goal behind any new race distance should always be to complete it first. That foundation matters. But once you’ve done that, aiming to perform better at that same distance is a challenge and a form of development.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re at the sharper end of the field or further back. What matters is that you’re trying to improve your performance.
Many runners and cyclists here hit a roadblock, not from the goal, but how to train for it.
They set the target, follow a plan, stay consistent, yet still feel unsure whether their training weeks actually reflect the outcome they want to achieve.
Usually this is attributed to this:
A mismatch between goal pace and training pace.
A runner or cyclist has a clear idea of the pace, speed or power they want to hold on race day, but when you look at their training, almost all of it sits in one of two places:
Very easy.
Or very hard.
There are plenty of Zone 2 runs and rides aimed at aerobic development. Then there are short, sharp efforts at the other end of the spectrum: 400m reps, or 90-120 second intervals, 30/30 VO2 work.
Everything is either comfortable and controlled, or full gas.
What’s missing is time spent at the intensity that actually matters for the race/event.
As a result, when race day arrives, many runners and cyclists don’t really know what their target race effort feels like. They’ve trained around it, but not at it.
Why the distance changes what you should prioritise
Not all endurance events rely on the same limiting factors:
A 5km is not a marathon, just as a punchy 40-60 minute race is not the same as a long sportive or a 200km audax.
Your training distribution needs to reflect that.
When we look at endurance performance, the main contributors tend to be aerobic capacity, lactate threshold, and efficiency or economy. But the weighting of those factors changes with the distance you’re training for, and of course your individual strengths and weaknesses.
If your goal is shorter and faster, like a 5km, 10 mile time trial or short road race, you need to be able to sustain a relatively high percentage of your maximum effort. That means more work closer to threshold, with some harder efforts layered in to raise the ceiling.
That does not mean hammering every session, long runs and rides certainly still have their place, however we need to accept that zone 2 training alone won’t make race intensity suddenly manageable.
If you’re targeting a sub-20 minute 5km, you cannot live purely in zone 2 and expect the pace to take care of itself.
On the other end of the spectrum, longer events like the marathon, 100km sportives or audax rides demand a much bigger aerobic base and far greater fatigue resistance.
The marathon is not just about being fit; it’s about staying efficient when you’re tired.
What you can do in the first 60-90 minutes is not the same as what you can sustain after 120-150 minutes and beyond. That change has real implications for pacing, fuelling, and how your training should be structured.
So, volume and low-intensity work matter massively for longer events. However, lower intensity does not mean no exposure to race pace, especially if you have a time-based goal in mind.
Zone 3 is not the enemy, it is a tool
Zone 3 often gets misunderstood and a bad rep. Some runners and cyclists avoid it completely because they’ve been told it’s the “grey zone”.
A lot, however, drift into it most days because true zone 2 feels too easy and they want to feel like they’ve “done something”.
Both approaches miss the point: Zone 3 is useful when it is planned, yet Zone 3 becomes a problem when every run/ride is done at that intensity.
If your race/event requires you to hold a steady pace or power for a prolonged period, you need some exposure to that intensity in training, eg. 8:01 minute miles to run a 3:30hr marathon.
The amount of exposure will change depending on how close you are to race day, and it should not appear in every session. It’s added deliberately so your body learns the specific demand and you can express your fitness on race day.
This doesn’t need to be complicated, but it does need to be well thought out.
If you suddenly add a load of race-intensity into your week, you’re going to leave yourself feeling burnt out sooner rather than later. I’d recommend introducing race-intensity gradually and typically later in a training block is where we see higher volumes of it.
Here’s a simple example of how this might look in practice:
A runner training for a marathon:
Long runs with a fast finish, where the final 15-30 minutes gradually move towards marathon target pace and/or for more experienced runners, steady-state long runs made up of controlled blocks such as 2-3 × 5km at roughly 15-20 seconds per km quicker than target marathon pace.
Steady state runs with 3× 10 min intervals at target marathon effort.
A cyclist training for a 10 mile time trial:
Threshold intervals at target 10 mile TT power, eg 2× 15 min at roughly ~95-102% FTP (or best estimated TT power).
Sweetspot intervals built into a long ride, eg. 3× 10 mins at sweetspot at 88-92% FTP built into a 55-75% FTP zone 2 long ride.
Where possible, complete these efforts in your TT position and at a cadence similar to race day.
Where strength training ties it all together
Holding race pace is not just an aerobic challenge, it’s a structural one.
As fatigue builds, posture drops, mechanics change, efficiency declines. That’s when your pace fades, power drifts, and niggles can begin to appear.
Strength training helps you to resist fatigue, it improves postural control under fatigue, increases force production per stride or pedal stroke, and improves tissue tolerance so your body can handle both volume and intensity.
Earlier in a training block, strength work builds capacity and robustness. Closer to race day, it helps you hold onto those adaptations without adding unnecessary fatigue.
For runners and cyclists over 30, this doesn’t mean hours spent on strength training at home or in the gym. Rather, it means two well-planned sessions per week, done consistently, then adjusted as your event approaches, this is the exact system we see in my BUILT TO RUN OVER 30 and BUILT TO RIDE OVER 30 twelve week strength training programmes.
The goal is to be durable enough to express your endurance fitness.
If you’re reading this with a time or pace goal in the back of your mind, you need purposeful and planned exposure to the pace or power you plan to sustain on race day. Ask yourself one simple question:
Does my training week prepare me to sustain the pace or power I want to hold on race day?
If the answer is not at the moment, use that as information you can act on. Jump into my free community for runners and cyclists over 30 for advice on how you can integrate this into your training week.
Happy running and riding!
Emma x
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