As the weather cools and the races lengthen, it’s even more important to remember that it’s all about pacing.You can witness bad pacing in just about any race. Watch the runners who are leading the first couple of hundred yards. Chances are that at the end of the race they’ll no longer be leading, finishing much farther back and in obvious distress. You can experience it yourself if you’re one of the runners who goes out at a faster pace than you can maintain--the exhilaration of early speed gives way to fatigue and the need to slow down, then pain and the need to slow down some more. Going out too fast is not the way to maximize your performance and it’s certainly not a fun way to run. And in longer races--well, a 26-mile marathon gives you a lot more time to regret early-race exuberance than a 3.1-mile 5K.
Part of the problem is adrenaline, the fight-or-flight hormone. The excitement accompanying a race causes adrenaline levels to rise, and you actually feel good running faster than you should. In distance running, this is only going to encourage you to write checks that you body won’t be able to cash. In talking about adrenaline, people will often tell stories about an aged grandmother lifting an automobile off her trapped grandson. That’s some impressive weight lifting, but it’s only one repetition. Adrenaline will produce short-term feats, but it’s not terribly useful for endurance events like distance running.
Even pacing is the way to get the most out of your body in a distance race, but how do you achieve it? In the 1920s, the great Paavo Nurmi, the original “Flying Finn,” recognized the importance of pacing and began to carry a stopwatch on all his training runs and many of his races. This was no small thing back then when the watches were the size of hockey pucks and Nurmi would have been regarded as a lunatic if he hadn’t won so many Olympic medals. With today’s digital wristwatches it’s much easier to always have a stopwatch handy, and you should. Time everything. Always be aware of what your pace is workouts, track and trail, and work on maintaining an even pace. Over time you’ll learn how your body feels at various paces, and the watch will seldom surprise you.
Like Nurmi, you can also carry a watch in races. Most races (the good ones) have each mile accurately and clearly marked. In a marathon this is a frequent enough check to allow you to make adjustments. In fact, in a marathon you’d be better off starting out a bit slower and adjusting the pace downward, with the added benefit that you can use the first couple of miles to get warmed up. In shorter races, though, by the time you get to the one-mile mark it may be too late to make an adjustment. If your sense of pace is truly abysmal, consider adding a personal checkpoint to the course. Measure, say, a quarter mile from the start, and check your pace there. That should be early enough to make necessary changes and still have a good race.
At the front of the back, syncopated pacing like speeding up at the end (a kick) or in the middle (a surge) become important for the few people contending to win the race. But for most of us, just trying to run our best, even pacing is the way to go.
Links:
- Original appearance of this article
http://www.tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=201012050357 - Work on pacing at one of these upcoming races in the Tallahassee region
http://troubleafoot.blogspot.com/search/label/calendar?max-results=1
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