July 2004

Previous issues

Each month we offer a new article by Kitty Consolo, Ph.D.   Kitty is a veteran runner and exercise physiologist.  She has been running and racing since 1975, and has won over 400 road races ranging from the mile to the marathon and went to the first women's Olympic marathon trails in 1984. Kitty has a PR of 2:42.46 for the marathon and 35:02 for the 10km,  She now enjoys shorter races and masters running.

Enjoy, and please let us know your thoughts about the Runner's Corner!

____________________________________________________________________ 

     Now that the racing season is well underway, have you found yourself thinking your race times are slower than they should be?  Before you scrap your training, ask yourself, were my split times (given at each mile during the race)  10 seconds or more under than the pace I averaged overall for the race?  If so, you may have just not paced yourself properly in the race.  Remember the old story of the race between the turtle and the rabbit?  The rabbit sprinted out fast the first part of the race leaving the turtle in the dust.  The turtle went out at a very steady even pace and low and behold, caught the rabbit in the end and won.

Making Physiological Sense of Pacing

        Some runners think if they go out faster than their overall average race pace they are building a sound cushion for the last half of the race.  However if you sprint out too fast, even in the first mile, you are using a lot of energy from anaerobic systems which leaves you with waste build up such as lactic acid and puts your body in oxygen debt.  This early sprint will  cause you do slow down even more at the end than if you paced yourself wisely in the beginning.  The longer the race, the more you also dip into your stored glycogen in your muscles which can lead to “hitting the wall” in races such as the marathon.  Just a 10 second per mile mistake in the marathon can mean 5 minutes slowing or more at the end!  Thus it is best unless you are a professional runner and trained to throw in surges against your competition, for you to run as even a pace as possible.

Learning to Run Even Race Pace.

        Before you can train to run even race pace, you need to have an idea of what is your average pace for your race distance. 

Beginning Racers

If you are a total beginner and have never run a race, make your goal for each different race distance just to finish and try to start out at a very slow comfortable pace that you feel you can keep the entire way.  Do not worry about picking up the pace until you are more than 75% of the way finished.  Once you have an idea of what your average race pace is per distance then you can work on a specific pace per mile.

Racers with Race Experience

1.  Determine average pace per mile

If you have some times for race distances, check our Premierraces’ Pace Chart and find out what was your average pace per mile.

2.  Determine Split times during race

Write down your split times per mile (if you have not remembered them, start to as this is valuable information. You can also buy watches now that calculate your split times per mile for you by just hitting the split time button).

3.  Analyze split times:

Were there any split times that were 10 or more seconds faster than your average race pace?  If yes, was there a significant downhill?

If yes than it is ok that you were a little faster but not more than 30 seconds per mile from your average pace.

If you were 10 seconds or more faster than your average pace and there was no downhill or it was in the first mile, go slower your first mile and you will be delighted how much faster you can go at the end.  Slowing a little at the start can reduce your time significantly the last 25% of the race.

4.  Practice Pacing in Training

Determine what your race pace needs to be per mile.  Then break it down into 100yd, 400 yd, 800 yd splits.  Find an accurate track and after a nice long warm up that leaves you sweating, practice timing yourself for these distances at to go out exactly at race pace.  At first, you might be surprised how difficult this is.  But remember, seconds count.  Also in road races, one has to wait until the mile to get one’s split and very often it’s the first 100 yds or half mile that causes one to go out too fast creating oxygen debt early which hits you later when it counts.

5.  Practice with others in front of you

Get some training buddies to run a little in front of you on the track and see if you can ignore them and keep your own pace.  Many people panic at the sight of runners getting way ahead of them and start running other runner’s pace instead of their own.

6.  Mark race course ahead of time

If you know that race course ahead of time, borrow a wheel and mark off (only with washable paint or some other non-permanent marker) the first 100 yds, 400 and 800 of the first mile.  This way you can look at your own splits and stay on pace especially for the first mile

7.  If you go out too slow

Usually going out too slow is not the problem but if your first mile split is 10 seconds or more slower than the pace you know you can average, then do NOT try to make up the 10 seconds in the very next mile.  Instead, make it up over the next 2 miles or more if the race is longer than a 5k.

8.  Allow for hills/turns

If your race course has a long uphill, be sure to allow for some extra time to run that mile, up to 30 seconds if it is a long, steep hill.

Conversely, as I mentioned earlier, if the course has a downhill, allow for some faster mile splits up to 30 seconds if the downhill is long. 

If you enjoy hilly races, be sure to include hills in your training but take care on the downhill as this is where injury is more likely to occur. 

Turns can also slow a runner down, practice making turns in training, first on the inside lane of a track and then later, on a safe road.  Also learn if you see a turn ahead of time, how to run on the shortest tangent in making the turn (unless of course there are cones that you must run around preventing you from running on the tangent.  If allowed, this can save you seconds for each turn.

Professional/advanced Racer

For those of you who have raced for years, sometimes being competitive means the ability to break from the pack of runners you are in.  To do this, you must be able to shift gears and suddenly throw in a surge faster than current race pace for at least 200 yds or more.  Frequent surging can often discourage your opponents from following you and once you get a lead, then you can settle back into race pace.  Surging needs to be practiced in training first.  After a nice long warm up that leaves you sweating, practice with your watch and on a measured course (tracks make this easy) throwing in some 400 yd surges 5-10 sec faster than your race pace then slowing down to race pace.  This is not an easy workout and should be done when you are well –rested and days before your race.  Practice building up the number of surges you can do in training to include surging not only in the first two miles of a race to gain a lead, but also in the last 25% of your race distance.  The longer the race, the less likely your competitors can catch you if you make a surge.  Take care to practice though as if you surge too quickly and can not recover, you risk slowing even more than your current race pace and then your competitors can catch you.  Surging is a fun tactic to work on especially if you have been running for a long time.  It is a challenge and can be quite rewarding if done correctly.

Summary

Regardless of your level of racing, pacing yourself, especially the first mile, can mean much faster times for your racing distances.  It makes sense physiologically and nothing is more rewarding psychologically than to be strong at the end of a race pacing runners rather than being one of those who went out too fast too early and now watched the field leave them behind and their pace per mile increase each step.

See you at the races and be smart in pacing, it makes for fun racing!

Kitty