Pacing Strategies

Different pacing strategies can suit different race courses, and different people. Here are the 3 main strategies that runners might adopt;

Run Even Splits

This means that you run the entire race at the same pace. It’s a wise approach for long races like marathons and perhaps ultramarathons so that you don’t blow up and it’s also suitable for newer runners on shorter distances. There are complications with this strategy, mainly is the course entirely equal? Often a big race might be congested within the first few km so you need to make an allowance for a slightly slower start. If you have been stuck in a starting pen for ages, can you start at race pace or do you need to warm up into it. Some courses such as New York Marathon have many uphill sections where a slower pace needs to be factored in. Ultramarathons are often off road and off road running is difficult to run at an even pace.

Run Negative Splits

For many runners, including elites, a negative split race is preferable as one of the the best ways to attempt a PB. A negative split is simply when you run the second half of a race slightly faster than the first half. The strategy begins like an even split race but then you try and pick up the pace in the last 10-20% of the race. This would work better in a half marathon or marathon than the below ‘hold on for dearlife’ strategy.

The ‘Hold on for dear life’ Strategy

Being conservative has it’s place, but sometimes you need to go for it. Sometimes you have to take a risk, start fast, and see what you are capable of running. This might be the only way to demolish a personal best. You need to be confident that training has gone well and feel in top shape. You also need a lot of mental toughness to see this out. It is more recommended to do this in a shorter race such as a 5K or 10K. For most of my early years running, I adopted the negative splits strategy. My sprint finishes were always amazing as I overtook pensioner after pensioner in the home straight. How could I improve my finishing time though, I couldn’t really go much faster in the last 1-2K! It took a while but it dawned on me that I needed to push from the off. Doing the same in training (mainly in intervals) gave me the confidence I could do it as well as the mental toughness to endure the tougher later stages of the race. It’s horrible if you ‘blow up’ in a race because you went too fast, but that’s why we have training, that’s where you can make mistakes and learn from it.

A quick mention for ‘positive splits’ where you run the first half quicker than the second half. It’s what often would happen with the ‘hold on for dear life’ strategy. I had a regular marathon client who had a preference for running a little in front of the pace makers of the time he was aiming for. It prevented him being caught in the pacemaker crowd and he would build up a little buffer of 3-5 minutes on the time he was aiming for. He could eat into this buffer if he slowed down, or needed an unscheduled stop, and sometimes he managed to stay that 3-5 minutes ahead of target.

Runner’s build preferential strategies with experience and ideally would adapt different strategies to their fitness at the time, the race, the distance, and the target. It is often good to chat with your coach and agree on the best strategy for you.