I have mentioned the importance of knowing how to learn your pace in previous articles. When you know how fast you are running you can adjust your pace in a race to reach your predicted time. Problems start when you do not know how fast you are running and run too fast in the early miles of the race. From experience I can tell you that for every minute you are running too fast at the beginning will be those same minutes too slow near the end of the race. I had to learn from experience since I had no formal coaching in long distance running. I ran the quarter mile and hurdles in college and thought that any runner running around the track more than once was a waste of time. So, when I started running the 5K’s, half marathons, etc. it was a learning experience.
The first learning experience was in my first 5K. I had run several 10K’s and wrongly thought that since the race was only half as far I could run much faster than what I ran 10K’s in. It took me less than a mile into the race when I realized that if I didn’t slow down I might not make it to the second mile. The second experience was in my half marathon. I had planned on running with a partner for an easy 7:30 pace. When my partner didn’t show up I joined up with another group of my friends. It seemed like a nice pace until we hit the timer at mile one. He was calling out, “6:15, 6:16, 6:17”. That was much faster than I wanted to run. It took me until mile four before I got back to a 7:30 pace. This was much better. That pace was good until I hit mile nine. My pace started to slow quite rapidly. By the time I got to mile 11 this lady with a fast walk came up alongside me and wanted to know if I wanted to keep up with her. I told her to go on as I was fading fast. I will say that I didn’t walk, but the pace was about that fast to the finish line. Those first four fast miles were made up with the last four miles at a pace that most people walk around their neighborhood in.
The point that is misleading when you mention what your pace in a race was. This is when you take your finish time and divide it by the distance you ran and you get an average of your pace. In all likelihood you probably never ran that average pace for more than a short distance during the race. Some runners start out at an easy pace and then pick the pace up when they determine how they feel that day and gradually increase their speed. Others start out a little faster than usual and hope to maintain that average pace as they fade in the later part of the race. Both will work as long as you do not venture too far from your average pace.
