Learn to Pace Your Race Like a Pro

The familiar horn sounds, and your heart skips a beat as your feet cross the timing mat. It’s the start of your goal race, and after countless hours toiled on the roads and track, the success or failure of your run now rests solely on your ability to execute the perfect race strategy.

, physiologist and University of Houston head cross-country coach. By blending empirical data from world-record performances with scientific research conducted on pacing tactics and the physiological demands of racing, we can extrapolate the “optimal” pacing strategy for each race distance.demonstrated that in order to optimize 5K performance, runners should start the first mile of a 5K race at paces 3 to 6 percent faster than their goal race pace.

From a psychological perspective, it’s also important to hold back a little at the start of a race. As Magness explains, “If we use the Central Governor Model [the concept that the mind controls the experience of fatigue], we want to get to the last quarter of the race as fast as we can, while still feeling good enough to have the body say, ‘,’ so that we can have a kick.

When it comes to how your body works, the main issue with the “time in the bank” strategy concerns the use of fuel—specifically, whether you burn glycogen or fat. As anyone who’s hit the wall knows, one of the limiting factors in marathon performance is how efficiently you can burn fat instead of carbohydrates for energy. Once you burn through your available carbohydrate stores, your performance will suffer, most notably from “bonking” or running out of fuel.

Consequently, I believe the ideal marathon pacing strategy is to run your first 3 to 5 miles at slower than goal pace to conserve energy, maintain goal marathon pace through 20–22 miles, and then run your fastest over the last 8K to 10K.Many runners are not particularly good at pacing. A study published by thefound that recreational runners misjudged their pacing efforts by almost 40 seconds per mile compared to experienced college runners, who were only off by about 10 seconds per mile.

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