The Art of Racing.. (Read 1223 times)

I treat it like sex. Except that I take a nap after a race. And if it is a 5k, I throw up. Actually, for me the answer depends on how long the race is. And what kind of course. Flat or roly poly half/full... go out a little slower than goal pace, hit goal pace after a couple miles, and stay as even as possible from there. Hilly race? Even effort... which means I go up slower than I go down. As for picking it up at the end 'to even it all out'... nah. If I have anything left, I'll pick it up at the end just to pick it up at the end... but not to consciously balance out the early "warm up" miles. 5ks and 10ks? First, I warm up for 15-30 minutes. Then, "Go that way, really fast. If something gets in your way, turn." "despite". Heh.

If you use a Garmin, you can manage to not go out too fast. And no, I think it's easier to pace yourself correctly if you do have a goal. Just decide in advance how you would like to pace it, then use the Garmin to run the right pace. Personally I almost always try to negative split. Sometimes this just means running even pace until I can manage a finishing kick, other times it's more carefully calculated to speed up a tad at the half. Even without a Garmin, if you're careful about watching your splits, you can correct from one mile to the next. Just decide to do it. It never fails to amaze me that the vast majority of racers seem to be able to put in long hours training, but can't take the relatively simple step of pacing themselves properly. It's by far the easiest change most people can make to get faster.

"despite". Heh.

Pedant. (He means, the phrase is "to cut off one's nose to spite one's face".)

Go by effort, not pace.

I agree with you for the most part Mikey...but its hard to practice for a marathon unless you are a Marathon Maniac. Maybe going by effort makes sense for a 5k,10k, maybe a half. But for a marathon? Its a mystery. You taper a little, eat well, and you have a ton of energy as you toe the start line. You start out at an easy effort, but with a faster pace than you can hang with for the whole race. But you dont know it if youre just paying attention to effort! It feels like an easy effort, but since you can't practice a Marathon very often, you really have no idea that its too fast until later. Then you bomb at mile 20 and hobble the rest of the way. I base my race goals off previous races and previous workouts. I just ran 1:23 in a half. Im going to try Grandmas this summer with a goal at 2:55. I'm not going to toe the eye blindly and go by effort. Im going to use my Garmin to make sure I don't go faster than 6:40 for the first 15-20. Even if 6:10 feels really easy. If Ive got some in the tank at 20-22, Ill drop the pace then. I don't think Ill have anything in the tank.

Thanks everyone, great advice. It just pisses me off to no end to train and train and train, put in the time and effort and then race day comes and I screw it up. I already said going into this year that I am going to focus more on how to race. Trying to learn from my mistakes along the way. I do have a Garmin and I'm embarrassed to say that I looked at it a few times in the first half and thought, yep, thats a little too fast for you fancy britches, but continued on thinking- "Well, this feels ok right now so Ill try and stick with it." However, waaay in the back of my head I had small doubts. Stupid. Anyway, live and learn. The race I just did was hilly or more like up and down up and down in a few areas and I probably pushed too hard through the up hills vs holding it back a hair. You know, I could sit here all day and analyze and beat it to death. However, at the end of the day, I can't change a damn thing and can only look forward to the next one. Thanks- I think your absolutely correct Mikey about the pace.

Nicely put Mike.

The best I can explain it is go into the race thinking, "Okay, I'm about to race 5k," (or whatever distance you're racing) and try to spread the effort out as evenly as possible so that you just about collapse 1 foot past the finish line.

That's a truly magical skill. I discovered the hard way that I can do that, but it's much less stressful for me to go by the numbers... sort of like, you can attain a healthy weight by eating right (yeah right!), or by counting calories. The latter approach may take more cognitive input, but it's guaranteed to work.

A pedant is a person who is overly concerned with formalism and precision, or who 'makes a show of learning'.

That's usually me, BTW.

I have the opposite problem: how do you learn to embrace pain and just go with it?

Yeah -- that, to me, is where the deep mystery of racing lies. Pacing is easy.