One question applies to any type of race, covering any ground, at any time in your life:
How do you pace yourself?
Facing what seems to be a great distance, through terrain that you only partially know, and alongside people you don’t normally run with is intimidating. Add to that, that you want to do your best if you can. That’s only natural; you didn’t get out here to be your mid self; you got out here to see what you’re capable of. But now, when you’re in it, you can either get carried away, disregulated, or bottle up and be too conservative.
Every runner asks themselves how to find that magical pace that’s fast enough but not too fast. How do we regulate? How do we figure out “race pace” for that day, that race, that time of our training?
Some people say it’s all about practice, getting out there and running miles and figuring out your fitness, and I agree with that. But that doesn’t really work if you’re just starting out or if you’re coming back from a long time away from running. Luckily, my mother had a stroke of genius (or insight?) when I asked her this very innocent-yet-difficult question after my first 5K at age 8. When I asked “Mom, how do I know what race pace is?” She replied:
“It’s a little bit faster than comfortable.”
Don’t ask me where she got this from; I have no idea. She was never a runner; to my knowledge, she doesn’t even like running. But somehow, she listened to what I was describing, “a pace that’s fast enough to be fast but not so fast I die during the race,” and she perceived the tension inherent to it. Considered as tension, she identified exactly what race pace is: it’s a little bit faster than comfortable. I would add to that phrase today “it’s a little be faster than comfortable, considering the course and how you feel that day.”
To this day, I use this phrase to rein myself in when I’m disoriented and disregulated. If I can’t figure out if I’m doing my best, I ask myself “okay, what is this I’m doing? How am I doing? Am I comfortable? Do I want to be comfortable? Or do I want to try a bit harder, and go a little bit faster? Or do I want to slow down, because I know this is a long hill, or the straightaway ahead is a hard mental slog.”
Asking myself these questions helps me get back on track, especially when I’m coming back from injury. Sometimes, of course, comfortable is good; you need it to recover or restore. But if you want to challenge yourself, asking yourself “What’s a little bit faster than comfortable?” is a great way to figure out how best to do that.
How to find “a little bit faster than comfortable”
When you go out to race or to train at race pace, pay attention to yourself at the start of your run. Listen and feel your breathing; listen to your legs and and feel how the muscles are fatiguing. Figure out which muscle groups are working that day and which are stiff or even injured. Consider the course ahead of you: is there terrain you enjoy? Is it terrain you’ll struggle with?
Bring these three things together:
Breath
Muscles
Terrain
And run comfortably. Keep that up for a little while, maybe even a mile if you’re on a long run. If you’re a device person, consider using a heart rate monitor to baseline. Then, push a little faster. Feel the edges of your lungs start to ignite, just a little. Feel your muscles start to pump lactic acid. When the terrain turns challenging, shift your stance and your breathing to accept that change and work into it.
Now you’re going. It’s a little bit faster than comfortable. You couldn’t keep this up forever. You can keep it up for the rest of the course, probably, but only just probably, if nothing goes wrong. That is your race pace: where you can probably keep up, but you’re not quite sure. Now you’ve found your edge, and you can stick to it.
That’s it: that’s how you achieve your race pace. It seems simple, but it depends entirely on paying attention to yourself, and you are not simple. You’re different every day; sometimes stronger, sometimes not. Your race pace can and should vary, but with attention, guts, and trust in yourself, you can find and maintain it. Happy training, and for today, remember: go run.