Before my run on Saturday, I had just read in Runner's World about a high school cross-country coach who tested some pacing strategies with his runners. It's common knowledge that starting out too fast is going to leave you exhausted toward the end of the race, but this coach discovered that the groups that ran a more conservative first mile actually finished slower than the groups going out faster. In fact, the group that ran the fastest first mile finished first, even though the runners slowed down more dramatically in miles two and three than the runners pacing themselves more prudently. The common advice of "don't go out too fast" appeared to be just plain wrong - at least for short races like 5Ks.
I decided to test this go-out-fast strategy on Saturday and ran hard right from the start. At times I felt like I was nearly sprinting and it took me several too-fast-I'm-dying, too-slow-catch-my-breath iterations to settle in on my best sustainable pace. As I approached the spot where I turn around if I'm doing a 3.1 mile (5K) run I was feeling pretty good and was planning to run a bit farther. Then I looked down at my watch as I passed the turn around spot and saw my time was 11:40. A rough calculation told me that's a faster pace than any of the races I ran last fall, so I turned around to see if I could keep up such a pace over for a whole 5K.
The run back was brutal. My fun Saturday run had turned into a desperate race between me and my Timex. My legs were suddenly heavier, the sun got hotter, and even the wind seemed to be working against me. I had to stop checking my watch at about 19 minutes because it was demoralizing me to think about the remaining distance I had to cover in such a short amount of time.
I was determined not to waste all this effort for a mediocre time, so I gutted it out and surprised myself when I crossed the finish at 22:46. This was not only better than any 5K races I ran last fall, but at 7:20 average pace this was faster than the 7:30 goal I set on my exercise page.
What's most surprising was that even though I followed a go-out-fast pacing strategy, the 7:31 pace for the first half was blown away by the second half's 7:09 pace. Could I have run faster on the way back if I hadn't gone out so fast at the start? No way. In fact, I think the fast start is exactly what fired me up and made the faster finish possible.
The only thing that remains is to duplicate this pace in a real 5K race since that was my original goal. After that, well there's a lot of room for more goals between 7:30 pace and my old personal best of 6:05. :) Honestly, I'd be elated if I could break 7:00 pace (21:42 for 5K) later this year. Now it's time to register for some races and test the go-out-fast strategy for real.
Posted by JoshC at April 30, 2007 7:22 PMhttp://www.joshchristie.com/weblog/mt/mt-tb.cgi/186
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Yeah, I could see it being a complete disaster if I mentally can't push through the pain toward the end of the race. Racing could be quite difference than training because starting out fast is going to get me among better runners at the beginning, only to have scores of them pass me toward the end of the race when I'm running out of steam. That definitely might make it hard to stay motivated.
Posted by: Josh Christie at May 1, 2007 3:00 PM
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Whodathunkit.
I wonder how that dynamic would work out in a race - if you pull out in front of a big group of people early (whoever you'd be keeping pace with 'normally'), does that help you or hurt you?
I'm betting it would help - people that see your pace and try to match you will hit the wall harder than you (you're expecting and accepting that it's going to hurt later); people that DON'T match you - well, they'll finish on that slower pace you just talked about.
Should be fun!
Posted by: Chris at May 1, 2007 2:26 PM