Pacing strategies are individual. The best depends on many variables: fitness, distance experience, stamina, mindset and intuition, to name a few.
Our swim squad is currently working on pacing to determine the best strategy for each scenario. It is trial and error. Each athlete is tested over varied distances on each strategy, measuring results.
There are three basic approaches:
Build
Sometimes referred to as a negative split. You start at an intensity you can increase. As you progress, you increase intensity slowly to slightly increase or maintain pace as stress accumulates and suffering increases.
This is the most common strategy suggested by coaches. It can be practised, easily coached, and executed through speed and heart rate metrics. The start of the race is controlled, and as the race progresses, the athlete has more discretion on intensity as the remaining distance decreases. A safe strategy for achieving a fixed or small range target.
Highly recommended for novices and inexperienced. Also recommended for time-trialists after a predetermined outcome.
Push and hold on
With this strategy, you start at a high intensity and hold on throughout. As you progress, you may find the pace reducing and the stress maxes out; however, those with a strong mindset can push through the suffering and achieve a better result than the build strategy.
This strategy is commonly used by inexperienced athletes who believe in the “Go hard or Go home” approach, and generally, it does not end well. Experienced athletes can use this strategy in true racing situations where the pacing is used to break or follow competitors. This takes an extraordinarily strong mindset and is reserved for those who can truly suffer.
Highly recommended for competitive racers with a strong mindset and much experience. Not suited for all.
Surge
Surging is a combination of build and push/hold. You surge at an intensity slightly higher than you think you can sustain for the remaining race distance. As the suffering increases to an uncomfortable level, you reduce the intensity a little to recover. Once recovered, you surge again. Most athletes discover they only need to reduce marginally to recover with practice. This approach helps us avoid settling on a pace or assuming the pace of those around us.
This strategy allows intermediate athletes to build race experience but still seek results. When trying this strategy, I sometimes ask the athlete to control the race’s first half and use surging in the latter half.
Highly recommended for intermediate athletes and novice athletes unsure of how to pace to build race experience. In training, I frequently provide coached athletes “Unders and overs” sets where they modulate between slightly above and slightly below race pace. They often achieve personal bests in this session, improving their Time Trial results for the same distance.
In conclusion, the pacing strategy is highly individual. The key is to test, practice and measure. Your ideal strategy may differ by distance and environmental conditions.
Being 59 years old, I need to protect myself against injury and stress fractures. My strategy was high volume, but short distances. The longest ride was 145km, and the longest run was 26km, however, peaked at 80km running and 300km riding per week. The strategy was to avoid training in atrophy. There were frequent double-run and triple-ride training days.
A huge thanks to my crew. This event has no aid stations, and much time is spent in the rural hinterland and coastal paths. You would think there is a lot of waiting for the crew. Wrong, it is full-on! A good crew is essential to a good race. Huge thanks to Mal, Sherie, Woody and Mair!
Expectation
Being the oldest competitor, the goal was to finish the race within cut-offs! Maybe close to mid-pack.
Day 1 – 10km Swim
Not an unfamiliar distance for me, took it steady with great navigation from Mal. Hit halfway in 15th feeling solid, at 8.5km in 13th. Felt good so gave it a nudge and finished in 9th place at 3:00:22. Longest 22 seconds ever!
Day 1 – 147km Ride
The plan was to ride like an IRONMAN race. Steady but solid. Felt ok for 1st 30km but soon felt bloated due to overconsuming carbs early combined with an overdose of sodium from the swim. Really battled fueling for the rest of the ride.
The ride is hilly with two cat hills at 60 and 65 km. I am usually a good climber, but today my HR skyrocketed to 182. Climbed off, ditched the ego, and walked both hills. I later discovered my rear wheel had delaminated and was dragging the brake! The walking wore out my left cleat so it would not clip in for the last 85 km!
Limped through to 130km then stopped and threw up considering my options for the rest of the race! Got going again and missed a turn due to poor focus and added 4k to the ride. Eventually finished 5:37:21 for the ride, 8:43:02 for the day. 25th on the bike, but 13th for the day!
I clawed myself off the bike, broken. Put on a smile for the crew, but seriously had doubts about the 275km day 2 ride! The crew had found new cleats, and EliteEnduranceProducts loaned new a set of wheels.
Day 2 – 275km Ride
We were led out by a police car for the first 9km in order for our bike time for day 1. When we were released I let them go and dropped to the back so I could ride steady at my pace. The first test for the legs was at 55km with the hill up to Sunrise rd. Found it easy passing 5 others with no real effort and HR of 140 bpm. My confidence returned.
The crew were awesome, one waited at the bottom of feed hills with a radio to tell the crew at the top what I needed. We were well synced, I got what I needed every time.
From there it was chipping away focusing on the next rider to pass. Controlled nutrition tightly at 30gm per hour Trailbrew and the odd cookie. Counting down the milestones. 200km to go… 180 and just an ironman ride to go… 150 to go… 90km, Just a 70.3 ride to go… I developed a goal to get to the top of the Kenilworth climb at 200km with a ride average of 28 km/h and hold on to it to the end. I expected the rot to hit the legs at around 200km and I would need to drag but butt home from there. 200km came and went. 220km and Yardina, nothing happened. Hit Twin waters, with a ride average of 28.5 km/h. Tailwind home, legs still had plenty so ramped up the power and 34km/h pace. Cruised home with a ride average of 29 km/h. 09:39:34, 16th for the day, 15th for the race.
Day 2 was my best ride ever, enjoyed every minute. I told the team that whatever happened on Day 3 would not ruin this. Day 2 Ultraman would always be my day!
Day 3 – 84.3 km Run
Rain, rain and more rain. Standing at the start we were all soaked through to the bone, socks and all. This was going to be one tough day!
Started at the back again singing “Let ’em go” (to the Frozen tune) and ran my pace. The first 5 km was solo with pacers joining from there. Woody paced the first section, pace steady, still pouring torrential rain. At 16km Sherie paced, we had a good yarn, hit flooded roads and waded through, and totally missed the 21km marker! And still, it poured down. Walked the Coolum hill after which Mal took on pacing duties.
Fuel was looked in at 2 calories a minute, or 120 cal per hour (30 gm) with the odd ½ banana or cookie and caffeine gummie.
Hit 42km on 4:45, still feeling steady, amazingly no blisters! I was now waiting for the inevitable wall to hit at around 60km. Again nothing. At 64km my sugar dropped. Sherie handed me a Gel, next time we saw the crew I grabbed a coke and we were back on pace within 5 min. Great Crew!
Mal jumped into pacing at 18km to go. Still raining! Passed a couple of runners, Wadded through a couple of streams. Downhills were now agony, the bike legs were finally biting! At 10 to go Mal looked back a said someone was catching. I felt I still had legs so we accelerated. After 3 km I worked out Mal was telling porkies, there was no one catching, but the strategy worked, we were flying. I was hurting, but I didn’t realise Mal was hurting too having run an IRONMAN the previous weekend! Still Raining!
Down the seven stairs, onto the beach where the crew were waiting. 400m along the beach and we were done.
Finish
The finishing pic shows an expression that wraps up the weekend. Relief, pride, exhaustion all in one shot.
Run time 9:40:36 18th place.
Race time: 28:03:14 16th Place.
Thank you to the organisers, volunteers, crews and participants. What a weekend, I strongly recommend it for anyone wanting to test themselves.
When I signed up I really expected to struggle given my age. My expectation was to be a back marker, but that changed 2 months out when the high volume, short distance training strategy started to kick in. I certainly exceeded my expectations.
As Buzz Lightyear said: “One day you’re going to come up against something you don’t think you can do, and then you’re going to do it. And from then on, you’re you.”
Sodium is an essential electrolyte for performance. Fortunately Sodium and water balance are precisely regulated by the endocrine system provided the ratio of sodium and water intake is within a reasonable range.
At the risk of over simplifying, when we consume too much sodium our systems excrete the excess, too little sodium relative to fluid and the system goes diuretic and shed water.
For many in endurance sports it is about making the distance, getting through an event at a sustainable pace. If this is the focus then aerobic fitness and developing functional reserve strength is the key. All within the framework of the FitSets Manifesto.
Getting fitter is about balancing training stress with recovery. Far to many athletes believe training volume should be limited by the risk of injury and rarely consider the recovery cycles required for the body to compensate which make us stronger and fitter. The primary recovery is through sleep. Read More
Training is the investment of time to improve results.
There are four basic components in endurance training:
Aerobic training – 80% to 85% of training time in Zone 1 and lower Zone 2 (MAF)
Force Development – 5% of training time (Maximal Strength – Zone 5+)
Durability training – 10% to 15% of training time (Zone 3 – 4)
Technique – Integrated into training and active recovery
Recovery – Active recovery + 7.5 hours+ sleep average per night.
Any training session should be targeting these adaptations. The only session that have benefits if you have muscular fatigue are durability and active recovery.
Know what your session is targeting and stick to the plan. If you can’t nail it, go home and use the recovery time, don’t dig a hole!
As an endurance coach one of my key messages is to slow down training to speed up on race day. Many don’t appreciate just how much aerobic volume is needed and emulate elite training pace rather than elite training heart rate.
Many athletes who join my program are surprised how slow I ask them to train for much of their training hours. The reason is that without a critical volume of aerobic training your heart rate over pace will not have enough head room to sustain race pace effort for the duration of a race. Read More
A well planned off season can be the best investment for the next season. During the lead-up to your season “A” race the chances are you have focused on aerobic endurance and threshold training to increase durability. Family time and exercise variability has probably suffered, right? Off-season regeneration is critical for sustained improvement. Read More
