Pacing By GPS or Feel

Audio Transcript

Claire: Welcome to the Runners Connect, run to the top extra kick podcast. Today’s question is from Karly about pacing by effort in a marathon.

Karly: Hi, this is Karly. I have a question about strategy for racing a marathon. I’m wondering if it’s better to use my GPS watch to keep myself on pace, or if I should use a more organic approach and just go based on feel. Thanks.

Claire: That’s a very popular question; do you pace by your watch or by effort?

Believe it or not, people used to race before the invention of GPS, so it’s certainly possible and it might be preferable.

A personal example is when I raced the Chicago marathon in 2015, and I was planning to rely on my GPS watch.

What I didn’t know was that because of all the tall buildings in Chicago, my GPS was all over the place.

It was just about worthless the entire race.

Thankfully, in a big race like Chicago, it has good mile markers along the race course, so I was able to use my watch as a simple timer, to judge how fast I was going, but looking at pace just all over the board, was not very helpful at all.

Even though I did have a good race that day, I wish I had thought about the possibility, and prepared for a GPS free race.

Many top runners do not use GPS at all during races.

Dena Castor, who is one of the top marathoners of all time, was at that same race in Chicago, in 2015 and she used a simple time max.

She broke the world’s master’s record so obviously, it can be done.

If you take a close look at the wrist of Jordan Hasay, the young American who just got third place in the Boston marathon in her debut in marathon, she’s wearing a tiny pink digital watch, so she obviously didn’t use GPS to pace herself either. It definitely works.

Going solely on effort, that sounds like an ideal goal that can cause some issues too.

First of all, pacing is a skill and it takes a lot of time and experience to master, and it’s still pretty difficult, so GPS can be a good tool.

Secondly, as the race wears on, your brain gets tired as well, and your perception of effort changes.

The easy miles at the beginning of the race are likely to be too fast, and the hard miles at the end of the race can end up being too slow, if you’re only relying on effort.

Sometimes, it can be helpful to see your time in black and white, so that you can adjust on course.

This is a great example of where a product like Stryd can be helpful, because it measures effort for you in the form of power, so you don’t have to worry about pace or conditions or your GPS.

The idea is to keep your power level in the correct zone and then let the rest go.

Even if you choose the best watch or the fanciest gadgets, using your effort as a guide is a very important part of becoming a runner.

Bring your watch with you on training runs but try to avoid looking at it all the time, especially on easy runs.

For an easy run, don’t look at it at all until the end.

Just focus on making those easy runs feel really easy. That means it doesn’t matter how fast you’re going, you’ll need to be going slow enough to be able to sing a song or have an entire conversation with a friend, or breathe entirely out of your nose.

It should feel really easy and you don’t need a watch to tell you how easy you’re going.

For workouts, the next time you do a workout with a garment, check the watch during the first two or three minutes of the first mile, to make sure that you’re on pace and then, don’t look at it again till you’re finished.

Concentrate on your breathing, feel the rhythm of your arms and legs, and feel how it feels at a certain pace.

You might not do a great job the first time you try pacing yourself without looking at the watch, but each time you’ll get better and better, until you become good at it.

It will help refine your sense of what it feels like to go at a certain speed and effort.

Remember GPS is a great tool, but it’s just a tool and it’s easy to become dependent on it. You never know what’s going to happen on race day.

You’re going to have people to pass or it will be crowded or you’ll surge, or you’ll feel good; all sorts of things can happen that you’ll want to increase the pace.

If you rely on GPS, which is acquiring a signal every one or two seconds, and you’re staring at your wrist the whole time, you’re not racing as effectively as you should be or as you could be.

You’ll be looking at that pace going up and down and up and down, so you’re going to go faster and slower and faster and slower, instead of having a nice, even, smooth effort that will get you to the finish line in a much better time, than spending all your energy going up and down with pacing.

To sum up, yes you should use a watch and if it has GPS that’s great, but you shouldn’t rely on it too much.

Practice runs without it, practice your pacing, and get a sense of it.

Yes, it is a very helpful tool, but remember it’s just a tool and you can run an entire marathon without it.

Thanks for your question Karly. I hope that that answered it and I appreciate you sending it in.

Finally, this week’s sponsor is Stryd.

Stryd is the world’s first running power meter and it does a lot of really cool things but today I’m going to talk about how it can improve your running efficiency.

Stryd provides eight metrics including two advanced efficiency metrics, warm power and leg spring stiffness. These metrics look at the route of running efficiency, muscle strength, muscle condition and muscle coordination.

As you integrate drills, strength and conditioning and specific types of workouts into your training, Stryd monitors improvements to your form and efficiency over time, so you can become a better, stronger and faster runner.

Now there’s a lot more that Stryd can do but if you are ready to get your own, go to stryd.com and use the coupon code provided especially for Runners Connect listeners. That’s RC20 to get $20 off your order.

Also, if you’d like to send in a question for the coaches to answer, go to runnersconnect.net/daily to record your own and we’d be happy to answer it in a future episode.

If you enjoyed this podcast, please take a moment to write a quick review on iTunes or your favorite podcast directory, we’d really appreciate it.

That’s it for today. Have a great run.