What I've Learned About Pacing Myself
Six years ago, I ran a 5k with a very cool—and very cruel—course.
The race starts in Wrightsville, a small town in York County, Pennsylvania, overlooking the Susquehanna River. The race takes you out of Wrightsville and across the river into the town of Columbia before you loop around, cross the river again, and charge back into Wrightsville.
The Susquehanna River is at its widest when the race crosses it, and the bridge is nearly a mile long. That means that about two-thirds of the 3.1-mile race is run out over the river. That's the cool part.
The cruel part occurs in the first quarter-mile and the last quarter-mile. When the race begins, the road almost immediately drops out from under you. You run down a negative 6%-10% grade—making it all but impossible to pace that first critical quarter-mile. That means you hit the flat of the bridge going faster than you probably should be. And by you, of course, I mean me.
With a bit of willpower, I maintained my faster-than-ideal pace across the bridge and back again. I was on track to shatter my personal best 5k time when I stepped off the bridge and back into York County for the finish. To be clear, my personal best wasn't very fast.
I'm sure you see what's coming.
To finish the race, I had to charge up the hill I started on.
The negative 6-10% grade turned into a positive 6-10% grade. It felt like running up the side of Everest. I held it together at first, only altering my pace a bit. And then, my legs turned to jelly. My heart beat like a hammer in my chest. For 30 seconds or so, I gave in. I walked.
As the hill crested and the finish line was maybe 100 feet in front of me, I broke back into a slow, labored jog. At least I knew I left it all out on the course!
I still beat my personal best. I even placed first in my age group, earning my first-ever medal. I wasn't upset about that short walk up the hill—all I could do was laugh at myself and my over-confidence.
I wasn't alone, of course. Everyone with me was either walking or barely shuffling along at a jog. I'm sure the fastest folks—who had crossed the finish line 10 minutes before—had probably charged up the hill. But us mortals? Nah, we could swallow our pride and walk out the worst of it.
From Poor Pacing to Appropriate Pacing
I haven't run a race since the pandemic canceled the marathon I was training for in 2020. The last one I ran was a 4-mile trail run at a tiny private school on the Eastern Shore of Virginia around Christmas 2019.
I'd never raced on a trail before, so I had no idea what to expect. What I did know was that I'd gotten much faster in the 18 months between that race across the Susquehanna and this trail run. I'd also gotten much smarter about my race strategy.
Even though I intentionally lined up closer to the front of the pack, I ended up behind a few young women who weren't going as fast as I'd like and were taking up the entire trail. There was nowhere to pass.
My id was silently screaming, “Get out of my way!” But my superego kept my pace in check.
That whole first mile, I convinced myself to chill out and let those runners force me to go slower than I'd like. Slower than I thought I needed to go, in fact. Eventually, they pulled over to grab water or retie a shoe, and I jetted past. From there, I gradually increased my pace.
As I passed the 2-mile mark, I was passed by a guy probably 10-15 years my senior. This was only remarkable because of what happened a mile or so later—when I passed him. At the end of the race, he came up to me and said, "You really paced that well!" And I guess I had.
I was the second woman finisher overall, which isn't saying much. Only about 30 people ran the race in the first place!
Pacing is a Mental Skill
When I was a teenager, I played softball and basketball. Pacing was never a concern of mine. In softball, all I really needed to do was run as fast as I could, just 60 feet at a time. Basketball requires slightly more endurance, but it still happens in short spurts with a chance to catch your breath in between. I never learned how to pace myself—hypothetically, I knew it was possible, but it wasn’t a skill I’d ever acquired.
Pacing is a mental skill as much as it is a mode of physicality.
Yes, I can learn to feel how my breathing rate, heart rate, and leg turnover correspond to different paces. My body can develop a sense for a 5k pace or a recovery jog. But pacing also requires me to manage my effort mentally. I need to talk myself intogoing slower at the start as much as I need to talk myself into charging up a hill or sprinting through a finish line.
Last week, I was talking to one of our podcasting clients, and she sheepishly admitted that a recent "great idea" had turned into a bit of an administrative nightmare. She'd had some turnover on her team recently, and one of the people who departed had been the team member who would say no to her "great ideas." She knows that she should learn to get better at telling herself no, but it never hurts to have some help.
Having someone to say no to you is a smart way to learn pacing. In fact, I use an app that provides coach-guided audio workouts. My favorite running coach on the app is Wes Pedersen. Every so often during a workout, he'll say something like, "Slow down, sparky!" or, "Not... too... fast... yet!" He has no idea how fast I or anyone else listening is going—it's all pre-recorded. But he knows that our tendency is to go out hot and struggle later on.
He knows that 95% of the time, saying no is going to be a useful cue.
Ideally, though, we learn to say no to ourselves.
Not because we're depriving ourselves of great ideas or the chance to move fast but because we're saving those opportunities for the right time. Before we embark on a new project or line up at the start of a race, we ensure we have enough gas in the proverbial tank to deliver a performance that will satisfy us.
Managing your pace doesn’t require perfect executive functioning. Pacing yourself can be active or passive. You can do it with a body double, an app, or an internal trigger. Sean has reminders that ping him throughout the day. I’ve learned to limit how much I take on at once. Others put guardrails in place to prevent them from overbooking or moving too fast on an idea. Some limit their working hours, schedule sizable breaks every quarter, or prioritize naps during the day.
Instead of only being curious about how fast we can go, how many projects we can take on, or how many people we can make deliriously happy with our willingness to bend over backward, we become curious about just how slow we can go.
We learn that going fast is most fun when we have the resources (and reasons) to do so with relative ease. We learn that endurance doesn't have to hurt. We coach ourselves by remembering that winning is often a matter of going slower than we think we ought to.
We remind ourselves that a sustainable pace—whether it’s the pace of a run, a big project, or even a vacation—is the pace we can sustain for the long haul.
