How to best pace a half marathon, pace based or heart rate?

Jeff Braaten

A year or two ago Patrick offered up some advice regarding using HR as the pacing guide for the marathon or half marathon portion of our Ironman racing even though we train based on pace/vdot. This has always made sense to me and is how I have raced for several years now. My question is does anyone use this same philosophy for an open marathon or half marathon alone? I have done HR and Paced based stand alone run races and can't decide which is better and wondered what the team thought. 

Brad Marcus

Jeff- I've been successful running stand alone half M using the EN strategy and running by pace. The race will be short enough for you (VDOT 46) for you to do this and be able to dial in where you should be. Last time around, I followed the plan almost to the T and had very good success. I slightly dialed back the first 3 miles, gradually building them until miles 4-10 where I ran a steady pace and dialed it up again in the final 3 miles. I took in minimal nutrition (water throughout and 1 gel at halfway point), and did NOT walk aid stations.

The full stand alone half M strategy is here http://members.endurancenation.us/Resources/Wiki/tabid/91/Default.aspx?topic=Half+Marathon+Pacing

Al Truscott

Jeff - at the speed you're going to be doing a HM - in the 1:30s - you really don't need to worry about any extra nutrition. A gel before the start, and a few rounds of "sports drink"  - whatever they're serving on course - ought to be sufficient. You won't run out of glycogen during the race.

I think you're keyed in enough to your paces that you don;t need to hold back very much, speed-wise, at the start. The big problem comes in RPE - 7:20 feels pretty darn slow at the start of a race, with all the people around you and your adrenaline pumped up and all. My advice (to myself when I do HMs) is to use pace at the start, to stay at or a tick slower than my VDOT predicted HM for the first mile, at HM pace for the next 2-3 miles, then start ignoring everything except RPE. I use my training runs @ HM to guide my RPE from that point on - from miles 4-11, I want to feel like I do during the course of the HM runs I was doing during training. At the end of the race, the final two miles or so, I want to start feeling like 10K, then 5K RPE.

Your heart should be fairly well trained, and is not likely to be your limiter during the race. Your ability to hold back at the start, and to dig deep at the end are what will lead to your best time. So to answer your question, my advice: ignore HR; follow pace during the first 2-3 miles, then go by RPE. This advice is specific to a stand alone HM, and should not be used for a half Ironman, nor for a stand alone marathon - different strategies work best for each of those.

Jeff Braaten

Thanks, I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow in Dallas.

Coach Patrick

So?????