Sunday, June 22, 2014

My first time as a pacer

Posted by Rachel

This morning Sandi and I paced the 1:45 group for the See Jane Run half marathon. I was actually a little bit anxious about this because I read somewhere on the internet that you’re supposed to pace a group that is about 15 min slower than your PR. Needless to say, 1:45 is NOT 15 min slower than my PR... it’s 7 minutes slower, on a good day (which today was not). Plus, during tri training I have such inconsistent runs with no rhyme or reason. On Tuesday, I did 4 (2x2) sub-7:15 miles and my recovery miles were 8:00, and the whole run felt as if I were running in low gravity. Fast forward to today, 8:00 miles felt like DEATH. Not only did they feel like death, but I had to hide it from the people in the pace group, because in my experience your pacers aren’t supposed to be dying in the race.


 Some very difficult "8:00 miles" with goal time success!

Besides my run not feeling great, we pretty much nailed it on paper (I am really proud of this, knowing we didn’t ruin anyone’s race). The results have us in at 1:45:00, and our splits were consistent. Our running club told us to run 7:57s, even though I checked the math 3x and I knew we should be running 8’s. We decided to do what they said, thinking maybe they wanted us to account for the Garmin effect. So we aimed for about 7:54 on the Garmins thinking we’d actually come in pretty far (~30-50 sec) under 1:45. Then, it turned out around mile 8 the mile markers started getting farther apart and the course was about 0.1 miles too long*, and all the “math” worked out in the end.  Chen, despite her claims in her post yesterday that she would be behind, of course came in ahead of 1:45. Afterward, she and Sandi ran an extra 3 miles to fulfill some marathon training goals while I laid on the beach :)
 
(* this is not official, it was concluded based on our 3 Garmins reading 13.26, 13.27, and 13.31).

 3 extra miles after the race? Yeah... no thanks!

I would definitely consider being a pacer again. I got my “long” run over with on a closed scenic course and hopefully helped some people with their race. One of the girls in our group ran a 1:44 and her old PR was 1:53, which was so awesome to watch. Other than the pace feeling way harder than it should have and hitting Sandi with the pacer sign no fewer than 10 times, it was an overall success!

9 comments:

  1. I'm still so amazed (though not surprised) that you guys came in right at 1:45:00 despite the crazy long course. A remarkable job! I'm also extremely glad I didn't agree to pace - despite coming in slightly ahead, I was a grumpy McGrumpster for no fewer than 9 of those hot, windy miles. Well done on staying happy and animated despite any pain :).

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  2. OMG I am SO impressed with your consistent pacing! This is something I don't think I will ever accomplish. I think it would be so cool to be a pacer - I applied once, but they were full already. Plus you and Sandi are so much fun and friendly I'm sure you were perfect for the job, even if you were secretly dying!

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    1. It was fun to be a pacer, aside from the secretly dying part! It was really fulfilling at the end when a few people thanked us and said we really motivated them. On the flip side, it is kind of a lot of pressure because if you go out too fast or too slow you can really screw up someone's race :p

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  3. Today's run was amazing! Dual pacers is the way to go for sure - I cannot imagine carrying that darn sign the whole way through. So awesome to hear that we helped motivate runners to run a good a race today.

    While I think the race was long, I will say that See Jane Run had great volunteers directing runners and traffic, and manning the water stops.

    Big shout to Chen- thanks for "pacing the pacers" and giving us (me) something to focus on. I have to admit it was hard to hold back and not try to catch you to run WITH you :p.

    -Sandi

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    1. Haha I thought that might be a risk, but it's a good thing Rachel had that sign with which to bop you on the head if you went too fast ;).

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  4. You are like a metronome.

    Will

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    1. That's the second time in the last 5 days I've been called a metronome. I had a new coach at master's swim Friday morning and he called me that after I did the first three repeats in a set of 200s at the exact same pace. Better to be a metronome than to go too fast and die a horrible, suffering death, I always say.

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  5. Wow super consistent! Nice work Rachel and Sandi!

    -Katie

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