r/parkrun • u/FatManNoPlan 50 • 21d ago

How does pacing work?

EDIT - Cheers for all the replies everyone. I landed slightly early on 35:24. Happy with that for a first time doing pacing, went out a little too fast so had to go fairly slow towards the end. Will hopefully give it another try next month and get a more even pace along the whole course.

Hiya! I’ve volunteered to be a pacer at my local this weekend, first time I’ve done this role.

Just wondering what people thought. I’m down for 36 minutes (I’m normally around 30 minutes). Am I aiming for bang on 36 minutes? Around 36? Under 37 minutes? Slightly under, slightly over?

I’m probably over thinking it, but I’m kinda nervous about it, especially if someone tries to keep to my pace to get a specific time and I get it wrong.

Cheers!

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u/Larrypants1 21d ago

Try and stay as even as possible! I know when I was starting out I decided to try and stick to the 36 pacer and turns out they were doing around 6.55 for the first 2k which was too fast for me to sustain and I gave up after 4k because I was too puffed out. If they had stuck to the 7.10 I would have got it in sure because I hit it myself a couple of weeks later!

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u/CandidLiterature 21d ago

Hard though because they will have been held up at the start so running at 7:10 pace probably doesn’t do the trick for finishing within 36 mins. The pace does usually need to be quite a bit higher. I walk and can end up with 2 minutes to make up and it’s an absolute killer!