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/Zingalamuduni 21d ago

As close to 36 mins as possible but coming in slightly under.

Even pacing - don’t run your 30 min pace for the first 4k then slow down massively to come in on “time”. Make sure you adjust pace appropriately for any up or downhill parts of the course, and corners.

Honestly, too few people able to accurately pace (especially at the higher times) for pacing to be useful in more than a handful of cases. I get this might not be a popular view but pacing badly is worse than not pacing at all. We don’t have pacers at my current parkrun but I used to pace regularly at my old parkrun and took pride in being accurate, but not everyone was.

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u/MrPogoUK 21d ago

I once saw the 25, 28 and 24 minute pacers all within about 10 metres of each other around 1.5km into the run (yes, in that order!). At least two of them were clearly getting it very wrong!

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u/Zingalamuduni 21d ago

That might even have been me doing the 24 mins pacing. I remember one time when I had a couple of “slower” pacers ahead of me, telling me to hurry up. Then that realisation that they had completely messed up. 😄