Pacing in 50 Mile Trail Run

My client Melissa Griffith is the smartest adventure athlete I know.  Why you ask?  In my opinion, it takes great intelligence to over ride the brain chatter driven by emotion with thoughts based in rational logic.  This is the type of higher thought that separates our species from lower primates.

Here is a simple fact:  Physiologically, the vast majority of athletes are capable of fast average pace over any distance (from 400m to 100 miles) when the effort is either even throughout or slightly faster during the second half.  This has been extremely well document.  Now, in some competitive events, there may be a tactical reason for going out fast only to later slow down, but this does not change the physiological abilities.

So, for maximal distance cover in a set time or for the lowest net time over a set distance, it is ALWAYS wiser to dose the EFFORT or WORKLOAD such that one expends their energy evenly over the entire distance.  Since this is difficult in ultra endurance events, the next best strategy is to start conservative and increase the work load in the second half if one finds they held back too much.
Enough from me.  Here is Melissa’s race report.  This was her very first 50 mile trail running race.  She had only 3 months to prepare with many unfortunate restrictions on her ability to train (work, travel, running injuries).  However, she persevered, put in the best training given the circumstances and the NAILED it with a perfectly executed race strategy.  It should be noted that while Melissa had never done an ultra distance running race of any length, she is a very experienced adventure racer, so that is a very big factor in the outcome.

Was super pleased with how it went. Started out really conservatively and didn’t run for the first 3 hours at all. It was so hard to do because everyone was running down the hills (and some were running up them) but I thought that going downhill could be just as tiring on the legs so I wanted to save them for later. Coming into the first rest stop I was DEAD LAST and by the second one I was still in the last 10. Started to panic a little but it was still only 12 miles in so I put faith in your teaching and kept a steady pace. Figured I could run after mile 30 if I wanted to. The second half was an out and back so I could see ALL the people in front of me and there were a lot! Some of them were over 2 hours ahead of me as I clocked them – they were at mile 28 when I was at mile 20 BUT in the last half of the race I flew past them all! It was like a movie After mile 34 or so I knew I was going to make it and was feeling super strong so I started to push a little harder. I was powering up the hills while everyone else seemed to be going backwards and I actually looked forward to going up because my legs felt fresh and I knew I would overtake more people. When it came to the last downhill section I must have passed at least 50 racers as they were hobbling down and I was doing 8 min miles! Was super efficient through the rest stops and didn’t spend more than 15 seconds in any of them. Had everything dialed so I just filled my bottle, stuffed food in my pockets and kept moving. Only stopped twice around mile 34 and 42 for a #2 each time and even then it was quick. My AR training definitely helped as I had the usual stomach and heat issues (it was 80 degrees) so I dialed back when I felt it coming on and took good care of myself with food / drink / electrolytes etc. Felt really good to do a sprint finish after such a long race.

There is NO NEED to go out fast as all the people who did ended up behind me.

And thanks for finally getting through to me to treat it with the respect it deserved and not think I could run the whole thing!

Question:  tell me … did it help a lot mentally to be feeling good and PASSING lots of people as the race wore on?

Hell YES! It felt amazing – I was superwoman!!

Well, there you have it.  On her very first race, not only did she finish but she ultimately finished 184 out of 302 runners.  She PASSED 116 people between the 1st aid station and the finish!

In long events like these, I say … “there are two kinds of people ahead of you.  The ones that should be and the ones that won’t be for much longer!”

Great job Melissa!  For all you geeks out there, see her Garmin file below.