With the Australia Day Ultra looming on the horizon I need to start thinking about a racing strategy for the big day. ( http://australiadayultra.com ) I’ll work on the nutrition part of the plan over the next few weeks with help from Jon ‘an Ultra is more about eating that actually running’ Pendse. For now I need to lock in a pacing strategy as Jon always says ‘the person who slows down the most wins’, so this strategy is pivotal to the success of this little adventure. It seems in an ultra everybody slows down but its the front of the pack runners who slow down the least. Common sense really but you’d also need to take into account the initial pace from which you would slow down from. No point going out at a snails pace and then slowing and then coming home feeling you have more left in the tank. Like all things racing its a fine balancing act between finishing strong enough to still finish on empty, totally spent, knowing you gave your all, or finishing feeling as fresh as a daisy and wondering why your time was so disappointing.

Of course the one problem with my pacing strategy, once I get round to actually creating one, is the small fly in the ointment in the shape of a thing called the ‘competition‘. It will be very hard to let other runners go ahead early in the race and depending on their pacing strategy I’ll probably still go with them and try and hang on before the wheels fall off my wagon or theirs. This is race strategy plan B I suppose if plan A (my pacing strategy) fails because of the competition employing plan B. Man this ultra running is complicated. On the bright side I’ll have lots of time to mull over all my plans, assuming I can make up any more of course, as the 100k will take at least 7 hours and 59 minutes (according to plan A). This time may be faster or slower depending on ‘competition’ and plan B. Would my nutrition plan be plan C or do I start a whole new alphabet and run the two in parallel ? I can see why you have to eat so much during ultra marathons, keep yourself sharp while you work through all the possible scenarios, you can’t think straight on an empty stomach right ?

I found a great article from John Davises from Runners Connect on the subject of ultra pacing which I have digested (it was an ultra article, apparently you digest these!), worth a read while I eat my muffin and ice cream, I really am beginning to like being an ultra runner…..

 

Track fans had their eyes fixed on Sacramento in July for the USATF outdoor track championships, but that wasn’t the only championship event in the running world. That weekend also played host to the Western States Endurance Run, a 100-mile ultramarathon that’s arguably one of the most storied ultra-endurance events in the world.The big story at this year’s Western States was a strong push through the first 60 miles of the race by Max King, a latecomer to ultramarathoning who boasts very impressive track and marathon credentials, including a national-caliber 3km steeplechase PR.Alas, Max King faded in the final third of the race, passed by eventual winner Rob Krar, who finished the hundred-mile trek in just under fifteen hours.For the better-known running distances like the 5k or the marathon, it’s pretty well-accepted that even pacing is the best strategy (here’s some research). But how about the ultramarathon?Does the ideal pacing strategy change when you push out your race distance far beyond the length of a marathon?

 

Identifying the ideal pacing strategy

A study published in 2004 by Mike Lambert and a team of other researchers at the University of Cape Town in South Africa looked to find some answers to these questions.In the study, Lambert et al. analyzed the 10km splits of 67 high-level ultramarathoners at the 1995 and 1997 IAU World Challenge, a 100 km ultramarathon.By sorting the runners into groups based on their finish time and applying statistical analysis to their intermediate splits, Lambert et al. were able to identify what type of pacing strategy led to a good race outcome.

 

Fast runners vs slow runners

Unlike many ultramarathons (including Western States), the course at the IAU World Challenge is a flat loop course, which makes comparing split times much easier.Unlike the pacing of elite runners in shorter events, everybody at the IAU World Challenge 100k slowed down over the course of the race—even the podium finishers.But critically, the most successful runners were the ones who slowed down the least.The fastest group of runners only ran their last 10k loop 15 percent slower than their first, and they were able to maintain their initial pace up to about 50 km into the race before slowing at all.The pacing of the slower runners dropped off by 40%, and they started to slow significantly earlier. Even the middle-of-the-pack ultramarathoners slowed by 25-30%.Further, the fastest runners also had less variability in their splits, meaning they didn’t have any big surges or drastic drop-offs in pace.Now, some of this might be incidental: a runner with stomach problems or one who tripped and fell would obviously have more split-to-split variability than one who didn’t.

 

Low split variation and gradual slowdown

And one of the study’s other findings—that the faster runners started out at a higher speed than the slower runners—is almost surely correlative, not causative.But the combination of low split variation and a more gradual slowdown in the best ultramarathoners makes a strong case for efficient pacing in the ultramarathon.

 

Why do runners slow down?

This still doesn’t provide a direct answer as to why even very successful ultramarathoners tend to slow down in the latter portions of the race.

Lambert et al. propose a number of different possible reasons.

• First among these is fueling: even with very high carbohydrate intake, there comes a point where your body’s ability to absorb carbohydrates limits how fast you can run, because faster paces necessitate higher carbohydrate utilization and you can only absorb carbs so fast.
• Interestingly, Lambert et al. point out that this threshold occurs around 40-50km in most people when running at a moderate pace, right around where the best runners in their study started to slow.
• Alternatively, muscle fatigue or simply pacing mistakes by the slower runners could account for much of the slowdown.

Whatever the cause, it’s not unique to ultramarathon running.

A 2008 review study by Chris Abbiss and Paul Laursen at Edith Cowan University in Australia cites research on Ironman triathlons and long-distance cycling races that shows a similar progressive slowing of pace in the later stages of the competition.Unlike in a 5k or even a marathon, a progressive (though gradual) slowing of pace after about 50km (31 miles) appears to be part of the ideal pacing strategy—at least according to the research published to date.

 

Conclusion

Scientific evidence isn’t always in-step with the latest training and racing strategies, but it does help explain the reasons behind the phenomena we observe on race day.

If you are shooting for success in your next ultra race, you should maintain your goal pace as evenly as possible for as long as possible.

Although some slowing is probably inevitable after running for a few hours, you should do your best to keep the slowdown as gradual as possible.