Why 'Running Power' Might Be The Best Way To Pace A Hilly Running Event Like Sydney Marathon
As the weather takes a turn for the worse, hilly race season is nearly upon us with City to Surf and Sydney Marathon fast approaching. With that in mind, we run headlong into a discussion of the pros and cons of various pacing strategies for hilly races and how best to avoid the dreaded QES.*
*(Quad Explosion Syndrome!)
Should you be guided by pace, heart rate, RPE or power based pacing? Power certainly not new to cycling and triathlon, is a relative novelty to the spartan approach of the running purist. However, its ability to reflect mechanical workload should not be ignored, especially over the hillier courses.
We discuss how early pacing strategies, which can work well for flat courses like Gold Coast Marathon, can go the absolute opposite way for courses like Sydney marathon and City 2 Surf.
PACE
Pros:
Being guided by pace “can” be useful on flat courses in very predictable conditions - not too much heat, humidity or wind. The caveat being that the athlete must know with surety that their level of fitness will allow them to be at the right intensity to produce a strong performance from start to finish.
With the use of time-based pacers in mass participation events, a small advantage can be gained by drafting in a pace based group. Whilst of course the advantage is nothing like biking or swimming, drafting may save a runner roughly 2% to 3.5% in energy expenditure (or up to 8% in some studies), translating to a potential 3-5 minute improvement in a 3-hour marathon.
Cons
It is incredibly difficult to maintain a steady effort for the best possible marathon performance with varied temperatures or on a windy day. Even a 4-5 degree change in temperature or a 10% change in humidity will mean the effort level required for a set pace will be vastly different.
A pace based approach completely ignores the challenges of terrain or headwind. Imagine that you hold 4 min/km pace into a strong headwind or up a hill, that’s an incredibly different intensity to 4 min/km pace on the flat or downhill. Intensity will vary wildly instead of remaining steady.
Buildings often block GPS signal in bigger city races potentially giving poor GPS readings. There is nothing more frustrating and potentially distracting than a watch stuck at a pace that doesn’t reflect your actual effort/output.
HEART RATE
Pros:
An excellent way to monitor effort. Heart rate is an internal measure of all things affecting the intensity you’re currently at. It accounts for temperature, wind, group dynamics/drafting or a lack of drafting and can reflect terrain too.
Cons:
If you’re an athlete with pre-race nerves and a surge of adrenaline when the gun goes off (likely most people to some extent), you may experience 3-4 km of running (at any pace) with a raised heart rate at the start of the race.
While sticking to heart rate on uphills is a great move, if you stick to a set heart rate on downhills, your legs will need to have been conditioned to the higher force of downhill running at that intensity. If not, you’re going to end up with serious quadricep breakdown (Quadricep Explosion Syndrome!!) far sooner in the race and end up slowing simply due to muscle breakdown.
RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion)
Pros:
For the very experienced, calm athletes, RPE could work really well as a pacing strategy. Similar to heart rate, minus the objectiveness, RPE allows the athlete to factor in all the environmental challenges plus any other internal concerns being managed. This leads to an even effort, even if the pace shifts around considerably to account for all the variables.
Cons:
For the majority of athletes, it’s tricky for your perceived effort in training to match your racing perceived effort. Your body is in a hyper ready state and in addition you may have had an extra dose of caffeine than usual. This can mean your pain threshold is considerably higher and the resultant perceived effort is a long way from where it should be for the appropriate effort.
POWER
Pros:
Power truly reflects ‘mechanical workload’.
On a climb then, pace slows but effort can stay steady or only rise slightly. On a downhill the impact through the legs will be reflected in the power output even if the cardiovascular variable drops.
So, for hilly courses, if you hold steady power, you automatically, back off on climb, stay controlled on the descent, keep glycogen burn rate more stable and help avoid the dreaded ‘quadricep or calf explosion syndrome'.That’s exactly what you want early in a marathon until the heart rate you’re seeing is more reliable as adrenaline levels taper off.
Cons:
Much like on the bike, power is just a reading of the force going into the ground. It’s not going to allow for environmental factors like heart rate can and be the best way to pace later on in the race.
For Sydney Marathon Specifically:
The significant downhills very early on in the race can be a real race destroyer for many people. Even if you’ve conditioned the legs to running downhills without too much muscle breakdown, it’s a really big ask for the body if you run those downhills really fast and then have to run the rest of the marathon with micro tears in the muscles already opening up.
Power is an excellent option here to avoid GPS data interference and to hold you back. It allows the pain to really start when it should, at more like 32kms rather than 12kms.
Sydney Marathon Training Peaks Plans now available
As anyone who has raced a marathon can attest, the aerobic and muscular fatigue of the event is already an incredible assault on the body. Add in the stress of the hills of Sydney and you have a herculean challenge ahead of you.
We’ve put our best foot forward and done all the leg work so you won’t have to.
Targeted Sydney specific plans of varying durations and ability levels are now available in the Training Peaks library. Every plan includes access to the RPG Circle membership where you can ask questions, search for topics in the comprehensive article library and join the weekly Zoom Q&A session with head coaches Tim Reed and Clint Rowlings.
