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How to pace a world record style marathon

Dennis Kimetto after his marathon world record in Berlin in 2014.

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While few of us will ever come close to a 29 minute 10K, a 14:30 5K, a 4:41 mile or even a 2:55 kilometre, there are some important lessons to learn from Kimetto’s record setting run in Berlin last weekend.

The most important of all is on how to properly pace a marathon.

Kimetto and the lead group of runners went through the halfway mark in a blistering 1:01:45. He then picked up the pace and ran the second half even faster in 1:01:12, dropping all the others and finishing in his world record time of 2:02:57.

In that second half he also ran his fastest 5K split — between 30 and 35K — in 14:09 and well as ran back-to-back 10Ks in 29 minutes.

Second place finisher Emmanuel Mutai also ran a negative split — 1:01:46/1:01:27 — on route to his 2:03:13.

Running a negative split has proven effective for more than just Kimetto and Mutai. Haile Gebrselassie employed a similar strategy when setting the world record of 2:04:26 in 2007 where he ran 1:02:29 in the first half and followed that with a 1:01:57. He did it again when he broke the 2:04 barrier running 2:03:59 in 2008 and ran 1:02:05 and 1:01:54.

Of the other recent record holders, both Kipsang (1:01:32/1:01:51 in 2013) and Makau (1:01:44/1:01:54 in 2011), while not negative splits, ran very even pacing which equates to less than a second difference for each mile for the entire 26.2 miles.

These stats should serve as more than adequate proof that trying to bank time early in the race is not an effective pacing strategy. Running too fast in the early stages of the race will likely come back to add seconds and minutes to your result in the second.

Finding and knowing that perfect marathon pace that will get you your fastest result is a difficult task. It requires an honest and accurate assessment of your current fitness as well as consideration of race day conditions and the course you’re running. The important lesson is to start at or below race pace and resist the urge to run too fast early on.

 

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