Marathon Strategies

Marathon Strategies

You can run one of three races. 

There are really only three race strategies.

1. Go out hard and hang on
2. Go out easy and negative split
3. Go out at a steady state and run even splits

Having run  ~41 marathons I’ve tested out all of them.  Which strategy works best?

If you haven’t trained it doesn’t matter.  I’m going to assume for this discussion that you have done some sort of adequate training for the race.

I’m also not talking about walk/run plans because I don’t have any expertise in those.  If you think about it the Galloway race strategy is a form of steady state and in some cases negative split.  Jeff will usually tell his folks that if they feel good at mile twenty to feel free to skip walk beaks.

Of the three strategies the question as to which is best relay depends on how you define what ‘best’ is.

If you want the least amount of pain it may be either go out slow or steady state.  If you want the best time it may be go out hard or steady state.

First, let’s look at some of my ‘go out hard’ races.  My PR at Boston was a go out hard race.  I was way over my pace all the way.   And I did crash.  But I was fit enough and had done the training.  I didn’t start losing steam until late in the race, mile 22 or 23 and when I did slow it was to a reasonable pace, not to a walk or sit.  I probably lost 5-6 minutes in those last 6 miles. I was fit enough to hang on.

What if I had run the steady state or go out slow race?  Potentially I wouldn’t have lost those 5 or 6 minutes but I would not have had the 5-6 extra minutes in the bank that I built up by running over my head for the first 20 miles.

The go-out-hard only works if you’re fit enough.  If you don’t have the fitness you end up crashing earlier and harder.  Then instead of losing 5-6 minutes to a slower pace you lose 20 minutes to a prolonged death shuffle, or worse you get knocked out of the race.

In the case of my PR race at Boston I ran right around 7 minute miles for the majority of the race and only slowed to 8 or 8 and ½ minute miles near the end for an average of 7:08’s.  This was not a comfortable race.  I was hurting at the end.  But it was a fast race.

Let’s look at an example of steady state.  That same year, in my qualifying marathon at BayState that got me into Boston I ran a 3:09 and change.  I ran every single mile like clockwork at the exact pace required to run a 3:10 marathon.  I didn’t let myself off the leash until the last mile.  It was glorious.  I felt strong and happy and overjoyed as I cruised through the finish with my qualifying time well in hand.

That sounds pretty good right? What’s the draw back?  The drawback to the steady state race is that I had a lot left at the end of that race.  I was tremendously fit.  It is entirely possible that I could have run an amazing race, maybe a sub-3 marathon if I had gone after it.  That’s the trade off.

What about a Start out slow race?  That’s the one they tell you works the best right?  Certainly the Start out slow race has the lowest probability of catastrophe.  I will typically use a go out slow race strategy if I’m injured or my fitness is questionable.

In 2010 I ran Boston and I wasn’t super fit but I had done honest training.  Since I wasn’t sure of my fitness I didn’t want to attack the race.  I let the race come to me.  After the initial exuberance of the downhill sections out of Hopkinton I ran into a friend of mine, Gina from the Goon Squad and we teamed up to hold each other back.  We both synced into a nice easy 8 minute mile pace.  Whenever one of us would start to speed up the other would pull them back.

I held back until we hit the hills in Newton.  I let myself start to accelerate the pace as we climbed out of Newton Lower Falls over rte 128.  Each mile I’d let my pace creep up by 5 seconds a mile or so.  By the time I got to Heartbreak I was pushing the pace and blowing by people up the hill.

When we rolled off the top of Heartbreak and down the slump into Boston I was fresh and able to take advantage of the downhills.   I was running 7:15’s down the back side of the hills.  I still slowed in the last 2-3 miles but ended up negative splitting the race by 6-8 minutes in the last 8-9 miles.

I don’t think there was any scenario that would have gotten me a better time or a better experience than the go-out-slow strategy on that day.  The wonderful thing about a negative split race was that I was passing the dead and wounded like they were standing still for the last 8-9 miles.  It’s incredibly empowering to be blowing by people late in a marathon. Just like crashing is mentally hard, negative splitting is mentally glorious.

Now let’s look at some failures.  I have had plenty of races where I have gone out hard and crashed early.  It’s my default setting.  When that happens it’s miserable.  You can either battle it all the way down to the bitter end or pull back when you feel it coming.  As you get more experienced you can tell by mile 10 or so if it’s going to be a good day.

Most of those first ½ dozen Boston Marathons kicked my ass hard and every time was an awful 3-6 miles of trudging along feeling sorry for myself, doing the death shuffle and grinding it out to the finish.  I had no clue how to pace.  If I wasn’t super-fit it didn’t matter.  I’d go out hard and I’d struggle and suffer at the end.

When a go-out-hard race goes sideways on you it hurts.  You tend to hit the wall hard between 17 – 20 miles in.  You can hit the wall so hard that you are forced to slow way down and walk.  I’ve had races this year where I’ve gone from 8:30 miles to 15 minute miles.  I’ve lost almost 20 minutes of ‘positive’ split in the last 8 miles of a race.  And it sucks.  It’s mentally and physically awful to crash in a race.

Now that I’m older I don’t let it get that far.  I have a lower tolerance for suffering.  When I realize it’s not my day I back off and find a comfortable pace or schedule walk breaks.  If I’m injured or not fit there’s really nothing to do about it except try to make the fitness you have stretch out over 26.2 miles the best you can.  This is a mandatory go-out-slow situation.

If you know you’re not fit then you have no other choice than to start slow and try to ride it gracefully through the distance.  I’ll schedule one minute walk breaks at the aid stations or even do a Galloway-esque walk-run cadence.  I don’t train that way so it doesn’t help that much but it gets me through to the finish.

This doesn’t mean a steady-state or a go-out-slow is a guarantee of having a good race.  26.2 miles is a long way to run and I’m constantly amazed at how hard it gets in those last 6 miles, regardless of the strategy or the fitness.

In some ways that’s why we do what we do – to test our mettle in those last few miles.  That’s the moment of truth.  That’s what makes it real.

Course difficulty, weather or other factors could cause you to switch your strategy to a more cautious approach as well.

If you are going to go out hard then you target a pace that is 10 seconds a mile or more faster than your goal pace for that day.  If you are going out steady state you figure out what your goal time is and run those splits from the start.  If you are going out slow you want to be 10 to 20 seconds per mile slower than your target pace.

In summary, the best way to control your marathon strategy is, as usual to train well and honestly.  Other than that you have a choice of go-out-hard, steady-state, or start-slow.  If you have any doubts use the start-slow strategy.  You can always push it when you get into the high miles.