Matt Fitzgerald - On Pace

1

Why Pacing Matters

In prior years it had been, and with good success. Eight of the previous ten mens marathon world records had been recorded in Berlin, including the existing record of 2:01:39 set by Eliud Kipchoge the year before. The marquee entrant in 2019 was Kenenisa Bekele, widely considered the greatest distance runner God ever created but who, at thirty-seven, was getting a bit long in the tooth and was three years past his last major victory. Hired pacers had been asked to take the race out at 2:55 per kilometer (about 4:41 per mile), which would yield a fast but not historically fast marathon time, close to Bekeles personal best (PB) of 2:03:03 if sustained for the full 42.2 kilometers. Prevailing opinion in online fan forums was that Bekele himself would not only fail to sustain it but fail to finish, as hed done in two of his last four marathons. On the eve of the event, the soft-spoken Ethiopian told the assembled media, Overall I have prepared well, although my training period of three months is perhaps rather short for a marathon.

This was because of an earlier injury. But I am ready for Sunday and want to show what I can do. Having followed Bekeles career closely from the time he burst onto the international running scene with an astonishing 33-second win at the 2001 IAAF Junior World Cross Country Championships, I read more into these last few words than the more casual fan might. To me, they signaled that Bekele intended to run very fast indeed, and that he wished to show one man in particular what he could do. Eliud Kipchoge and Kenenisa Bekele had been rivals since 2003, when the latter nipped the former by 0.35 second in a 5000-meter race in Oslo. The pair had met again nineteen times thereafter, Bekele coming out ahead in thirteen of these races but losing all four of the marathons theyd started together.

Now in the twilight of his illustrious career, Bekele might have had his last chance to cross a finish line in front of his Kenyan nemesis, but taking down his world record would certainly qualify as the next best thing. My interpretation of Bekeles pre-race comments was validated the next morning when a small lead pack headed by a pair of striped-vested pacers passed through 5 km in 14:24, well ahead of the stated pace and precisely matching Kipchoges split from the previous year. In the center of the scrum, a relaxed Bekele looked almost as if he were napping on his feet, waiting for the real start of the race. When youve watched a runner compete as many times as Ive watched Bekele, you can tell by the subtlest cues if hes got his best stuff on a given day, and I could tell by Bekeles half-lidded eyes that he had good legs on this particular day, and knew it. A shrunken lead group passed through 10 km 1 second ahead of Kipchoges record pace and remained a single tick to the good at the halfway point. I knew this could be no accident.

Bekele was going for it! The problem, though, was that Kipchoge had sped up significantly in the second half of his record-breaking performance, and Bekele would have to do the same to snatch the coveted title from his rival. Yet Bekele continued to snooze even after the pacers peeled off, leaving him with only a pair of less heralded compatriots to share the work, and by the time they reached 25 km, the Ethiopian trio had fallen 6 seconds behind the invisible specter of Kipchoge. Approaching 30 km, and another 4 seconds off Kipchoges standard, twenty-five-year-old Birhanu Legese launched an attack of his own. Sisay Lemma covered it quickly, but Bekele was gapped. Grimacing, he locked his now wide-open eyes on Legeses back like the threat it was, skipping his next drink bottle to save the fraction of a second that grabbing it would have cost him, but it was no use. The aggressor continued to pull away, shaking off Lemma within a few blocks on his way to passing 35 km with a 13-second advantage on the greatest of all time.

The thing is, Bekele hadnt actually slowed down. In fact, he hit 35 km having recorded his own fastest 5K split of the day, and the grimace was gone. A nervous glance back from Legese affirmed what, by then, Bekele already understoodthe younger man was faltering. Bekele came after him like an assassin. Alone in my home office in California, I began to holler at my computer screen. Just past 37 km, Bekele overtook Legese with brutal authority, as though the would-be usurper were already forgotten, which in fact he was.

Back on world record pace, Bekele was now chasing someone else, present but unseen. The next 12 minutes were as thrilling as any athletic spectacle Ive witnessed. A famously beautiful runner, Bekele ran more beautifully than I could ever hope to describe in those last few solitary minutes on Berlins Teutonically perfect streets, his trademark sprinters back kick in full effect, head rocking ever so slightly in small concession to fatigue, checking his watch frequently, as though he heard the television commentators raving about how close it was going to be. More than beautiful, Bekeles self-sacrificial charge to the finish line was heroic , the stuff of legend, an aging champions all-costs bid to etch one last triumph into his legacy. Bekele shot through Brandenburg Gate at 2:00:39 on the race clock, leaving precisely 1 minute to close the deal. The crowd waiting on the other side went berserk.

Wincing with effort, Bekele tried to accelerate but couldnt, for he was already sprinting and had been for some time. The video feed now switched to a camera stationed behind the finish line. I saw Bekele grinding. I saw the clock, ticking up, counting down. It was impossible to judge the distance. Could he do it? 2:01:31, 32, 33...

Two seconds. He missed by 2 seconds! Thats 0.02 percent. Yet Bekele was far from disappointed by the oh-so-near miss. I knew I was very close to the record but I couldnt quite make it, he told reporters at a post-race press conference. Before the race, I did not expect a world record, so I am very happy to take 80 seconds off my personal best. As a fan of elite running, I love this performance for its poetry and drama.

But as a coach, I see it as the epitome of skillful pacing. The Quintessential Running Skill Pacing is the art of finding your limit . Harder than it looks, this quintessential running skill is supported by three key aptitudes: body awareness, judgment, and toughness. Body awareness (or what scientists call somatic awareness) relates to a runners feel for her performance limits. Although pacing can be assisted by objective data (as evidenced by Bekeles frequent watch glances), it is done mainly by feel. All competitive runners share a common goal of reaching the finish line in the least time possible.

Throughout each race, a single question looms: Can I sustain this effort level for the remaining distance? The answer comes not in the form of numbers or words but as perceptions, a continuous evaluation of present levels of effort and fatigue in relation to past experience. That same looming question could also be formulated this way: Am I feeling how I should be feeling at this point of the race? Some runners are better than others at reading these perceptions, and Bekele showed exquisite sensitivity to his limits in Berlin, most obviously when he held steady instead of answering Legeses attack, but not only then. When Bekele said after the race that he did not expect a world record, I took him at his word. Why, then, did he start the marathon smack on record pace? Because every pacing master knows better than to allow expectations to rule his performance. Goals and expectations provide a good starting point for successful race execution, but thats all they do. When the gun goes off and you start moving, you need to be willing and able to adjust your effort appropriately based on external conditions and also on disparities between how you expected to feel and how you actually feel.