Pace Leader - Tobacco Road Half Marathon

After seeing how rewarding and fun being a pace group leader could be when I ran with a group at the City of Oaks Marathon, I approached the organizers of the pace groups for the Tobacco Road Half Marathon to see whether I could pace a group. Luckily, the organizers of the pace groups are friends of mine and were happy for me to lead the 2:10 Half Marathon pace group.

The Tobacco Road race organizers had requested pace groups for 1:30, 1:40, 1:50, 2:00, 2:10, 2:20 and 2:30 for the Half Marathon. The job of the pace leader is to provide encouragement to the runners whilst maintaining the pace required to finish at their designated time. On a flat course like Tobacco Road, this would mean running consistent mile splits (on hilly courses pacing is more difficult as the extra effort required to go up hill must be taken in to account) at a relaxed and conversational pace. A 2:10 Half Marathon is 9:54/mile, which is certainly a relaxed, conversational pace for me (even if it was a pace that I hardly ever run).

I practiced running at 9:54/mile a couple of weeks before the race and did a pretty good job even though I found the pace to be uncomfortable to begin with. As the miles passed by I found that I was looking at my watch less and less and I had found a rhythm that was working.

On the day before the Marathon/Half Marathon, I worked at the pace group table at the Expo answering questions from runners about how pace groups worked and what groups would be available on race day. It became quickly apparent that every runner has a different goal and wants to approach that goal in a different way and that although the groups we had available wouldn't fit everyone's requirements, they would be useful to lots of runners.

On race morning I woke up at 4:00 am to the sounds of thunderstorms and pouring rain. I knew that storms were a possibility, but a quick check of the local weather station radar showed that the storms would be gone by 4:30 and the race should at least have a dry start. The temperature would be close to 60F for the majority of the race but there was some humidity in the air and no breeze at all which meant runners were going to struggle. I made it to the parking area at 5:00 am and got a ride over to the race start/finish area to start preparing the signs and balloons that each pace group leader would be carrying for the entire race. Each pace leader had a yellow shirt to wear with the time they'd be running on the back as well as the sign to carry with the balloons to help runners easily identify the pace leader as well as the pace they were running at.

I entered the already crowded starting corral (4000 runners would be starting the Marathon and Half Marathon at the same time) 20 minutes before the start of the race and positioned myself near to where people wanting to run at nearly 10 minutes per mile should be standing. I chatted to runners around me and answered some questions about what my strategy would be for the race and water stops (I wanted to run 9:50/mile consistently and would be slowing slightly for each water stop but not walking through them).

I had set my Virtual Partner on my Garmin to 9:50/mile and planned on using that to keep pace - this was my major mistake for the day.

Finally (20 minutes standing in a starting corral is a LONG time), the race started and it took nearly 2 minutes to slowly walk and then run across the starting line. The crowd of runners moved at a pace that was close to what I had wanted to run, but a little slower than I wanted. If I had been running on my own, I would have weaved my way through the crowd (well, I wouldn't have been that far back to start with, but you get the idea) but I had a group of about 20 people that wanted to stay close to me so I was hesitant to make any big moves. I remained patient, waited for gaps to appear and slowly moved through them. The first couple of miles were on the roads heading down to the Tobacco Trail, and we were right on track pace wise as we passed the mile 2 sign which helped me to relax a little as I felt like we were now in the right place in the crowd of runners as everyone seemed to be moving at the same pace with little passing going on.

Once we made the left turn on to the Tobacco Trail (which was wet under foot), the Marathon runners turned right the crowd thinned a little further. However, it was immediately more humid as the trees that run along the trail trap the humid air and I knew it was going to be hard for a couple of the runners that were already breathing heavily behind me. Unfortunately, there isn't anything I can do for them apart from to encourage them to run intelligently, respect the weather conditions and stay hydrated - I couldn't slow down to run with them as I had a group of about 10 runners that weren't struggling at the pace we needed to run at.

I missed the mile 3 marker completely, but I already knew that my GPS was having problems with the overcast skies and trees along the trail as my Virtual Partner went from 10 seconds ahead to 90 seconds behind (and stayed there) in the space of half a mile. By the time the mile 4 marker appeared my watch showed 3.8 miles but a quick glance at the elapsed time showed me we were still about 10 seconds ahead (at least 9:54/mile is easy math!). I have had bad experiences with mile markers being in the wrong place before, but I had no real choice but to trust them and ignore my "trusty" Virtual Partner.

The leaders of the Half Marathon had already made the turn (which was at exactly half way on the out and back course) and passed us not long after the 4 mile sign. I found myself having to constantly tell runners around me to move to the right side of the trail to allow the leaders space to pass us - maybe the trail isn't big enough for this number of runners.

As the temperature and humidity began to take their toll on the runners ahead of us that had gone out too fast we began to pass more and more walkers. I noticed how many runners around me were wearing headphones, which was most of them. I thought that it was a pity as even if I wanted to encourage them, they couldn't hear me. I had four non-headphone wearing runners that I chatted with about their race goals and how they were feeling - two men and two ladies. The miles passed by as we made our way along the slight decline then incline of the trail to the half way turn around point and we turned at exactly 1:05 - right on time.

As I made it to the mile 7 marker I decided that I should probably be pressing the lap button at each mile marker so I could get an accurate split as the GPS was still all over the place. As we approached mile 9 the Marathon leader appeared from nowhere - running without the lead bike (I'd later find out that the lead bike had made a mistake early on and lead the two leaders the wrong way - they wouldn't ever recover and finished 2nd and 3rd). A couple of minutes later a very confused looking lead bike passed us, followed by the front of the Marathon field. We encouraged them and amazingly, those that were outside of the top 15 or so encouraged us right back!

My four runners stayed strong and we stayed right on track. In fact, we passed the ten mile marker at 1:38:30 - a lead of about 40 seconds over where we needed to be. We finally left the trail and got back on to the road and all of a sudden there was a breeze. It felt great, except it made holding the sign and balloons that much harder! The wide open roads suddenly became cramped as we were pushed on to the shoulder of the road, so the road could remain open. The shoulder wasn't even 4 feet wide and it was impossible to run more than 2 people wide which made it very difficult to pass the increasing number of walkers. I watched our pace drop and decided that we had to run outside the cones. We hadn't seen a single car, so I felt that we'd be safe enough as long as we went single-file.

We passed the mile 11 sign and before we made it to the mile 12 sign a couple of runners that I hadn't seen before came up along side and thanked me for pacing them! They explained that they had been following 20 yards behind for the last 9 miles and that I had done a great job holding the sign and balloons so they could keep an eye on me. I laughed and wished them luck as they eased ahead to the finish. The young girl that hadn't said a single word during the entire race decided that she was ready to go and thanked me as well. She had been on my shoulder for the entire race but always just behind me - I'd assume so she wouldn't have to talk to me! As we made the final turn with half a mile left (and more than 6 minutes to go), the rest of my group made their moves and I momentarily lost concentration and sped up a little. I caught myself and slowed down but the damage was done and I crossed the finish line with a time of 2:08:30 (and a GPS distance of 13:00 miles). I was a little disappointed that I was 90 seconds ahead of my goal, but when I saw 3 of my group, who had waited to thank me for doing a great job pacing them, I felt a sense of achievement that I had helped them to their goals.

When I think back over the race, I think I did a great job as a first time pacer but I did learn a valuable lesson about using my GPS. If I get a chance to pace again (and I'd love to pace again at Tobacco Road next year), I'll use my watch in manual lap mode and take my splits between the mile markers instead of having the GPS calculate the distance. The main reason I was 90 seconds off was that my watch "lost" 0.1 of a mile (59 seconds) but it could easily have been 0.1 or even more off in the other direction.