Now that I care about my speed, I'm suddenly paying more attention to speed buzz words like "running economy," "split times," "negative splits," "tempo," the list goes on and on, but I'll stop there for now.
When I compared my GPS'ed time and distance of my last half marathon against the official chip time, this is what I found:
GPS Distance: 13.19 (note: this is a tad more than a 1/2 marathon)
GPS Avg Pace: 8:59
Finish Time: 1:58:35
Chip Distance: 13.1
Chip Avg Pace: 9:03
Finish Time: 1:58:32
As you can see, according to my GPS, I ran an extra 10th of a mile which translates to about 150 steps (Yes, I just GPS'ed that around the block thankyouverymuch). That might not seem like much energy and time wasted, but it was the difference between me breaking out of the 9 minute pace box. (The 3 second time difference didn't change my pace...I checked. It takes about 10 seconds to change one second of the overall pace in a 1/2 marathon.) The chip does not take into account how many people you have to weave in and out of to keep pace. The chip also doesn't take into account those turns you have to take wide because you got caught on the outside.
Since I'm now a secondmonger, I decided to turn to my good friends at Runner's World for the answers on keeping pace, saving energy, and shaving seconds off each split. Here's the link to, "Small is Bountiful."
The article starts by discussing training techniques and then moves on to describe what to do in races. If you don't want to read the whole article here's what I found most interesting and applicable:
Relax your face: grimacing signals to your body that something is wrong and you're not feeling well. Keep a relaxed expression and the rest will follow.
Go for the last water table: all the newbies tend to bottleneck at the first water station table.
Cut the corners: races are measured by the most efficient line through turns... don't swing wide if you can help it.
Buy racing flats: the few extra grams of weight really do make a difference--about a second per mile (sometimes more).
If you follow all the tips listed in the article, it's possible to knock up to 2 1/2 minutes off your time. For some runners (like those elite ones) that's half a mile! For someone like me it's about a quarter mile.
Today's running and life lesson: Make every step count.
Really interesting - I would hate to finish a half marathon in 2:01, so yes, this is important.
ReplyDeleteHaving done a few trail runs (and living in a fairly warm climate), I'm now totally in the habit of carrying water with me to run. That means it's quite feasible to do a half marathon with only one water stop, around mile 9-10, which is definitely less crowded than the stops at mile 5-7 ish.
But I know what you mean about wide corners and trying to get past people - the elite runners don't have to waste as many steps on that kind of thing because they're ahead of the pack!!