Mastering Race Pace: The Key Sessions for Race Day Success

This episode explores the importance of specific training sessions in marathon and half marathon preparation, focusing on pacing, fueling, mental resilience, and progression strategies. Coaches Rochelle and Matt share insights on how to effectively prepare for race day and avoid common pitfalls.

• Importance of specific race sessions in training
• Pacing strategies and negative splits
• Fueling during long runs and races
• Mental resilience and race day preparation
• Progression and load management in marathon training

Chapters
00:00 Breaking Records and Building Confidence
08:10 Key Sessions for Half Marathon Training
17:28 The Importance of Progression in Marathon Prep
22:06 Mental Preparation Through Training Sessions
25:10 download.mp4

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I'm Rochelle, and today this is my co-host Matt. And together we are Runversation, a conversational paced podcast for your easy-paced running journey. And we're here to chat about all things running, community, and everything in between. Hello, Matt.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Hello, Rochelle.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

And hello listeners. As always, let's start the same way, Matt. What did you see on your run or in the gym this week?

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Well, I didn't actually see anything physically on my run or in the gym this week. But what I did see and witness was the world record being broken at the London Marathon by Sebastian Saway and the first person and man to go sub two hours for the marathon. And can you believe there was actually two of them that went sub two? Imagine if you were Kajelcha being under two hours in the same race at the same time, the first time ever in the world.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

And it doesn't count.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

And you haven't got the world record because Suay has gone and beaten you by literally 11 seconds. Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

It's pretty incredible.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

And what about you?

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Well, over the weekend, a lot of my PR run clients had specific marathon training sessions or half marathon sessions. And something that I witnessed was one of the ladies that I coach, she found confidence in herself once she had finished. So she's training for the June Del Up half marathon. And she had been doubting herself leading up to the event. But after running her three by five Ks, I just witnessed confidence within her on the cooldown after that, which was pretty special for me.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Yeah, and I think that ties in quite nicely with what we're wanting to talk about today. Um, and that is why specific sessions matter. And we're not just talking about training for the 10K or the half marathon or the marathon. We're talking about the actual sessions we prescribe and why.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Yeah, the ones that pop up in the program and make people think, okay, this is getting real now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

These are the sessions that bridge the gap between training and race day.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

So when do you know it's time to introduce these more specific race sessions?

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Generally, they're prescribed towards the sort of second half of a training block. So the way that I work my programs and structure them is we have like if our new client jumps on board, we have a four-week build-up phase and then we have a 12-week training block. So the first six weeks is a progression from what they're used to handling into a little bit more load, and then those race-specific sessions start to pop in around week eight, and then again we'll do another one around week 10. So for most people, they're quite daunting and they're very new because a lot of runners haven't experienced anything like that in the past. Um, but I always say trust the process and just give it your best effort. So so let me ask you this, Matt. A lot of people come to us and they just ask why they can't stick in their shorter interval routines for the whole block. How do you talk to somebody about them?

SPEAKER_00 3:27

So basically, the whole idea of progressing into the specific phase is to literally gauge where we think you're going to be on race day in terms of your pace and your predicted, roughly your predicted time. So, what I mean by that is it's allowing us to literally test what your race pace is going to look like, running harder for longer and getting used to running at that pace on race day. So it's vitally important that we just steer away from our general day-to-day or week-to-week intervals, interval sessions, and we actually start practicing at that race pace.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

So let's look at like a 10K or 12 kilometer specific session. For 10Ks, we're still keeping things relatively sharp, but we're starting to maybe extend the efforts. So a few key sessions that we like to program are what I call the Ellie Pashley, something that I've seen her do many, many times. And I've just evolved that session and called that her name. We have five by five minutes at your sort of tempo pace, which is generally around like a seven out of ten effort. And in between each of those, we might have a two-minute static rest, and then we'll jump into some 60-second thresholds. Another session, which a lot of people do, which is a key session, is six or eight by one kilometers at your 10k race pace, or something a little bit more challenging, can look like three by miles or three by two K efforts at that race pace.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Yeah. So these sessions teach you how to sit in that discomfort without drifting too far.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Yeah, and more importantly, how to control them.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

All right. So question for you. What do you want runners focusing on during these reps?

SPEAKER_01 5:14

During these reps, I want runners to be focusing on the effort that they've been prescribed and being able to run comfortably uncomfortable. So what that might look like is them pushing themselves, but being able to run within themselves. And how do you know that they've paced them right? Is that something that you might like to answer?

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Yeah, so I feel like this is a bit of a really important uh sort of question and point that we really need to focus on in this phase. So when you're talking about how you know they've paced it right, it's really important to have a look not just at the overall pace of their session, but actually look at their firsts and second or even third reps and then also gauge to see how they're going towards the end of the session. Because I kind of feel like a lot of runners get caught up in the whole, I need to average a 315 or 320 pace overall for my entire session. So then they decide to start at 310s a kilometre because they feel like running fast early on is going to help their overall pace. But in actual fact, it's not the best way, in my opinion, to go about these sessions because it's the same as on race day. If you go out too hard, you're gonna hit the wall. So it's important to literally be conservative early. And I always tell athletes that we coach, always be conservative and make sure that your first rep is the slowest rep of your of your session.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

Do you think that's because runners are trying to like bank second and bank minutes?

SPEAKER_00 6:49

I think it it's partly to do with that, and I feel like it's very easy to get caught up in that. And it it's it even proves itself on race day. You know what it's like when that gun goes off and you literally want to just get into a pack, get stuck into a rhythm right from the get-go, so you don't get left behind in sort of you know no man's land, so to speak. But I feel like what really needs to happen and what athletes really need to focus on is being conservative early so that you can finish strong late is is more of what we always want to coach and we always know is right, but it's generally the hardest thing to do. So back to your question, how do you know that you've paced it right? I always look at the first K and then I always look at the last two K's or the last two sets of each session. And if their last two sets or last set of each session is faster than their first set, then you know that they've actually paced themselves right. But if their first set or first kilometer is their fastest of their overall session, you know that they've obviously got it slightly wrong.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

So you're looking for a negative split almost.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Basically, yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

Yeah. So we've got a lot of people at the moment training for either the Jun de Lup half marathon or the HBF half marathon here in Perth. Um, we're kind of building into lengthening the sessions now. Now that we're starting to see those longer reps come in.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Yeah, this is where these sessions start to feel more like the race itself.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Yeah. So some of those key sessions could be three times five kilometers at half marathon effort, like what I said we did on the weekend. Others may do uh a four by three K tempo with a bit more of a float in between, or continuous reps like eight to ten Ks of a tempo block. So that three by five K session, that's a big one for us.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Yeah, correct. So that's the confidence builder, but it's also a reality check. So, like I slightly mentioned earlier, the three by five is a really good indicator for us as coaches and for our athletes for the half marathon to really gauge what their pace on race day is going to look like. So if they can do three by five K at a set pace that they're given and complete that entire session at that pace, we then know and we can then project to them that give or take five seconds a kilometer, that's generally what they're going to be able to produce on race day, providing they race smart.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Yeah. So you're learning your pacing. Another important part of half marathon training is you're learning to consume fuel, whether it be gels, lollies, or a carb hydration mix. And you're also learning how your body responds under a heavier load.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

So from your experience, what do runners usually get wrong in a session like the 3x5K?

SPEAKER_01 9:49

A really common mistake that a lot of runners that I have seen, they think five kilometers. So they look at their paces that they've run before for a five kilometer time trial and they try to hit that target over the three 5Ks, where that's not the aim of the session. The aim of the session is actually to run slower than your best 5K. So we're almost thinking like half marathon pace or maybe even a little bit quicker just to gain some confidence and see if your body can handle that load. So yeah, the biggest thing that I see is people see the 5K written down on their program and they automatically go to their 5K pace, which, like I said, is not what we want. We want to slow it down and we want to get used to running at that slower pace for longer. And another thing that people get wrong is they don't consume their fuel. So for example, we might have a runner that wakes up in the morning and they just have breakfast. They take a water bottle and then that's it. We want to look at um getting used to treating it like a race simulation. So having a gel every sort of like 5Ks, or for some runners, every 30 minutes. So that could be after the first rep, five, you have you at your gel, your second 5K, have another gel, and then that should get you through the session. And that's looking at sort of like 30 grams per gel, 60 grams for the hour. If it's going to take you a little bit longer than that, of course, you top that up. And also in between each of those reps, you can try some hydration as well, because a lot of courses will give out not just watering cups, but they'll give out a brand of hydration and it's a great time to test that too. What do you think, or what should they feel, I should say, between the last rep if they've nailed their session?

SPEAKER_00 11:36

I always feel like the biggest piece of advice or the biggest indicator here is they should feel like they can do another rep comfortably at that pace. If they feel like they've literally hit the wall and that that's they've given all they've got to give, then you know that they've probably overreached. But if they feel like they could do another rep, so another 5k at that pace, you know that then they've actually literally nailed the session and they're fit, they're ready to go.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Yeah. And I want to also talk about the marathon, the big sessions.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Um, because it is a little bit different to half marathons because you're obviously running double the distance. And we do have some people at the moment training out for like Sunshine Coast. Um, we're gonna have people starting to think about training for like the Melbourne Marathon or the Perth Running Festival, even Sydney. So yeah, now marathon sessions, this is where things start to get serious.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Yeah, these are the ones people respect and sometimes also fear.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Yes. So a few key sessions, marathon-specific sessions, I should say, could be three times 5k at marathon pace, but this time inside a long run. So an example could be you're prescribed a 36, 38 kilometer long run. And within that, your coach might then drop in a few 5K marathon efforts just so that you're running on tired legs and getting used to that fatigue. Another really good one that I like is the um 6, 6, 6, 2 progression. So starting off easy, heading into steady, running that 6Ks at tempo and picking it up for the last 2Ks. So that could look something like an eight out of 10 effort or that sort of 5, 10k effort that you can hold for just that short period of time. And then finally, um, a long run with a few 10 or 12k race efforts. And this might look like just having one effort at the back end of a long run. So you might have a two-hour sort of pre-fatigue or an easy run, and then you want to try and pick it up for that last 10 to 12 kilometers at your predicted race pace. But like I said, six, six, six, two progressions, definitely one of my favorites.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Yeah, I like those. I also like um probably doubling that session. So 12, 12, 12, 2. So your 12, easy, 12, steady, 12 at race pace, and then two at threshold. I know I've got that coming up in a couple of weeks. Yeah. That one's vitally important when we're talking about fueling to, you know, on your first six or your first 12k easy run is to still take in enough fuel on that, on that 12 or 6k easy effort, because whilst it feels easy, it's important to set yourself up for the next set, which, you know, once you get into a six or a 12k steady pace, your body starts to really burn that energy. Um, and then obviously once you're getting into then your race pace at that sort of you know 24k mark or 18k mark, depending on the distance that you're doing on the day, your body really needs that fuel. But it's also important to not go out too hard too early. So I did ended up doing um one of those sessions that you mentioned earlier where there was, you know, a 3x5k marathon pace inside a long run. I actually did um 4x3k with a 2k float, but it was still 5k efforts after doing a 12k easy run at the start. So it was a total of 32ks. Um, and I found that on that session on the weekend, my first lot of three K at marathon pace with the 2K float, I found that to be quite difficult. And I but what I made sure of doing on that session was to not panic too early and try and overreach. So I just settled in, lot, let my body get used to to the increase in pace, was fueling correctly, and then I found that my second and third efforts, K efforts, were actually my faster efforts, and the last one was definitely my fastest. So it's important not to panic and get too concerned early, is just to settle in and just allow your body to get used to that increasing pace.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

So can I ask? This is probably getting a little bit off topic, but what was it that you found hard about that first K effort?

SPEAKER_00 15:59

I think because I ran the first 12K so easy, and then literally slipping into a 12k easy pace at you know 430-ish pace or 425 on the day, and then literally stepping that down to 335, it's almost a minute a K. I think your body just because it is that little bit fatigued, isn't necessarily ready to transition or step up in gear, so to speak. Um, so I think once your body gets used to stepping up that ad that extra gear, um, as long as you're patient and you don't panic and try and overreach on that first rep, it sets you up for a really good session.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

All right. It it literally taught me to um to either stick at my my goal marathon pace or be s slightly slower. And what I mean by that is literally three to five seconds a K, slightly slower on that first rep. I found whilst mentally it's challenging to convince myself that it was going to be okay and that I was still gonna hit my targets, but what it allowed me to do was open up in the next two reps. So what it taught me was restraint early and then how to move when you're fatigued.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

That's great. So, really, what I take away from what you've learnt is that anybody can run fast fresh, but when they're tired, sometimes it's harder to get that switch to flick on.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Correct. Exactly right. So, why is progression so important for marathon prep?

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Well, let's look at somebody that might be doing their first marathon. They've obviously had enough experience running and they've had enough experience perhaps running half marathons. But if they haven't run a marathon before and they're delving into this new world, they need to be able to progress slowly into the respected load that their training block is going to need to be able to give them. So for somebody that's maybe been focusing on half marathons for 12 months, 18 months, this might look like just increasing their Sunday long runs to begin with. Or instead of adding double days into their program, adding an extra five minutes at the start of a warm-up or five minutes at a cooldown to kind of just build up those extra time on legs. And then also maybe increasing some of their easy runs, or another cheeky little one that I like to do to get time on legs is when people are doing their strength workouts, give them a 15-minute job warm-up on a treadmill or outside, and it's just going to slowly build up the load and progress them to a point where then we can start giving them a little bit more of a consistent um load management. So when it comes to a progression session, why is that important? That's also important because you need to learn how to negative split. The best marathons are always run when they are ran in a negative split. So your first half or first 21.1 kilometers is slightly slower than the second half. And that's in an ideal world. It doesn't always pan out like that because a lot of things can happen in a marathon and you've got to respect the distance. But the progression sessions or progression runs are just a really important part of marathon prep.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

And I think like looking at what's just happened on the weekend, whilst we're not all at that level, if you actually look at Saway and Kajolcha and even Kiplemo's splits, definitely the top two, they've had a massive negative split to produce that world record and go sub two hours. So whilst we're not all at their level, it's definitely a key indicator. And obviously what you're saying at that top level is definitely true.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Yeah. And looking back at some of the data of their training history, I think you mentioned to me that they spent close to almost two years running at least 30 kilometers every single day. So that's something that they've been able to progress towards and then hold for an extended period of time before they executed their race. So I'm gonna flip it again and I want to say what's something that separates someone from executing their session well or the training block well to somebody who blows up either in the session or on race day?

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Well, I think it's someone who is disciplined and who literally follows their program and their prescribed paces to a T, and by that I mean literally on point. So when you look at someone who executes their sessions consistently well, and then what that then transitions to is someone who's then used to running at a set pace and being consistent, is then someone who in training is then someone who can then execute that well on race day. Whereas if you look at someone who blows up, they're generally athletes who tend to try and overreach in training, and they tend to want to use their training sessions almost like they're racing. And that's something that I always tell a lot of athletes is your training sessions aren't your race. Your training sessions are to progress, like you said, to get to the point on race day where you're running at your quickest. So definitely someone who can execute their training sessions well is someone who's definitely going to execute on race day versus someone who is running 10, 15, 20 seconds too fast in all their training sessions, gets to race day, starts out too fast, and then, as they say in the marathon, gets to the 30k mark and hits the wall. All right. So if we look at what these sessions are really doing, if you strip it right back, all these sessions are teaching us something, right?

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Absolutely. So it's not always just fitness, it's also awareness. So awareness around your pacing, your fueling. Another really big one is like your awareness. That's around your emotional control and your decisions that you make under fatigue.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

You're basically rehearsing race day without the pressure of race day, right?

SPEAKER_01 22:11

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

So do you think runners underestimate how much these sessions prepare them mentally?

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Big time. Yeah. A lot of people see these sessions on paper and they are afraid to give them a go one because of failure. They're not confident that they can run what's prescribed, but also they underestimate the reason why we're giving them these sessions. So they'll see it and think three by five case. I don't need to do that. I think I'd be more confident just doing a long run. But that's it, that's the whole issue there. We need to make them confident hitting paces for the longer efforts because it's not something that we do in day-to-day training leading up to the specific sessions. Generally, the longest reps that you might do in an interval session are two kilometers. Or if it's like a minute-based session, it might look something like a 12-minute block. So we just need to get them to understand the fundamentals behind why we're doing it and just change their mindset around those sessions. Why do you think it's important that these aren't treated like race efforts specifically?

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Well, I think it's a combination of uh emotional control, like you mentioned earlier, and also the fact that training isn't your race, right? So you want to be ready to go. You want to literally be at your fittest, at your fastest on race day. There's no point in treating a training session like a race because it's not the race, right? So if you're going flat out during a training session, you've got an increased chance of injury. You're literally going to burn yourself out both physically and mentally before you get to the start line on race day. So it's vitally important to not overthink and also overreach these training sessions for that reason.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

Yeah. So let's look at some coaching takeaways. If you're listening and you see a session like three times five kilometers or a progression run pop up, don't panic.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

Yeah. Don't try to win the session.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

Trust it. These are placed in your program for a reason. Final question, Matt. What's one thing runners should remind themselves before going into these bigger sessions?

SPEAKER_00 24:34

Once again, this isn't the race. So it's literally to follow the plan, trust the process, and literally stick to the pace that is given to you in your program by your coach. I can't stress that point enough.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

Yeah, so it's the Miz on Plus.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

Cooking terms is the preparation.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Correct. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

And if you've got one of these sessions coming up, send this to your training partner.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

We'll catch you next time.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

Let's keep the Ronversation going.