Pacing the Cebu City Marathon

It’s four days to go before Cebu’s grandest marathon. Whether you’re a virgin or a veteran, the one tricky part in running a marathon which can determine your success or failure on race day is pacing.

Pacing entails the correct distribution of effort and speed over the entire race distance. Run too fast and you risk bonking after the halfway mark, run too slow and you miss your target time.

On Sunday Castrol pacers will lead runners seeking to hit the sub 4:00; sub 4:30; sub 5:00 and the sub 5:30 mark. All you have to do is follow the pack of runners with the pacer balloons.

However, you can still monitor your pace even without the aid of pacers by using the marathon pace band. The marathon pace band is a guide which breaks down the 42k distance into kilometers and miles and its respective target time per kilometer or mile.

For example, if you’re target time is 4 hours 30 minutes, you should hit the 6-mile or 10k mark in 1:01:49, the 10-mile or 16k mark in 1:43:03; the halfway mark in 2:13:58, and the 20-mile or 32k mark in 3:26:06.

Using the marathon pace band is simple, you simply have to mind the mile or kilometer markers along the route and take note of the time elapsed since the start of the race. The marathon pace band is especially helpful for runners with no GPS watches which can tell actual pace per kilometer. It is called a band because the target time splits are written on waterproof material and worn as a band on the wrist. Or you can improvise and write your target splits using waterproof markers on the top of your hand.

If you want to make your own marathon pace band, just go to www.runnersworld.com, click tools and look for the marathon pace band. Once you’ve entered the marathon pace band tool, simply enter your target time and the target splits appear, then print. The pace band uses the English system or indicate the target splits in miles. To convert them into the metric system, simply multiply the distance values by 1.6 to get distance in kilometers.

Here are examples of the marathon pace band for the 4:30, 4:45, 4:50 and 5:00 targets:

04:30:00 Pace

Mile Split

1 00:10:18

2 00:20:36

3 00:30:54

4 00:41:13

5 00:51:31

6 01:01:49

7 01:12:08

8 01:22:26

9 01:32:44

10 01:43:03

11 01:53:21

12 02:03:39

13 02:13:58

14 02:24:16

15 02:34:34

16 02:44:53

17 02:55:11

18 03:05:29

19 03:15:48

20 03:26:06

21 03:36:24

22 03:46:43

23 03:57:01

24 04:07:19

25 04:17:38

26 04:27:56

FINISH 04:30:00

04:50:00 Pace

Mile Split

1 00:11:04

2 00:22:08

3 00:33:12

4 00:44:16

5 00:55:20

6 01:06:24

7 01:17:28

8 01:28:32

9 01:39:37

10 01:50:41

11 02:01:45

12 02:12:49

13 02:23:53

14 02:34:57

15 02:46:01

16 02:57:05

17 03:08:10

18 03:19:14

19 03:30:18

20 03:41:22

21 03:52:26

22 04:03:30

23 04:14:34

24 04:25:38

25 04:36:43

26 04:47:47

FINISH 04:50:00

04:45:00 Pace

Mile Split

1 00:10:52

2 00:21:45

3 00:32:38

4 00:43:30

5 00:54:23

6 01:05:16

7 01:16:08

8 01:27:01

9 01:37:54

10 01:48:46

11 01:59:39

12 02:10:32

13 02:21:24

14 02:32:17

15 02:43:10

16 02:54:02

17 03:04:55

18 03:15:48

19 03:26:40

20 03:37:33

21 03:48:26

22 03:59:18

23 04:10:11

24 04:21:04

25 04:31:56

26 04:42:49

FINISH 04:45:00

05:00:00 Pace

Mile Split

1 00:11:27

2 00:22:54

3 00:34:21

4 00:45:48

5 00:57:15

6 01:08:42

7 01:20:09

8 01:31:36

9 01:43:03

10 01:54:30

11 02:05:57

12 02:17:24

13 02:28:51

14 02:40:18

15 02:51:45

16 03:03:12

17 03:14:39

18 03:26:06

19 03:37:33

20 03:49:00

21 04:00:27

22 04:11:54

23 04:23:21

24 04:34:48

25 04:46:15

26 04:57:42

FINISH 05:00:00

Of course, the pace guide presupposes that you’ve done your homework (long runs, speedwork, hill training) months before and tapered properly before the big day on Sunday. Because of its distance, it’s hard to run the marathon by feel. This is where the pace guide comes in. A pace difference of just five or 10 seconds per mile in the first half of a marathon could make the difference between finishing strong and bonking in the second half.