What is your running pace and how it can make a difference
It's Gemma here From Fundamental Sports and Fitness. In this video, we're just going to go over and cover what running pace is. I know that it can be quite a confusing topic, so it's really thinking about the time it takes you to cover a specific distance, whether that's 5K through to a marathon. Your pace will vary differently depending on what distance you're running. If your 5K pace is going to be a lot quicker, than your marathon pace because of the distance that you're going to be covering.
The ideal is that you're able to maintain that pace throughout the race so whatever you start at, you're also finishing at that pace as well. You may find as well, you're able to start a slightly slower pace and increase it as you go through. The idea being is then you're not only warming up your muscles ready to exercise, you're warming up your mind mentally, you're preparing yourself for what you're about to undertake, and then you're able to find you're a little bit stronger to keep the steadier pace going throughout your runs that you're doing.
I always find it's better to run with how you're feeling. If you feel confident, if your body's feeling good and you know that you could run a little bit faster, then increase the pace that you're running. If at the same time you're thinking, "Actually, this doesn't feel like quite such a good running day and my legs are starting to tire a little bit," slow it down. You'll know your own body with how it feels rather than trying to keep the pace that you might set yourself on a watch and get to the end of your run and not have enjoyed it as much because you've not been listening to how your body feels on the day.
Another good idea is using a RPE scale (rate of perceived exertion), and usually you use a 1 to 10 scale for your numbers. One is you could just be going for a walk. You can hold a nice easy conversation. You're not really getting out of breath. Going all the way through to a 10 and you can't put any more effort in and if you do any more, you will collapse on the floor. Using that scale as a guide of how you think you can go through a race as well is quite good guide to work towards.
I've got clients that use heart rate zones to train within as well so they know where they can push themselves and what pace they can then be going depending on the heart rate that they're working at. Another good tip that I've got is to plan the pace that you're going to be running or you think you could be running at on a treadmill. Therefore, you can then know if you're able to keep that pace going, but also then when you are out running, you know roughly what your body should feel like when you are running at that pace, so again, you could know if you could push yourself a little bit harder or if you need to pull back and reign it in a little bit.
That's my tips on pace and just some things to cover. Thinking about whatever you set your pace at for a shorter distance is probably going to be very different to what pace you'd be running out for a longer distance. Bear that in mind with how you plan and prepare for your races and your training. The biggest one is, think about how you're feeling when you're running and that will be the best way to gauge the pace that you want to be going at.
