Random race question - pace bunny

[Deleted]

I was thinking about the HM race that I did earlier this month. For the first half of the race, I was close behind the 2 hour pace bunny (I could see them in the distance in front of me). About half way through the race, though, they got far enough ahead of me that I lost them and never saw them again. In the end, I finished just under two hours and I had kept a fairly even pace through the whole race. This means that the 2 hour pace bunny must have come in at least a few minutes before 2 hours.

I've never relied upon a pace bunny before. How close to their "assigned" time should they be coming in?

[ebeth]

depends. word on the street is that nike wants you across the line within 30 sec of your finish time if you're a pacer. not sure what the consequence is if you fail though.

if I was the 2 hour pacer though I'd probably be trying to hit at least 1:59 if not faster and if my peeps were feelling good as a group,

also, you don't know for sure that they were a few minutes under 2 hours. corrals, chip time vs gun time, etc. can all effect that.

[clseale]

Almost every time I have witnessed pacers, they have been awful. At my last full, the 3:35 pacer (so 8:12 pace) was considerably ahead of me for the first half of the race, and I was running an 8:05 avg. I passed him, and in the end, he nailed the 3:35 goal, but he lost more than half of his group, because he ran most of the race too fast.

When I was waiting for my friend during her full this past weekend, I got worried when the 4:00 pacer came a couple minutes ahead of her (at mile 20). The 4:00 pacer should have been around a 9:09, but when I got to my friend, my friend's avg was an 8:59. We didn't pass the 4:00 group until mile 23 (then we stayed just ahead of them) and she finished her race in 3:57. (Still at an 8:59 avg.)

This has been my experience with every pacer. I know they have to account for a bit of extra distance, but they always swear they run even splits, and they never do. They always seem to go way too fast in the first half, and then slow down in the 2nd half. IMO, if you are a pacer, you need to get your group to the finish 1) No more than a minute before goal time (even less of a gap for shorter races), and 2) With even splits. Anything else runs the risk of crashing & burning.

[Deleted]

Mar 4, 2014 14:52:34 GMT -5 ebeth said:

depends. word on the street is that nike wants you across the line within 30 sec of your finish time if you're a pacer. not sure what the consequence is if you fail though.

if I was the 2 hour pacer though I'd probably be trying to hit at least 1:59 if not faster and if my peeps were feelling good as a group,

also, you don't know for sure that they were a few minutes under 2 hours. corrals, chip time vs gun time, etc. can all effect that.

There were only about a 150 people racing, everyone was across the line in about 30 seconds. 

The race was put on by a national running store that does hundreds of races around the country.

I'm not complaining or anything, I'm just not sure what the norm is.

[gt7301b]

Mar 4, 2014 14:53:45 GMT -5 clseale said:

Almost every time I have witnessed pacers, they have been awful. At my last full, the 3:35 pacer (so 8:12 pace) was considerably ahead of me for the first half of the race, and I was running an 8:05 avg. I passed him, and in the end, he nailed the 3:35 goal, but he lost more than half of his group, because he ran most of the race too fast.

When I was waiting for my friend during her full this past weekend, I got worried when the 4:00 pacer came a couple minutes ahead of her (at mile 20). The 4:00 pacer should have been around a 9:09, but when I got to my friend, my friend's avg was an 8:59. We didn't pass the 4:00 group until mile 23 (then we stayed just ahead of them) and she finished her race in 3:57. (Still at an 8:59 avg.)

This has been my experience with every pacer. I know they have to account for a bit of extra distance, but they always swear they run even splits, and they never do. They always seem to go way too fast in the first half, and then slow down in the 2nd half. IMO, if you are a pacer, you need to get your group to the finish 1) No more than a minute before goal time (even less of a gap for shorter races), and 2) With even splits. Anything else runs the risk of crashing & burning.

Pretty much all of this.  I ran just behind the 1:50 (8:24 avg) pacer in the Philly half and they ran an 8:12 and 8:05 before I lost them.

[taratru]

I ran exactly 2:00 last week at princess and beat the pacer. However, they were two minutes behind me in the next corral, so they probably were right on finish time.

Every pace group I've seen finishes within a minute of projected time, but how they do it, I'd rather not try to find out on race day. If I see or pass them in the last few miles, it's a nice check for me.