Looking for a favour around pacers

--amadeus--

Greetings...

I am looking for a bit of a favour off you all. I am putting together a bit of a "brochure" about pacing; something to give to race directors who enquire about pacing and that we can send out to races that we want to pace. In it I want to put in details of what pacers do, what they bring to a race and what they expect in return.

And what I want to put in there are some stories or anecdotes from people who have been paced. I'm not looking for race reports, just a few lines or a para giving your experiences, how they helped, what difference it made to your race, that kind of thing.

Also if anyone has any photos of pacers in action (Woddle, Robin, I'm looking at you in particular!) that they are happy for me to use that would be great too.

Thanks!

Sosa

I'll start the ball rolling here amadeus...im sure others will chip in later.

For me,a good pacer makes your job of achieving a particular time at least 10/15% easier.

I was paced by Mick Rice in Cork recently and it was the most enjoyable run i ever had...i call it a run because it didnt feel like a race...running in a big group following a man with a ballon tied to him amused me and made the miles fly by,there was great banter and interaction between the group and Mick was very forthcoming with info about how we were doing.....

I trained on my own for this marathon,lonely days/nights belting out the LSR's and pmp miles,it was tough at times,but to run with a group of people seeking the same goal as me and marshalled by Mick who didnt put a foot wrong on us made it a special day,it was a reward for all the hard work i had put in.

I read recently that you should not think of he day of the marathon as the final exam of the year and be dreading it,you should think of it as a reward for all the work you have put in and really enjoy the experience,thats the approach i took as i got closer to the day,and then i was treated to the sub3 group that i ran 26.5 ! miles with .....a memorable day for me and all the others mick helped achieve sub 3 that day...namely Gringo and Tisnotover from here and the others that i dont know there names but spent just under 3hrs of my life with that rainy/windy bank holiday monday in June.

tisnotover

First Sosa, now me, I wonder will Gringo be along next.

Ok, for me when I heard about the fact that there was going to be a pacer for 3hrs in Cork, it made me relax even more.

It was my first marathon and worrying about pacing strategies and what to go through half way in, would I run a negative split and all those mad-taper thoughts were driving me in a spin.

Safety in numbers was another factor, with the paced group, each person was on the same strategy so you could just fall in. The safety in numbers bit was particularly important with the conditions in Cork, especially running into the wind/rain. At times it felt like I was just on a Saturday training run with my club, again you were relaxed.

The biggest factor was you didn't have to worry about splits, I had a pace-band printed off and NEVER looked at it in Cork, there was a common trust in the group that we were on track.

Of course the big responsbility was on the person doing the pacing itself, but we were very lucky with a class-act leading his army around Cork, thanks Mick

The 3:00 group from looking at some of the photos show us looking very serious! but there was good banter too as Sosa says, I remember making jokes at miles 22 and 23 in the race...it was this type of banter that distracted ya from the hard work at that stage of the race.

I'd love to run a marathon as part of a paced group again and I'd love in-time to return the favour.

rockblu

Dublin 2009 i trained for like the previous thread sosa,90% of it alone but to be honest i didnt know anything about pacers but i knew i was hoping to get under the the big 3! at the start i saw the guy with a 3 hr balloon an ran for a few hundred yards but adrenilin kicked in an off i went....
sure enough he must of passed me sumwhere as i came upon him( minus his baloon) at mile 21 and without a doubt it was his talking to every1,getting us all to relax,keep focused that got me an several others through the last 5.2 the line in 2.56. Job well done!!

bart simpson

--amadeus-- wrote: »

Greetings...

I am looking for a bit of a favour off you all. I am putting together a bit of a "brochure" about pacing; something to give to race directors who enquire about pacing and that we can send out to races that we want to pace. In it I want to put in details of what pacers do, what they bring to a race and what they expect in return.

And what I want to put in there are some stories or anecdotes from people who have been paced. I'm not looking for race reports, just a few lines or a para giving your experiences, how they helped, what difference it made to your race, that kind of thing.

Also if anyone has any photos of pacers in action (Woddle, Robin, I'm looking at you in particular!) that they are happy for me to use that would be great too.

Thanks!

did my first marathon last year and followed the 3:30 pacers...it was great to learn so much in 3 and a half hours, without the pacers it might have taken a few years to know how to save energy to its upmost...and i learnt it in one day....it takes disapline to stay slow at the start and guts to keep going at the end..and the pacers help you through the whole thing! every marathon should have them.

Gringo78

Nothing to add to what Sosa & tisnotover said...but I would recommend you advise organisers to try to have something on their website about what pacers actually do....i spoke to a few people before Cork Marathon & Limerick Marathon, who would not have been on boards, and would only have looked on the offical organisers website for info, and told them there were going to be pacers and they had no idea what a pacer was and hence didn't know how and why to use them.