 Hi, welcome to Film My Run, my name's Stephen. Today we're going to discuss three ways to maintain relatively even splits throughout your race, whether it's a 5k, whether it's a half marathon, a marathon or even an ultra up to a 100 mile race. Maintaining even splits in your race is generally accepted as the best, most efficient way to run a race, again, whether it's a 5k or an ultra. You'll hear a lot of talk about how to run a race, what's the best strategy. Some people will, for instance, try and bag time at the beginning of the race, or bag miles, so you go off quickly and try and get as much done as you can while you feel good and then basically crawl to the finish line once you're tired. But generally the most accepted way to run your race is with even splits. If you look at any elite runner, you'll see they're trying to maintain the same speed throughout the entire race, whether it's kilometer number one or kilometer number 42. So we're going to talk about three ways that you can try and maintain even splits in your race. First we're going to use the classic method of maintaining the same pace throughout the race. Next we're going to look at heart rate, trying to maintain relatively the same heart rate throughout the entire race. And then thirdly, we're going to look at how to run based on power. Power metrics are something that cyclists use a lot. You'll hear cyclists talking about what's per kilogram or just what's. And then finally we might have an extra bonus fourth option. So let's start with the obvious one, pacing. Managing to maintain the same pace for each mile or each kilometer throughout the entire race from kilometer one to the last kilometer. So say you're doing a 10k race. Now a 10k race you might want to do a 10k race in sub 60 minutes. So one hour for 10k. So that means running at 9 minutes 40 per mile for every mile. Each of the six miles in those 10k. Or six minutes per kilometer for every kilometer from the first one right through to the tenth one. The thing that many people get wrong though is what setting to have on their watch. Many people put current pace on their watch face. So they're looking at the screen, they're watching their current pace. The problem with that is your pace is fluctuating all the time. You might speed up a little bit and then slow down a little bit. What you need is your average pace. Unfortunately some of the cheaper or budget watches won't allow you to have average pace displayed on your watch. However, if you have got that ability on your watch put it on there. So select the screen that shows average pace rather than current pace. If you've got average pace on your watch you should be able to see by looking at your watch that every kilometer will hit around about six minutes. Or if you're doing miles 9 minutes 40 per mile. Each mile should be 9 minutes 40 seconds possibly just a little bit less to account for the weaving about that we often do in races which means that actually sometimes our distance is slightly more than 10k. If you don't have the ability to have average pace displayed on your watch you are going to have to use current pace. Keep glancing down at your watch and keep it there or there about the pace that you need for each kilometer or each mile. You can use the kilometer markers or the mile markers along the route to help you and you can try and work out the maths in your head to work out what time you need to be hitting each section of the race. So a quarter of the way through or halfway through to make sure that you're trying to do that as evenly as possible. If you're going to do a marathon in four hours obviously you need to be at halfway in two hours or just a little bit under to account again for the weaving around that we do and the extra distance that you might accumulate during one of your races. So that's my top tip for pacing using your watch. Use average pace as a display instead of current pace. So now let's move on to heart rate. Heart rate monitors are one of the things we've had on GPS watches now for a long long time. Many of us will have used a heart rate strap that you attached around your chest. This is the Garmin HRM. You might recognize that. Or more modern watches have optical heart rate sensors on the back of the watches. However heart rate is still a much underused tool for training. This is the way that you can use heart rate to maintain even splits throughout your race. When talking about heart rate in running we often divide our heart rate into different zones depending on how hard we're working. It's generally accepted there are about five zones that you can divide into and you can call them different things but zone one might be endurance, zone two could be moderate zone, zone three could be a tempo zone, zone four is threshold and zone five is anaerobic. Those are the zones that you divide into and depending on what your max heart rate is yours will be different to other people's divisions. So my max heart rate is around about 180 bpm so my threshold running would be anything between 165 and 170 perhaps 173 and my anaerobic zone which I would do say in a 5k would be anything from 175 up to 180 or higher if I could manage to get higher. So we generally use heart rate in training to make sure that we're doing what we're supposed to be doing so if for example your training plan tells you that you need to do a tempo run you need to make sure that your heart rate maintains an average between zones three and zone four not going into zone five and not dropping down to zone two. Similarly if you're doing your long run on a Sunday that's going to be a distance where you need to maintain an endurance heart rate so you'll be in zone two possibly touching zone three for a little bit but mainly in zone two. Now of course heart rate is variable but that doesn't mean that you can't use heart rate to maintain even splits throughout a race. Let's take a marathon for example so when you're running a marathon you're going to be running it depends actually it could be zone two it could be zone three could even be zone four if you're really going for it it's unlikely to be in zone five let's put it that way but whatever heart rate zone you are likely to be in for most of the run you need to try and keep it there so for example my zone two heart rate is between 117 and 145 bpm. I want to keep my heart rate in zone two for that entire marathon for you you might be wanting to kill it and really go for it so your heart rate for the entire marathon is going to be in a roundabout zones three or zone four make sure that you've got that heart rate set up on your watch so it's nice and big you can see it easily you can also set up alerts so if your heart rate drops below a certain point or goes above a certain threshold your watch can be packed you and tell you that so either you could slow down or you can speed up to maintain that heart rate in whatever zone it is that you need to be in so that's how to use heart rate to ensure even splits in a race. Next up one that a lot of people will not have come across before if you have come across it you won't have used it and if you have used it you're still wondering what on earth's it all about power. Psyche's for a long time now have measured their effort based on power what's or what's per kilogram they will have a unit called a power meter actually inside the bike or in the pedals somewhere measuring how much power you're producing when you're pedaling this is something that's just recently in the past couple of years started to come out in running so there are two or three companies who have produced power meters which measure your watts whilst running we have the stride foot pod so this is a little foot pod that attaches to your shoe you've also got the Garmin chest strap this is the heart rate monitor but you have to have the one with the little white man there that's the Garmin HRM when you pair that with your watch and you use the connect iq app for power you will get power through the Garmin HRM strap you can also use the Garmin running dynamics pod it's a little green pod that kind of fits on the back of your shorts look it up on Amazon I don't actually have one of running with power is actually very interesting and unique way to run it's different to heart rate and pace in that essentially it flattens out the hills particularly with pace for example when you're running up a hill your pace will undoubtedly decrease you will slow down going up the hill that makes it a little bit more difficult to maintain that average pace throughout the course of your run especially if there are lots of hills all over the place heart rate closer to power if you slow down you can keep maintaining that average heart rate throughout the entire run whether you're going up or down a hill but power is a little bit more accurate than heart rate at doing that all you have to do when running with power is keep to the same wattage throughout your run so for example yesterday I ran a 38 mile ultra and my goal was to try and maintain 230 watts for the entire run I didn't look at my heart rate really very much I didn't look at my pace very much I concentrated on looking at the wattage if you're using the stride foot pod or if you're using the Garmin chest strap or the running dynamics pod you will still need to go to the Garmin connect IQ store and download an app to enable you to use power with your watch if you've not used power before I do urge you to go and try it out you may still have a Garmin HRM strap lying around the house somewhere going download the app and check it out see what you think if you're a fan of foot pods I absolutely recommend the stride foot pod for both running on a treadmill and running outdoors it is the most accurate foot pod you can get a little bit pricey granted but for me I think worth the money absolutely spot on and you get really good power metrics with the stride so there we are those are three ways to use the various features on your watch pace heart rate and power to try and maintain even splits in any race that you do be at 5k all the way up to a marathon and ultra marathon finally bonus tip number four using feel the more often you run the more experienced you become as a runner the more you will get to understand how you feel when you're running and you can even some people are so good at it they can run at a certain pace so you tell them to run at six minutes per kilometer and they'll go and run at six minutes per kilometer because they know how it feels to run at that pace the other thing is a lot of people like to sometimes get rid of their watch put it in a drawer and just go and run it's called running naked it's a really interesting way to run because it teaches you not to rely on your watch but to rely on the way that your body feels to judge how fast you're running and how you feel when you're running running naked is a really good way to practice some skills when you're running maintaining a good body posture maintaining an even cadence and an even stride length throughout your run feeling your heart feeling when you are running too fast and your heart rate is going high feeling when you may be slacking off a bit running naked can teach you all those things and continuing to run regularly outdoors or on a treadmill will help you to understand how you run and that in itself can help you to run by feel without a watch without looking at any pacing or heart rate during a race so that's tip number four try running to feel and that is it I hope you've enjoyed my three possibly four tips for helping to maintain an even pace during your run if you've enjoyed this video please do give it a like subscribe to the youtube channel and if you've got any comments if you've got any questions if there's a way that you maintain even pace throughout your runs and I haven't mentioned it please do say so in the comment section down below my name's Steve and this has been full my run I hope to see you on the trails very soon take care bye bye