It can be hard to manage your pace when doing a track WO. Especially when doing longer intervals like 800 and longer. So here is a trick to make it easier to stay on pace.
- Determine your mile goal pace – let’s say it’s 8:15
- Now divide that by 8 – (8×60+15 = 495; 495/8 = 62 seconds, or 1:02)
That is your 200 meter goal pace! 62 seconds. Tracks are easy to divide into half lap chunks. You can use start lines in the corners, the middle of the straightaways or the middle of turns. They’re all easy to identify and use.
Your goal now is to run each 200 meter segment at 62 seconds – not faster, not slower – for the entire interval you’re doing (let’s say 1000 meters – or 5 X 200 meter segments).
- But you’re not an elite professional runner – you can’t hit 62 each time – this is where the trick is….
You could write out each of the 200 meter interval splits and try to remember them, or harder – try to do the math in your head while you run – Yikes! Too hard. But! By using 200 meter intervals nearly every runner can hit those splits within +/- 10 seconds. So we don’t need to keep track of anything but the last digit on the watch! This is the trick.
How about an example. Our goal is to run 1000 meters (2.5 laps) at 8:15 pace. We know 200 meters should be 62 seconds. So let’s go:
- Let’s say you go out too fast (a pretty common problem). You hit the first 200 in 60 seconds. So your watch shows a “0” in the last digit of the display.
- OK, now you back off a bit. Your goal is to hit the next 200 at 2:02 (62 seconds after the first). We add 2 to the last digit. But you backed off a bit too much and hit 400 in 63 seconds. Now the watch shows 2:03 – but all you care about is the last digit – it’s a 3.
- We want to hit the next 200 at 3:05, so we add 2 to the last digit and get 5. But we’re a bit too fast again and see a 4 as we pass 600 meters. We set the new goal to hit 6.
- Yay! we pass 800 with a 6 and we finish with an 8!
We just ran 1000 meters in 5:08 – 2 seconds faster than our goal pace – but that’s pretty good. We had a little trouble getting settled on the first 600 meters, but we nailed the last 400. That’s great track running.
|
Distance |
Goal Time |
Actual 200m interval time |
Total time so far |
Last digit on watch |
Next goal digit |
|
200 |
1:02 |
1:00 |
1:00 |
0 |
2 |
|
400 |
2:04 |
1:03 |
2:03 |
3 |
5 |
|
600 |
3:06 |
1:01 |
3:04 |
4 |
6 |
|
800 |
4:08 |
1:02 |
4:06 |
6 |
8 |
|
1000 |
5:10 |
1:02 |
5:08 |
8 |
|
Let’s do another example – 600 meters at 8:45 pace.
8:45 is 66 seconds for 200.
|
Distance |
Goal Time |
Actual 200m interval time |
Total time so far |
Last digit on watch |
Next goal digit |
Comment |
|
200 |
1:06 |
1:02 |
1:02 |
2 |
8 |
Wow – way too fast – but we add 6 to 2 to get 8 |
|
400 |
2:12 |
1:08 |
2:10 |
0 |
6 |
Now we’re too slow – we add 6 to 0 to get 6 |
|
600 |
3:18 |
1:07 |
3:17 |
7 |
|
A little slow, but we did well – only off by 1 second |
One last example – 800 meters at 9:15 pace.
9:15 is 69 seconds for 200.
|
Distance |
Goal Time |
Actual 200m interval time |
Total time so far |
Last digit on watch |
Next goal digit |
Comment |
|
200 |
1:09 |
1:08 |
1:08 |
8 |
7 |
Just a bit fast – 8+9 is 17 – so the goal digit is 7 |
|
400 |
2:18 |
1:10 |
2:18 |
8 |
7 |
We easy up a bit – and we have 8 again |
|
600 |
3:27 |
1:07 |
3:25 |
5 |
4 |
We’re feeling really good and go faster, now we have 5+9 = 14 |
|
800 |
4:36 |
1:07 |
4:32 |
|
|
We finish strong – we were 4 seconds faster than the goal for the 800 – not bad |
Sometimes, if the goal pace is say 66.5 seconds, I might alternate adding 6 or 7 instead of just 6. If I’ve been going to fast, I’ll use 7, or if I’ve been going to slow I’ll use 6. You get a feel for it after a while. But the important part is to determine your 200m split and remember that last digit.