Pacing is one of those topics that will never get old,
because it's something that everyone forgets about. I've talked about it
before, and I'll continue to do so. And today is no different.
This time I have some numbers to help illustrate, and
underline, the importance of pacing. Take a look at the chart below:
This is from a Redliner who ran two practice POPAT tests
one week apart. Take note of her lap times, the time after 6 laps, her push/pull times, and
her overall time.
You'll see after 6 laps, the times are nearly identical,
with a slight 2 second edge to the first practice test. Now compare the two
push/pull times: 23 for the pull on the first practice versus 19 on the second,
and 32 seconds on the push for the first practice versus 25 on the second
practice. That's an 11 second difference. In the end, she still improved her
overall performance by 8 seconds.
She accomplished this by pacing herself. You look at her
lap times from her first practice and you will see a large gap between her
fastest and slowest lap times (8 seconds). Compare that to her second practice,
where the gap is now 4 seconds. The time after 6 laps is slower (albeit only 2
seconds), but because she was more evenly paced, she had much more energy to
tackle the machine.
Yes she lost time on the laps, but she gained more than
enough of it back on the machine. The even pacing allowed her to attack the
machine like she was still fresh.
If you struggle on the machine, running the 6 laps faster
than you're capable of is the common but not smart strategy. You take away the
energy you could have used for the machine. Instead be even keeled and go slow
enough to still have the energy and the focus to pull and push as fast as you
can. As demonstrated in the above chart, time was lost on the laps but was most
definitely made up for on the machine.
