As part of the process for being eligible (and hopefully joining) the pacing team for next year's New York City Marathon, I am taking the Elevated Running and Pacing 4-week training course.
While I have, indeed, paced many times previously (mostly successfully), even I have been coming to some interesting realizations during the process. While some things may seem inherently obvious, they don't always click - even for highly experienced people.
For instance? I have committed to pacing a finish time that is a fair bit slower than the range of full marathon finish times I usually sign up for. Doing a practice run last week at that pace was HARD. Am I saying that I was incapable of coming in under that pace? Not at all. But as a pacer, I have an extremely narrow window of time that I should be aiming for and hitting. There's a reason why the oft-quoted adage "don't go out too fast" is so apt. Because when you do that, especially if you wind up doing so for multiple miles early on, you are having your pace group exceed the capabilities for which they have done their training. It is bound to have your group "blow up" and ultimately fall off pace. So, I need to practice that pace several more times between now and that particular race in a few months, to be able to quickly dial in on that pace during the first mile.
While it is true that there may be some people in the pace group who have bitten off more than they can chew, even if it were paced 100% accurately and consistently, the job of a pacer is to be the person they can rely on for getting them to the finish line in the agreed-upon time; they should never need to look at their watch.
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