How to Pace Your Marathon
Pacing your marathon correctly is an important part of race day. Although it's a bit different for everyone, there's some general guidance that you should follow.
9/8/2025
Just as with everything else related to running a marathon, planning and practicing for pacing your race, is going to set you up for success on race day. Here is some general guidance to structure your pacing plan.
The Start: It’s race day. You’re excited. You’re (hopefully) well rested and carbed up at the start line. You feel great. You start running the race, look down at your watch, and realize your first couple miles were a minute faster than your goal pace!
It’s equally possible the start will be so crowded that you are shuffling along and trying to weave through runners to find some space. You’re frustrated that you are going way slower than your race pace.
Whether you go out too fast or get caught up more slowly than you expect, don’t panic. Just get through the first mile or two, find your planned pace and settle in.
The Early Miles: Once you find your rhythm, you’ll want to hit a pace that is around or slightly below your target marathon pace. Don’t be tempted to ‘bank time’ a lot of time for the back half; you’re more likely to burn out that way. Ideally, you want to negative split, or run the second half slightly faster than the first, or maintain a consistent pace throughout the race.
The Halfway Point: You’ve made it halfway, but, realistically, you still have the hard part ahead. This is not the point to decide that you feel good and you should speed up. At mile 13, you should still be feeling very comfortable with a lot left in the tank.
Mile 18: Around mile 18 is where, if you are still feeling strong, you can consider speeding up just a bit. There’s still a fair amount of the hard miles ahead so don’t get too ambitious; keep any increases to just a slight increase in pace, not a huge jump.
Mile 20: This is often where many runners talk about hitting the wall. Most runners have maxed out at a 20 mile long run so this may be the longest you’ve ever run. Often people say that this is where you can make the decision to start pushing the pace. However, those last 6 miles can be the toughest of the race.
I generally recommend that runners wait until there are 3 miles left to really make any major pace changes. By that point, you’ll have gotten past the mythical 20 mile barrier and you can gauge what you have left in the tank.
The Last Mile: The last mile is where you push with whatever you have left. The goal is that you have just enough energy to keep the pace you have been running with a little boost of adrenaline at the very end. If you have a ton of energy left over then likely you’re overall pacing was too slow.
Marathon pacing can be a learning curve. Part of the process is learning what your marathon pace feels like which is why I often program a good amount of marathon pace miles in a training plan. And that marathon pace may very different during training than it is on race day. The excitement of the events changes adds a completely different element. Putting everything together can be a challenge. You might not get it right on your first try (or second or third).
