Half Marathon Race Strategy | Pacing, Fueling and More

What to do the day before a half marathon? When do you run, what do you eat? What do you need to know race morning to finally hit that PR or simply finish your first half marathon? Steady pace, negative split? Let’s talk half marathon race strategy tips!!

Training is supposed to be the hard part and race day the celebration, at least that’s what we’re often told.

But for many runners, race day is filled with nerves or they cross the finish line knowing they could have done better…but how?

Today we’re going to dive in to everything you need to know for race weekend. Because if you don’t treat the few days pre-race right, it may not matter what pacing strategy you attempt to follow! Your half marathon pace plan requires your body being healthy, happy and well…the right weather!

Let’s get started with some half marathon tips that work for every level of runner.

Half Marathon Race Strategy

We’ll get to the actual race, but first let’s start with everything we’re doing in the 48 hours before the race.

Because if you make a mistake like eating fried catfish because you’re trying to please your future husband…let’s just say that you could end up seeing a lot of the Nashville Rock N Roll porta potties on the course. (cough, not that I’d know anything about this.)

Grab your printable race checklist to make sure you don’t forget anything when packing!!

1. Understand Your Goal Pace

If you’re not sure what to set for your goal, it’s definitely going to make race day a bit trickier.

Start by looking at this half marathon pace chart >>

Hopefully, you’ve been doing some goal pace workouts or intervals to help you know where you should be. But maybe it’s your first race and you just want to finish without dying.

That’s totally fine!!

Use the chart to find your easy pace. From there assume that maybe you can do 10-30 seconds per mile faster with the race day atmosphere and then look at what that finish time is.

• Try to find a pace band at the expo, so you can check your times as the race goes along. If you can’t find one, then write a few splits on your arm, so you can check in on your goal throughout the race.
• Remember that your watch may ding a little before or after the mile markers depending on if you are running the tangents (usually you aren’t, so you’ll end up slightly longer)
• Also, try to run the tangents! That means not weaving a bunch, don’t take corners super tight.
• Get ready with the mantra you’re going to be repeating in your head when it gets tough.
• Know that it will get tough! Thinking it will all be roses leads to a much harder day. Instead, embrace that it will be hard and that you can do it.

2. Do a Lot of Meal Planning

Don’t be like that 25 year old version of me who was starving by the time we found our hotel after the expo and just needed to eat, which lead to finding the only place nearby.

Granted we didn’t at the time have awesome tools like Yelp, but I could have done so much more to avoid the situation!

• Research nearby restaurants for your night before dinner and consider something light and eat early.
• Bring your pre-race breakfast with you or plan to swing by a grocery store to grab your bagel and nut butter.
• Double check that you’ve packed all the energy gels, race fuel that you have previously tested on your long runs, including electrolyte powders.
• We LOVE grabbing groceries for the trip overall because it ensures both pre and post race stomachs remain happy and nutrition on point.

3. Start Line Planning

Have you ever had the dream where you’re fighting to get to the race, but everything is against you and by the time you arrive everyone has already started? Yeah, most of us have.

Which is why we want to spend a little time planning ahead, to help alleviate that fear and get a better night of sleep.

Figure out if there is a drop off point, a shuttle, an easy walk from your hotel?

Assume that you’ll be waiting in line at least 10-20 minutes for a porta potty and need at least 10-20 minutes to walk around, do a dynamic warm up and take in some last minute fuel.

MINIMUM give yourself that time.

You don’t want to waste energy being stressed out or sprinting to the start line.

4. Finish Line Planning

It seems like at this point all you need to do is sit down and eat your free banana. But alas, I’ve spent many a race wandering around for 30 minutes attempting to find my well meaning spectators or friends, all the while getting colder and hungrier.

• Checkout the finish area map and pick a spot to meet your friends and family. Help them understand that it might take a bit for you to get out to them.
• Go ahead and check that bag at the start line with some body wipes and dry clothes to change at the finish line. It’ll ensure you can hang out and enjoy the atmosphere.
• If you have a finicky stomach, then have some of your trusted food ready in that bag or have a plan to find some green juice and a meal.

Great now that we have some of the basics out of the way to make this an overall great experience, let’s dive in to the race specifics.

Half Marathon Pacing Strategy

Whether you’re looking to hit a PR (personal record) or just have a strong race, it’s important to have an overall half marathon strategy. In general, we want to ensure that you have enough energy to hang on through that finish even when it starts to burn!

Practice Even Pacing

The first thing you need to know is that more studies are showing that EVEN pacing, not aiming for a negative split is the best way to hit a PR. I think this is because you dial in to a pace and instead of needing to push harder when tired, you simply maintain it.

The goal is to keep it in control during the first mile and from there dial in to your goal race pace.

All of this assumes a course that is relatively similar in terms of hills or flats from start to finish. If you have a race with more hills in the end, you may need to push a little more in the early flats (like seconds per mile push, not 30 seconds faster).

Meanwhile if you start a race on the downhill and then it flattens out, you might pick up 10 seconds per mile starting out and let that carry you later.

Start Line

Ideally you want to take a final quick bit of energy in at the start line. Grab a honey stinger waffle or if you love gels, suck on down. This is putting that immediate fuel in the tank for your body to draw from.

Remember that it takes 30+ minutes for the fuel to enter your bloodstream.

And for caffeine it peaks at 45 minutes. So if you had that coffee two hours ago, you might benefit from a little caffeine at the start and then again during the race. As always, you should have tested how caffeine impacts you during your long training runs!!

Mile 1

In fact, we often tell people that mile 1 should be your slowest of the race. This makes sense because it means you aren’t wasting energy dodging and weaving around other runners and you aren’t blasting through your carbohydrates by overshooting the mark.

So maybe you’re 30 seconds slower, know that this is time you can make up bit, by bit. Ideally you might be around 10-15 seconds below goal pace, but whatever the number don’t let it freak you out.

But if you’re 30 seconds too fast, that could actually result in being minutes per mile slower later in the race.

Miles 2-3

Now we’re starting to really dial in to our goal race pace.

This should feel like you’re pushing yourself, but not that you can’t maintain the pace for many miles to come.

Finding our exact pace is really hard!! One of the best ways to do this is to stop worrying about your watch and start focusing on your effort levels.

• The first few miles of the race should almost feel too easy
• The middle set of miles should feel like a push, but not hard to maintain.
• The final set of miles should feel like you’re pulling out all the mental tools to hold on, but without feeling like you’re on the verge of a complete break down!

Looking at your watch can often prevent you from hitting a new PR. You freak out about the pace, even if it feels sustainable and then you hold yourself back. One of the reasons I often prescribe workouts for the runners we coach as medium or hard effort, is to help them learn just this feeling!

Middle Miles Fueling

I’ve done a more in-depth article on half marathon fueling, but it needs to be touched on here. Because without fuel your pacing will fall off or the race will just continue to feel like a sufferfest.

• A good rule of thumb is begin consuming fuel between the first 45-60 minutes of a race.
• Continue every 45-60 minutes after that.
• Roughly 30-60 grams of carbs per hour that you’re running

And if you need some help with staying on top of hydration, a few tips on drinking while running.

Miles 11-13.1

As you hit the final 2-3 miles of the race, you can start to push the pace if you’re feeling good.

Just remember that  3 miles is still a long ways to run, which means you need to keep your pace increase small and sustainable.

This is where you have to start really playing a strong mental game.

I tend to repeat a mantra like “steady and light” during miles 10-12, so that I just hold on to my pace and then when I hit 12 it’s on. I pick out someone in a brightly colored shirt and put all my focus on catching that person, then the person in front of them, etc.

That breaks this final mile down in to consistent wins and manageable pieces. Which can help to get you out of your head and stop thinking about uncomfortable you are.

Half Marathon Race Day Tips

Now that race day has arrived, you first need to go through my post on managing your race day nerves. Get that under control and then it’s time to plot out how you’ll be spending that time milling about the start area.

These are your final moments to get your body and mind right!

Porta Potties

Just get in line. Don’t kid yourself, you’ll absolutely go and you might as well get through the line sooner rather than later. If you find yourself having that “do I need to pee or not?” feeling as the time ticks down, know that it’s most often nerves and once you start running your body has a mechanism to put that on the back burner!

So if you have time, line up again, but if not then don’t sweat it.

Don’t Skip the Warm Up

As you’re standing around with hundreds or thousands of other runners, it can be easy to get lost in the moment and just skip your warm up, but that’s a major no-no.

Your warm up is doubly important on race day! It’s telling your body that it’s time to go, to do what you’ve repeatedly trained it to do and to ensure that all your muscles are warm and ready to go the second you cross that line.

Go through the dynamic warm up and then spend just a few minutes jogging. The longer the race, the less running around you need to do prior to the race as you can allow your first mile to serve as a warm up.

Where to line up?

Of all the race day mistakes that I’ve made and learned from there is only one that I continue to make…lining up too far back.

This comes down to trusting yourself and your pacing, while also not trusting any of the runners in front of you, ha!

Most often I’ll see a pacer that’s in line with my goal and line up somewhere in front of or behind them. But invariably, a lot of folks who are going to be walking or going much slower have gotten nervous and decided to start way too far forward. I get it, nerves are taking hold of everyone.

But when you spend the first few miles weaving in and out of people, you add steps to your race and waste a lot of mental/physical energy.

Try lining up just a bit farther forward than you think you should if you’re going for a PR.

When you’re new, make sure you really look for those pacers to help you decide if you’re too far forward. It’s also no fun to have people whipping around you non-stop for the first few miles, when you’re working hard!

Handling the first mile

It’s happening, your wave of runners is finally going from a weird run, trot, walk through the corrals and across the start line. This is when a bizarre sprint begins and people completely abandon their race goals to just fly.

Nope, not you.

You know that by holding back in that first mile, you’ll get to catch and pass those runners later in the race. You don’t want to skyrocket your HR immediately and burn through fuel, along with fatiguing your legs.

All right hopefully these half marathon race strategies and tips gave you some new ideas and things to think about so you can get out there and crush it.

Looking for more half marathon tips?

• Best Long Distance Running Shoes
• How Long Should My Longest Long Run Be??
• How to hit a Sub 2 Half Marathon

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