Our blogs around pacing your marathon and negative splits are popular reads during racing season. Pacing is a much-discussed topic, online, in our helpdesk as well as in our Facebook and Instagram community. Offering in-app pacing plans was already on our wishlist since 2022. Now, we're finally there!

Why pacing plans?

It's simple: on race day it is difficult to curb our enthusiasm, and we often go out too fast. That's the opposite of what the literature tells us: negative splits bring optimal performance.

The pacing plans that I designed respect that negative split, but also bring my experience into the game. A traditional negative split (with the fastest pace in your last stint) is not only physiological a hard nut to crack. The idea that you have to run at your fastest during the last bit of your race, is mentally very taxing. My pacing strategies are not only based a theoretical model, where we compare first and second half of the race.

These plans will prevent you from going out too fast. They will (hopefully) also help you achieve a negative split, and with that the best possible racing experience.

How do placing plans work?

Peak Pro subscribers will see different pacing options in their session details on race day. Plan A is my preferred strategy, often a bit more detailed. If you want a simpler strategy, then you can opt for plan B. And of course, you can still keep the standard even pacing.

We you select one of the strategies, your training details will be updated. For those who activated our Garmin Export: we will also push these plans to your wearable. Don't forget to sync your watch with Garmin Connect after selecting an in-app pacing strategy.

With that, we've taken the app a step further once more. Update the app and check it out!