How You Start a Marathon Makes or Breaks Your Race. Use These Tips to Pace the First Few Miles the Right Way.

Congratulations! You’ve made it to the starting line of your goal marathon. You successfully completed a training block, you dialed in your nutrition, and you’re ready to run a strong race.While you’ve already completed most of the hard work, actually executing your goal race pace is not always as simple as running at that speed right out of the gate, especially after taking factors like the weather and course terrain into consideration. Running the right effort at the start of 26.2 is also especially tricky if this is your first marathon.“It’s easy in a marathon to go out too fast because of all the adrenaline and excitement,” Sarah King Cherington, an RRCA-certified coach in Houston, tells Runner’s World, adding that a lack of GPS signal can also make it difficult to even know how fast you’re going. “That first 5K is where it’s important to stay calm, breathe, take a beat, and just kind of settle in and correct yourself back to the pace you’re supposed to be running.”Because how you start the marathon will determine how strong you finish—and you’ve probably heard that you should start slower than you think—we asked coaches to break down exactly how slow you should begin your 26.2-mile run and what to keep in mind when pacing the race for your best finish yet.First, Determine Your Goal Marathon PaceArriving at a starting line ready to execute begins with having a realistic goal. Alexis Fairbanks, a UESCA-certified run coach based in Denver, often encounters athletes who initially underestimate themselves and what they’re capable of shooting for at the end of a training block, which is when working with a coach can be helpful in setting the right goal.For Fairbanks, the first step in determining an athlete’s race pace is ensuring their easy runs are truly easy.“It always depends on the athlete and their running history. If someone comes to me with a goal marathon pace they would like to hit, as we start working together, we’ll assess whether that's realistic by feeling out how easy runs and workouts are going,” Fairbanks tells Runner’s World, adding she uses a pace calculator, like that from V.02, to help set initial paces and reassess as they go.“If an athlete doesn’t have much of a training history, I’ll focus on whether they’re able to run conversationally, make sure their heart rate isn’t getting too high, and then we’ll go from there as they continue to build fitness, knowing their initial target may change,” she adds.Fairbanks also notes that if an athlete doesn’t have a recent racing history, it takes a bit more trial and error to find realistic pace zones.To help fine-tune pacing, Fairbanks typically recommends running a shorter race such as a half marathon, 10K, or 5K at the beginning of a 12- to 16-week training cycle to get an idea of baseline fitness and gauge how it will translate to the marathon.Cherington similarly has her athletes either target a shorter race or attempt a longer marathon pace workout, such as eight to 10 miles at marathon pace four weeks out from race day and then again two weeks out (and possibly even one at the beginning of a 16-week cycle for more experienced athletes).“Running 10 miles at marathon pace is a really tough workout for most people and since it is done on very tired legs after months of training, it is very predictive of marathon performance,” Cherington tells Runner’s World. “If you can run 10 miles at your marathon goal pace 16 weeks out from your race, you’re aiming too low, and, on the other end, if you’re taking a lot of breaks mid-workout or are so depleted you can’t do an easy run the next day, then you’re working too hard.”Cherington may also have her athletes do 2 x 25 minutes at marathon pace at the beginning of a 16-week training cycle to calibrate their fitness and help them understand how to meet themselves where they are. “I challenge my athletes to really look at their fatigue levels and be honest with themselves and see how they’re recovering,” she says.Once her athletes are three weeks out from race day, Cherington will assess their fitness depending on how these key workouts have gone, also taking factors like race terrain and conditions into consideration.If it’s an athlete’s first marathon, Cherington typically doesn’t assign such high-intensity workouts to set pace, and instead prioritizes long runs at a moderate effort—the same effort to aim for on race day. “If these first-timers are able to hit their three longest runs (16 to 20 miles) at a consistent pace, they are usually able to execute that on race day after a good taper,” she says.READ MORE ON FINDING MARATHON PACEHow to Make Sure You Don’t Start Out Too FastYou’ll still want to spend some time ahead of the big day visualizing the race and how you’ll execute it.For most people, it’s not as easy as settling into your goal pace from mile one and pacing it like a metronome, Fairbanks says. Instead, she’ll typically aim to have her athletes start with a conservative first 5K that’s 10 to 15 seconds slower than their goal pace, treating it as a warmup and settling in to shake the nerves out before progressing to marathon pace.“I think most athletes feel comforted knowing they don’t have to hit those exact times right from the beginning of a race, when there can be so much adrenaline, and it can also be crowded,” Fairbanks says. “Just like with any run, you don’t need to panic and judge a race by the first mile. Even if you end up 25 seconds slower than your goal pace, you can easily make that up over the course of 26.2 miles.”Cherington, on the other hand, prefers her athletes to aim for goal pace plus or minus five seconds after the first mile, which she says can be a “freebie” where you don’t worry about how fast or slow it might be if there are factors like tall buildings that can affect your GPS and huge crowds at play.This would require running even splits the whole race, which can be a double-edged sword, as you also don’t want to be obsessively looking at your watch the whole time, she says. Instead, she advises just looking at your watch when it beeps at the end of each mile split to keep track of where you are. (Some pro marathoners even prefer checking if they’re on track for goal pace every 5K to account for natural changes in pace throughout an undulating course.)Most importantly, focus on effort early in the race: “Going by effort, the first 5K to 10K should feel insanely easy, like 1 to 3 on the RPE scale,” Cherington says, with the scale spanning 1 to 10, and 10 equaling all-out effort. “You should not be huffing and puffing, and you should feel absolutely no burn in your legs.”After that, Cherington says the race should feel like the hard side of easy and more like a moderate long run by miles 13 to 16.If you’ve run marathons before, “by mile 18 to 20, it should feel like a marathon-pace workout where huffing and puffing is okay, and by the last 5K it should feel like a speed workout where you’ll be hard-pressed to talk at all,” Cherington says. “More experienced runners have more gears than first-timers, so I’ll have newer runners really only progress through recovery to easy to moderate effort since they won’t have the experience with the harder and longer workouts.”TRY THE 10/10/10 PACING METHOD4 Tips for Starting a Marathon Slow—But Not Too SlowMany factors can affect how race day goes, especially during a long one like the marathon. Sometimes that will mean adjusting your expectations throughout the race so you still have a solid day.Fairbanks and Cherington recommend the following tips to better your chances of crossing the finish line feeling accomplished and happy.1. Check In With Effort EarlyWhile both Fairbanks and Cherington urge runners not to judge a race by their first mile split, it can make or break your race to check in with yourself about how those first few miles feel.“If you get to 5K and feel like it's not going to be your day, I suggest staying where you are, pace-wise, and then reassess at 10K and every 5K after that, asking yourself how the pace is feeling and whether you can speed up or should slow down,” Fairbanks says. “Sometimes letting up just a few seconds is enough to conserve and sustain your effort.”According to Fairbanks, the race shouldn’t feel too easy at this point—at least if you have a time goal—but should feel comfortable and like you can sustain it.“If you’re aiming for a time goal that’s a challenge, you won’t feel like you’re out for a jog—you’re going to feel like you’re working a little bit quite early on, but it shouldn't feel like anything more than a light tempo at that point,” she says. “You should feel as calm and relaxed as possible and, aerobically, your breathing should be pretty calm and steady.”“I still want it to feel easy and like you’re able to engage in a conversation,” Cherington adds. “You should not feel like you’re gasping for air or like your quads are on fire, which are signs that you’ve gone out too fast.”If you’re not feeling great, Fairbanks also recommends seeing where you can let go of some tension, such as by relaxing your breath, dropping your shoulders, and focusing on good mechanics rather than trying to force a pace.While you should focus on your breathing, rhythm, and effort throughout the marathon and especially early on, Cherington suggests ignoring your heart rate. “Are you huffing? Could you carry on a full conversation if you wanted to? That is what true early-race ‘easy’ effort feels like. Is your heart in your throat? That is way too hard and is only okay in the last miles,” she says. “It might feel almost suspiciously easy at first because of the taper—your muscles are fully restored and you are benefiting from supercompensation.”Your heart rate might sit higher than it normally would on a standard recovery run, Cherington adds, which is not a bad thing as you trained to handle that. Plus, race-day excitement and nerves can elevate your beats per minute.2. Adjust for the Course and ConditionsIf you’re targeting a specific marathon finish time, chances are you’ve chosen your race with a fast course and optimal conditions in mind. But even those touted as fast courses aren’t entirely pancake-flat ones that easily lend themselves to nailing even splits the whole way.“With the Boston Marathon [which is largely downhill for the first half], your strategy may be actually going for a positive split because of the more challenging second half,” Cherington says.Cherington makes sure her athletes are cognizant of course changes with hills throughout so that they can adjust their effort accordingly along the way. “Hills are like wind and can really mess you up, so I stress surviving the hills and not attacking them, and accepting that your pace will slow, but the effort will stay the same,” she says. “You need to accept a few seconds’ loss on the ups and ride a few seconds’ gain on the downs but be honest about your effort. Keep the effort and come down by a few seconds honestly on the downhills; don’t race faster down them to where you end up gassed.”Similarly, if you roll up on race day to unseasonable conditions like heat and humidity, adjusting your pacing and slowing down up to 30 seconds per mile can make all the difference in your execution in terms of finishing with a race you’re still proud of, Fairbanks says.“Heat and humidity might impact some people more than others, and if you adjust your pacing it can work out really well for you to where you’re able to pick it up in the last 10K,” Fairbanks says. “More often than not, people don’t adjust enough or at all from the start, which means it ends up being a death march on the back end to the finish.”3. Watch Your Speed With Pace GroupsOn the surface, running a marathon with a designated pace group can seem like a dream, especially if you tend to thrive in group workouts to hit your pace. But sometimes you can’t predict whether the pacer will go too fast or how much you might have to pick it up to catch up if you stop at an aid station, Cherington says.“I’ve had good experiences with pace groups, but I know that some, especially those going for Boston qualifying times, can be really big and crowded, so it can be worthwhile to talk to the pacer if they’re available at the expo or before the gun goes off,” Fairbanks says. “Also, if you have a more conservative strategy in mind, it can be good to start with the next-slowest group, such as 3:30 if you’re targeting a 3:25, to settle into your own planned strategy.”4. Come Prepared With a Pace Plan—and PatienceLastly, Fairbanks emphasizes that avoiding getting too caught up in the excitement and adrenaline at the beginning of the race is key to avoiding fizzling out later on. That’s where having a max speed for the first mile to 5K is important, and where it’s key to avoid deviating from that pace.“This is where relying on training and the experience of running hard late in long runs is important. If an athlete has done workouts like 20-mile runs with late miles at marathon pace, they should know it does get harder,” Fairbanks says.Cherington agrees, especially for first-time marathoners, saying: “I want it to feel like a recovery run to an easy effort for miles zero to 16 and I will absolutely put a max pace over a goal. If they are going faster than what they did on long runs, I want them to pull back. They need to be very patient, enjoy the ride, and keep a healthy fear of miles 20 through 26.2.”Finally, patience is crucial during most of the marathon, and especially in the beginning. “It can be helpful to have a simple mantra regarding patience ready for those moments,” Fairbanks says. “I like to remind myself and athletes to stay patient when it’s feeling good so you’re physically and mentally prepared to fight through when it gets tough.”Emilia Benton is a Houston-based freelance writer and editor. In addition to Runner's World, she has contributed health, fitness and wellness content to Women's Health, SELF, Prevention, Healthline, and the Houston Chronicle, among other publications. She is also an 11-time marathoner, a USATF Level 1-certified running coach, and an avid traveler.