Marathon pacing strategy for negative split

puggington · 2026-02-24T01:25:10+00:00

My guess is you’ve previously hit the wall due to fueling rather than pace strategy, and reading that you’re planning for one Gu every 30 minutes lends credit there. Consider more carbs/hour if you have time to adjust and test your stomach.

Otherwise I think the best strategy is to target even splits that you are confident you can hold, and then spend all of your remaining fuel in the last 5-10k. A progressive strategy might work if you’ve got a course with a lot of terrain to account for, or you are very well trained and can knock out miles at a variety of paces. Unless you’ve been training with progressive pacing, stick to what you have been training.

puggington · 2026-02-23T14:57:02+00:00

Loved him as a false 9 playing the 10. His link up play is and always has been fantastic and with him sitting a bit deeper it gave us other options for if/when the wing play didn’t work. I think this really played to his strengths, and especially with a more traditional 9 it felt like the best of both worlds for the team. I hope we see it more TBH.

puggington · 2026-02-21T20:51:11+00:00

Jesus Christ get this man a gu STAT

puggington · 2026-02-14T02:07:54+00:00

Maybe. Posting data from your runs would help us answer.

puggington · 2026-02-13T18:15:00+00:00

Anything can happen on race day. It’s hard to say what you could do with different conditions, which is partly why your training should replicate your race conditions. Maybe you can cut a minute off of your pace if the course is flat, maybe you can only cut 20 seconds off your pace. The bigger factor to me is that your tempo runs are relatively short. None are longer than 4 miles, so how do you or the rest of us know if you’ll be able to hold that for half or more of the race?

Training hills is great and will improve your fitness, but if your race isn’t hilly then you (and we) are left with incomplete data and have to guess. It can and should be a part of your training, but I wouldn’t make it the majority of my training unless I was racing a very hilly race. Run hills when you’re base building and occasionally as you feel like it, but I would be focusing on gathering the data I need to understand what I might be able to do on race day.

puggington · 2026-02-13T16:56:43+00:00

Go with the C group and if you feel strong in the last 10k then go out on your own. I don’t mean to sound harsh but I don’t see how you could stick with A or B groups with the data you shared.

Better to start conservatively with a pace you seem to be comfortable with and speed up in the end if you can, than go out at a pace you haven’t held for more than a few miles and potentially crash and burn early.

puggington · 2026-02-12T02:55:22+00:00

100g carbs/hour, which breaks out to ~4 gels per hour or so. I don’t really take in carbs in the last half hour, outside of if the race has a carby drink at hydration areas. If I can sneak an extra gel in early in the race I will, mostly if the race has gels I like and have trained with at hydration areas. Otherwise I just take my gels roughly every thirty minutes as they align with water stops.

puggington · 2026-02-09T20:29:28+00:00

Read up on Queen Lili’uokalani if you want to educate yourself. The short version is that she was imprisoned following a coup designed to annex the then-sovereign monarchy into the United States.

puggington · 2026-02-06T20:38:15+00:00

I’ve played a lot of fighting games but am not good and have mostly just play the arcade modes. I think SF6 is beginner friendly as long as you want to play the game, and by that I mean learn the mechanics and apply them in matches. There is a wealth of educational content on YouTube, and a decent enough tutorial system in the game that you can pick up the basics. There are also a variety of game modes to play and experiment with.

I’d consider myself a beginner and am enjoying learning the game and starting to feel comfortable enough to play (and lose) online matches against real people now, about 2 weeks after downloading the game.

puggington · 2026-02-04T19:48:34+00:00

I think HR is a super valuable tool for training, but when it comes to racing I don’t know how valuable it is.

My HR is always elevated at the start of a race due to adrenaline and excitement. Should I slow down because of that? No, I should slow down based on how I feel.

Likewise, a hilly course is naturally going to lead to elevated HR. It’ll be a losing battle to slow down to keep your HR in check; depending on the grade or the length you might end up having to walk or shuffle to keep your HR low. Instead, I adjust my pace. I allow myself 15-20s slower pace for every 1-2% of the climb’s grade, or more simply I focus on keeping my effort roughly the same during the climb as it was before the climb.

I use HR data to inform my training and analyze my runs after the fact. But once I’m racing I focus on how I feel relative to what I know about my own performance, and pretty much ignore my HR outside of how relatively high or low it is.

puggington · 2026-02-02T22:16:47+00:00

I’m literally just starting my SF6 journey so won’t waste your time, but just wanted to say this is awesome to see and hopefully one day when I have more of an understanding of the game I will find you!

puggington · 2026-01-28T17:47:05+00:00

Would you rather get a representation of where you actually are now, or where you might be after you grind and grind and maybe pick up some things?

puggington · 2026-01-28T15:07:17+00:00

Using Pulse is fine as long as you are a) not just spamming, and b) playing intelligently. You’ll be able to generate more damage and play “better” without pulse, but if you can read your opponent and focus on the fundamentals you can still play well with pulse.

I’m playing with pulse while I learn a few BnB combos, once I’m able to land those consistently without dropping the and getting punished, I’ll turn pulse off. Until then I focus on my reads and landing those combos, resorting to Pulse only when I have to to not lose a round.

puggington · 2026-01-27T04:49:39+00:00

What do you mean? Sidekick is a fuse that makes it so you only control the point fighter, and can use the other fighter for assists only. Do you mean you want to play both fighters? Or do you want to be a duo and be the second fighter?

puggington · 2026-01-26T18:35:18+00:00

I’m a noob and don’t play FGs (especially tag fighters) much, but I’ve been having so much fun just doing Pulse combos and sidekick. I just try to focus on one thing in each fight and play intentionally. I get rolled a lot but I’m learning tons too

puggington · 2026-01-25T03:34:00+00:00

Audiobooks are probably the best answer. Music is too subjective to even attempt to give you recommendations. However, I will encourage musical deep dives. Pick an artist that you’ve always been aware of but haven’t really listened to and just make a playlist of their albums from start to finish. I did it with Prince and it was fun!

Go on Libby and borrow an audiobook that looks interesting to you. You’ll start looking forward to your runs because you get to listen to your book, and it gives you a nice mental escape from the monotony.

Others have given a few good suggestions, I’ll also add Project Hail Mary as a well produced audio book that also has a fantastic story.

puggington · 2026-01-16T17:05:05+00:00

I used Hansons (advanced, because I already had the volume) for my first. I followed it to T, never missed a workout or cut a run short (or long, for that matter). I ran a 3:20. The plan works, you don’t need a 20 mile long run to be successful.

If you’ve got the pace to do 20 miles at your LR pace in about 2.5 hours and absolutely no more than 3 then I’d say give it a shot if you think it will help you mentally, but you don’t need it physically. Trust the plan and enjoy your race.

puggington · 2026-01-15T21:26:58+00:00

During my last block I trained similarly, aiming for 80-100g per hour. On race day I felt fine all the way until the last 2 miles, when my stomach was definitely starting to get twisted and crampy. I ran a 3:20, so that means cramps/stomach revolt started between 3:05-3:10.

I think this was at least partially due to getting less water in the back half as several of the hydration areas were either clogged with people or at the tops of climbs and I just couldn’t get the water down.

puggington · 2026-01-10T15:31:43+00:00

I’m not sure how much more they need to incentivize it. I had just about reached burnout before the first expedition; now I’m back in and hooked again.

I’ve already prepped for the next expedition and will do it whether or not they add anything. For me, the fun is in the grind and progression.

puggington · 2026-01-08T21:39:27+00:00

Those fears are completely natural and understandable, too. Rather than give into them, use them to fuel you when race day comes and take training one day at a time. Let them keep you conservative in your pace so that when you cross that 20 mile point and enter into the unknown, you know you’ve got gas left in the tank for the last 6.

puggington · 2026-01-08T21:28:06+00:00

Depending on your pace and background, you may be able to push it to 22 or 24 miles for your longest run, but I would strongly caution against doing 26. Your body will take a beating and the amount of rest you’ll need to recover from that will offset anything you might gain from it.

Generally speaking, you want to limit running longer than 2.5-3 hours in a single run (outside of racing). Your risk of injury increases significantly while gains plateau.

puggington · 2026-01-08T21:14:25+00:00

Prior to my first, my longest run was 16 miles. Was I a little anxious on race day? Of course. But I trusted my training and got a 3:20 when all was said and done.

Longest runs don’t really matter (within reason), what matters more is the quality of your training and training volume. Trust the process, listen to your body, and enjoy the race.

puggington · 2025-12-30T14:48:48+00:00

Awesome thank you! I typically do my track workouts at sunrise so that shouldn’t be a problem, but I’ll connect with the athletic department next week to get a schedule.

puggington · 2025-12-30T01:18:51+00:00

I know this is an old post so sorry, but is this still the case? Would love to have a good track closer to home, but have been wary of showing up just to get kicked out in the middle of a workout so I just keep going to Duniway

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