Hye, all:
I paced my first race at the Hamilton half on Sunday. Overall, it was a wonderful experience. But I lost almost all my people because of an issue I mention below. Therefore I have a couple of querstions for more experienced pacers:
1. Chip time v. Gun time. I decided to pace to gun time and I noticed that is how the other pacers I saw finish did. On the other hand, I read an article where teh author assumed you were pacing chip time. Are there any rules about this? I imagine no matter what, you must tell the people pacing with you whichyou are doing.
2. Train delays and other emergencies. At 12K there is a level rail crossing and I hit a train (figuratively). This resulted in a three minute delay. I decided to make up the three minutes by running faster and I lost most of my peeps. I bumped into one of them after the race and she was quite snarky to me. This made me feel badly, but I think I did the right thing. A couple of other runners told me that they were glad I made up the time. I note that race officials were recording bib numbers, I suppose as a time credit.
My logic in making the time up was that I believed it was my goal to pass the finish line at the goal time (2:30). If this was a qualifying time for someone, the target race would only take the chip time or gun time, I think, not some notional adjusted time. For example, I thought that there may have been people ahead of me who were targetting 2:30 but who were running at a faster pace at first. Indeed I found several such people. It was coincidence that the train passed when it did. Had I been 30 seconds faster or thirty seconds slower I would have missed the train. There may be other glitches aside from the level crossing; for example, accidents, injuries to others, etc. What do you more experienced pacers think? Make up the time or keep to race pace?
Ron
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