Hills. We got ’em, but how to pace them?

The Horsetooth Half is beloved locally for many reasons. Yes we throw a great post-race party. Yes, the course offers incredible views. But perhaps above all, we love an early season challenge here in Colorado. And we’ve got the hills to offer you just that challenge.

Hopefully you’ve begun incorporating hills into your training program. And hopefully you’ve been focusing as much on the descents and strengthening your quads as you have your climbing chops. After all, Horsetooth is a net-downhill race (915′ up, 1,150′ down). If you’ve got questions about downhill running form and techniques, be sure to join us at New Belgium on March 12 for a presentation from Colorado in Motion’s Tim Flynn on just that topic.

But what about pacing a race with so much elevation change? Clearly your mile splits are going to vary significantly over the hills of the first 8 miles, so our best advice is to pace your race based on perceived effort rather than specific mile splits. However, to give you an idea of how those splits might look through the first half of the race, we’ve created a per-mile pacing guide based on the experience of co-race director Pete Stevenson at the 2009, ’10 & ’12 runnings of the race.