Even Pacing Wins: The Race-Day Advantage Women Can Build On
Race Day Strategy
Even Pacing Wins: The Race-Day Advantage Women Can Build On
Fresh legs can make an unsustainable effort feel deceptively comfortable.
Whether you are racing Surf Coast Century, Ultra-Trail Australia or the GPT, protecting your effort early is a performance strategy, not a cautious fallback.
On the morning of your biggest training weekend or race, fresh legs can lie to you. The opening climb feels easier than expected, your pace feels sustainable and the energy around you makes it tempting to move faster than planned. The cost of that early enthusiasm may not become obvious until much later, when the terrain, time on feet and accumulated fatigue begin to expose it.
Research into ultra-distance pacing repeatedly reinforces the value of controlling effort early and limiting how much pace deteriorates later. The female-specific findings are nuanced, but they point to a useful tendency that women may be able to recognise, practise and build upon.
The distinction that matters
Even pacing does not mean even speed. On a trail course, the terrain should change your pace. The skill is to keep the effort cost proportionate: allow yourself to slow on climbs and technical ground, move efficiently when the trail opens up, and avoid spending energy simply to protect a number on your watch.
Markovic and colleagues examined 3,837 Western States 100 finishers across 18 editions of the race. Men tended to start faster and slow more than women, while pacing patterns did not differ significantly across women's age groups. This does not prove that women are inherently better pacers, but it does suggest that women may be less likely, as a group, to spend too much of their available effort in the opening stages.
The broader evidence is not as simple as saying women always pace ultras better. A large analysis of UTMB finishers by Suter and colleagues found that steadier pacing was associated with faster finishing times, although women showed greater overall pace variation than men on that mountainous course. Bearden and van Woerden, studying six 161-kilometre ultramarathons, found pacing patterns were largely unaffected by sex or age. Their clearest warning applied to everyone: slower finishers were more likely to begin at a pace that was too fast relative to the pace they could sustain across the full race.
The aim is not to make the first part of your race as fast as possible. It is to arrive at the later stages with enough capacity to keep making good decisions.
What this means for back-to-back training
On a back-to-back weekend, day one should be paced so that day two remains purposeful training rather than survival. Think of the weekend as one combined endurance effort, not two unrelated long sessions. Starting conservatively enough to move well the following day allows you to practise the durability, fuelling, recovery and decision-making skills the weekend was designed to develop.
That does not mean running fearfully or avoiding effort. It means matching your effort to the complete task. On the opening climb, resist the urge to follow someone else's pace simply because your legs feel fresh. Use your breathing, perceived effort and ability to fuel comfortably as guides. If you know you have another substantial training day ahead, finish day one feeling as though you could have continued.
One principle, three very different courses
The same pacing principle needs a different expression on every course. The question is not simply, How fast should I go? It is, What will this part of the course cost me, and what do I still need available later?
Surf Coast Century
Do not confuse runnable with free
Surf Coast Century can feel generous early. Beaches, coastal tracks and runnable trail can make it tempting to bank time while the legs are fresh. But runnable kilometres still create muscular and fuelling cost. On the 100km course, early restraint helps preserve the legs for the more demanding inland terrain and for running again when the course opens later. On the 50km course, where significant climbing arrives early, control means accepting a slower opening and allowing the terrain to set the speed.
Practise: Leave the early runnable sections feeling smooth, not urgent. Hike steep climbs before your breathing spikes, fuel from the first hour and notice whether you are running efficiently or merely running because the terrain allows it.
Ultra-Trail Australia
Let the speed vary while the effort stays honest
At UTA, stairs, valleys, long climbs, technical trail and faster ridgelines make an even kilometre pace both unrealistic and unhelpful. Even effort means letting pace fall when the course asks more of you, without treating every descent as an opportunity to win time back. For UTA50 and UTA100, the climb to Scenic World via the Furber Steps is shaped by decisions made hours earlier. Arriving there fuelled, composed and still able to move with purpose is a better sign of pacing than any fast early split.
Practise: Change gears early. Hike before a climb forces you to, descend within your technical ability and keep fuelling when slower terrain makes it feel as though less work is being done.
Grampians Peaks Trail
Protect concentration as deliberately as your legs
On the GPT, steep climbs, rocky ground and technical descents mean pace will vary dramatically. The cost of going too hard is not only physical. As fatigue rises, foot placement, judgement and fuelling decisions can deteriorate too. For GPT50 and the 100 Miler, control means staying below your effort ceiling on early climbs, descending with enough margin to remain accurate and fuelling by elapsed time rather than distance. In the staged event, each day must also preserve your capacity to begin again the next morning.
Practise: Use technical training to observe when accuracy begins to fade. If foot placement becomes rushed, fuelling gets forgotten or small decisions feel harder, reduce effort before the course makes that decision for you.
A question worth practising
When you reach a rough patch, pause before assuming you lack fitness or toughness. Ask:
Did I start at an effort I could sustain, or at an effort that only felt comfortable because I was fresh?
Training gives you a low-stakes place to answer that question honestly. Look at when your effort changed, whether you continued fuelling, how your movement held together and what happened when fatigue arrived. If day two unravels, consider whether day one helped create that outcome. That insight is not a failed session. It is information you can use to pace the next training weekend and race more effectively.
Research by O'Loughlin and colleagues also identified sex-specific relationships between training characteristics and ultramarathon performance. For women in the study, weekly training volume and marathon speed were meaningful predictors of performance. While no single study can prescribe the ideal preparation for every athlete, it supports an important coaching principle: strong ultra performance is built through consistent training, not one heroic weekend.
Take this onto the trail
- Run the opening climb at an effort that feels controlled, even when others move ahead.
- Use breathing and perceived effort, not pace alone, to respond to changing terrain.
- Fuel early enough that you are supporting the later stages, not trying to rescue them.
- On runnable courses such as Surf Coast, ask whether the speed is efficient or simply available.
- At UTA, let stairs, valleys and technical trail change your speed without interpreting slower kilometres as failure.
- On GPT terrain, treat concentration and foot-placement accuracy as pacing feedback.
- On back-to-back weekends, pace day one as part of the complete two-day training load.
- Afterwards, review where your effort changed and what you would adjust next time.
Even pacing is not about holding yourself back from your potential. It is about distributing your effort so your fitness, strength and decision-making remain available when the race asks the most of you. Women may have a useful pacing tendency to draw upon, but it is still a skill to practise. Protect the beginning so you can keep participating fully in the end.
Your race-day commitment
I will judge my opening effort by my breathing, movement and ability to fuel, not by the athletes around me or the pace on my watch. I am preparing for the whole course, not only the part I am in.
From Samantha
Her Trails
The insights in this Trail Note were informed by research into pacing patterns, training characteristics and performance in ultramarathon runners, including Markovic et al. (2025), Suter et al. (2020), Bearden and van Woerden (2025) and O'Loughlin et al. (2019). The practical recommendations reflect Her Trails' coaching interpretation of this research.
Course application was informed by the official event information for Surf Coast Century, Ultra-Trail Australia and Grampians Peaks Trail. Course details can change, so athletes should always review the current event information for their race distance.
