PACING
“to avoid doing something too quickly or doing too much at one time, so that you have enough energy left to complete an activity”
– MACMILLAN DICTIONARY
My aim is to complete at least 1 IRONMAN Triathlon event. To prepare for that; This year, I am taking part in 4 sporting events, Marathons and Duathlons ranging from 10km, 21km, 40km and 42km. Although I have been training vigorously in 2019 and 2020, I was slacking off the entire 2021 till mid 2022 (due to a mix of Covid lockdowns, work and community engagements). However, with the help of technology and data, I came up with a life-hack to help myself get into pace, psych up my mind and keeping track – Garmin Connect + PacePro.
It is a digital pacer that evaluates the terrain against your pace target or timing goals and plan out the entire race to comfortably hit the end goal. Basically, it is common to have slower pace running uphill and faster pace running downhill, so PacePro calculates that plus your physical endurance to be able to run faster and faster every kilometer (rare) or like most people, running at slightly slower pace after each km to avoid exhaustion and ensuring you can finish the race.
This is how it looks like on the Garmin Connect app, after plotting my route, I set my goal and dial in my pacing strategy (Positive Split or Negative Split) and the effort I put in for uphill sections, and PacePro will automatically calculate my pace and display it on my watch during the race.
Tips : My strategy is to set the goal 10% faster than my usual training and as a Positive split, meaning the pace gets slower every kilometer as an extra push to make me run faster and mental motivation that I am chasing down the split timing every kilometer.
How we wish this is as simple for Life and Career as well…
In Life or Career, each of us individually has our own pace and life goals. How we pace ourselves towards the goal is actually resonating with a race pacing strategy. We have :
- Stages of Life / Career (The Kilometers in the race)
- Duration to get to the goal (Race completion time)
- How much effort to put into building our lives/growing the career (Uphill Effort)
- Check points between the stages of life/career (Split timings)
If we take it too slow, we might not reach our goals before time is up or window of opportunity closes; push ourselves too hard, we get burned out and in the end we can’t reach our goals. Finding the right pace, and taking time off to recharge, learn and improve ourselves are important. It’s best to know our limitations and break down our goals into stages.
The 6 Stages of Career Development by Gary Burnison on CNBC. A good example of the stages to reach the goal to be a leader and beyond.
I’ve always push myself to the limit in everything that I do and recently, despite achieving results that I hoped for, I also started to feel the negative impact of it. Am burned out and tired all the time.
Post-exertional malaise (PEM) is the worsening of symptoms following even minor physical or mental exertion, with symptoms typically worsening 12 to 48 hours after activity and lasting for days or even weeks. PEM can be mitigated by activity management (pacing). The goal is to avoid PEM flare-ups and illness relapses by balancing rest and activity.
https://m.e.awareness.nz/a-guide-to-pacing-for-pwme
Hence recently I start to take a step back and listen to by body, focus on my passion, balance between mental and physical workouts and be among the communities; realising that I don’t have to keep ‘running’ at a fast pace all the time, there are many other things in life that matters.
I’ve decided, after 22 years of climbing the career ladder in the corporate environment, I am taking a break from my Corporate Career and pacing myself towards community, sustainable energy and infrastructure fixing for our nation…
We are our own Life’s Pacer !