Road races must be the most gender-balanced sporting event in the world, as men and women compete alongside each other over the same distance at the same time and often at the same pace.

However, a change is nice sometimes, such as this past weekend, when I was in Castlebar for the women's mini-marathon. Taking part in women-only road races is always enjoyable and I've been returning to Castlebar for the last few years to support the event and join in the run.

It’s my marker for the year, the line in the sand that helps me to set my training parameters and land on a target. It’s also about rediscovering my pace. Castlebar, being a women-only race, helped me focus on that, without the temptation of trying to stick with the pace of some of the men.

I’m often asked about training and race pace, especially given the increasing numbers of new runners in the country. The running boom is not slowing down, nor is the number of road races and running events for people to take part in.

The questions I’m usually asked are when does it start to hurt in a race and how do you deal with that.

After many years of running I feel like I have a better grasp of training methods now than ever before. I can look back on my old training diaries and pick out times when I might have done things differently, but when you are emotionally involved it’s not always easy to listen and act rationally.

“Faster and further” used to be the only method I knew, but when I look back now, I think “consistency and balance” might be a better way of thinking about training.

Much of my career played out like a rollercoaster, plenty of ups and downs, and just like that my fitness schedule these days can also have some undulations.

There are times when I am tuned in and focused on something that lies ahead; at other times, I’m just coasting along, maintaining fitness and, as I mentioned here before, waiting for the next target to jump out and grab my attention.

Sometimes it’s not by choice either, but due to little niggling injuries or annoying sniffles that can keep you floating along without the focus and routine that is required to improve your fitness.

The problem for me is that I haven’t done any faster runs. So I decided to go along to the local park the day before to work on my pacing skills. It’s no fun if you start off too fast in a 10km race. It can turn into a very long run as your pace decreases with each kilometre, and with that the motivation starts to dwindle too.

Comfortable pace

I figured a nice comfortable pace of 4:30/km would be a good place to start; instead, my first kilometre was just under four minutes. I knew I was in trouble. This is the simple rule in training and racing: don’t start too fast. Naturally, the adrenaline and excitement of the race set almost everyone off too fast, so we need to accept the first kilometre pace and then settle into the predicted pace.

I like to describe this as my cruising pace: this is like when an airplane takes off down the runway at high speed, before reaching its cruising altitude, which equates to cruising speed for athletes.

Some people look at me like I’m crazy when I try to explain this. The more common approach for runners is to go as fast as you can for as long as you can. But you will find that the more even your pace is throughout the race, the more in control you will feel and you will be able to finish much more strongly.

The sooner you settle into the cruising pace, the more you will enjoy the race and the better you will run. As your fitness improves, the cruising pace will also become faster as you will be increasing your aerobic base and endurance capacity.

So back to Castlebar and my line in the sand for 2016. After that erratic park run, I managed to settle into a cruising speed for the mini-marathon and certainly got through in a better state than if I went hell for leather from the start.

It’s not always easy to accept your current cruising pace. Instinctively, as runners, we want to run at a higher level, and we are also influenced by runners around us that we would like to keep up with (including, for some women, the men, or indeed vice-versa).

Last year, I used this approach very effectively as I trained for the Dublin marathon and really surprised myself at how much I enjoyed being in control of my pace and managing my effort in the race.

Simple approach

It’s actually a very simple approach, but you have to be patient and trust yourself to get a deep understanding of the pace you are running at. Just think of driving on the motorway with the cruise control on: the car is humming along and feels to be travelling much slower because it’s actually operating so much more efficiently.

Eventually I found my current pace on the weekend in Castlebar, a little bit faster than I thought, so now I have a marker to calculate paces for different training runs throughout the week; there is a purpose to every run, and I’m sure when I next line up for a 10km run, my cruising pace will be a few minutes quicker than last weekend.

So in a sense you shouldn’t really be hurting beyond control until you enter that final kilometre of the race. That’s the time to give it everything you’ve got, although even then it may be best to wait until the finish line is in sight. Just in case.