Pacing Opportunities

Contacts – Look for the Pacing heading – https://rirr401.wordpress.com/membership-has-its-privileges/contacts/

Are you targeting a specific goal time for your marathon/half marathon? You are invited to join the Rhode Island Road Runners for various races throughout the year. Let our pace groups help lead the way. The RIRR’s are the largest running group in the smallest state, and we pace most of the major marathons and half marathons in Rhode Island.

Pacing is an important and rewarding job.  Each pacer must maintain the assigned pace to bring the runners in as close to their finish time goal as possible.  We’ve helped many runners complete their goal with some qualifying for Boston.

Being a pacer has its rewards.  In addition to a free entry to the race you are rewarded from the runners.  You don’t realize how important you are to the runners until they approach you with thanks and appreciation for helping them accomplish their goal.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Where do I find the pacers? The pacers will be at the starting line about a half hour before the gun goes off. We line up by finish times, so the faster pacers will be near the front, the slowest will be near the back.

How will I recognize the pacers? We will be wearing orange logo singlets with the pace time printed on the back. We will also be holding large elevated signs with the finish time.  For example, 2:00 hours for a half and 3:45 for a full. We usually have 2 pacers for the full marathon with each running a 13.1 mile split.

Will the pace be very consistent, or do you expect to bank any time early in the race?  Some pacers stay as close to the pace as possible the whole route. We allow for slight variations based on the course, but even in downhill sections we stay within a few seconds of the goal pace. A perfect two-hour half marathoner will pace it in 1:59:59 and keep the pace as close to 9:09 miles as possible. 
Some pacers may pace the beginning miles slightly faster than race pace (9:00 minute pace for a 2:00 hour finish) for “money in the bank” and slow down a bit at the end to accommodate runner fatigue in the latter miles.