Pacer and Support Crew at an Ultramarathon

Beyond 60 kilometres an ultramarathon stops being a purely athletic problem and becomes a logistics problem. Runners without anyone on the course regularly lose 20 to 40 minutes at a single aid station — searching, deciding, refilling, getting cold. A well-drilled pacer and crew are not a luxury for professionals; they are the cheapest performance gain available in an ultra. It costs no training, only one evening of preparation.

What a pacer actually does

A pacer is not a motivator who runs alongside shouting encouragement. The job is to take decisions off you in the phase when your thinking measurably deteriorates. After eight to twelve hours of effort, the ability to control pace, fluid intake and fuelling simultaneously drops sharply — and that is exactly when the pacer takes over pace, timing and the reminders to eat and drink.

In practice: he holds the target split, slows you down when you surge in a high, pushes you when you drop below minimum pace in a low, and reminds you to fuel on a fixed schedule. Good pacers talk little and calculate a lot. They know the checkpoint splits by heart, not just the total distance.

What a pacer cannot do: conjure away fatigue, replace missing base fitness or compensate for an injury. If you are completely spent at kilometre 70, you do not need a pacer, you need an honest decision about stopping. A pacer shifts performance by a few percent — he does not double it.

When you need a pacer — and when you don't

• Worth it from 80 kilometres or from the first night. In a 50-kilometre race the benefit is small because you can still think clearly. Beyond 80 kilometres, or as soon as darkness falls, the picture changes noticeably.
• Worth it on night sections. Navigation, light, cold and fatigue hit at the same time. A second pair of eyes on the course markings saves wrong turns that quickly cost several kilometres in the dark.
• Worth it when you race against a cut-off. If you have to hold a cut-off time, the arithmetic matters most — and the pacer does it more reliably than you will after ten hours.
• Not needed on short distances with a good crew. A marathon with support at four points needs no pacer. One person holding a bottle and a gel at two spots is enough.
• Not worth it if he is untrained. A pacer who cannot run your pace becomes the problem himself. He must be able to hold goal pace for at least 20 kilometres — on terrain, with climbing.

The crew at aid stations: seconds count

While the pacer runs with you, the crew works the checkpoints. The difference between a good and a bad crew is not motivation but preparation. An aid station stop takes 90 seconds with a drilled crew and five to eight minutes with an unprepared one — at every single contact point.

The principle: nothing is decided at the aid station. Everything is decided, sorted and labelled in advance. The runner arrives, hands over two empty bottles, receives two full ones, eats a prepared plate, takes one bag, and leaves. No questions, no choosing, no discussion.

• One bag per checkpoint. A clear bag per aid station, labelled with location and kilometre. Contents: spare clothing, socks, gels, salt, head torch with charged batteries, specific medication.
• Two bottles, always full. One with water, one with sports drink. The crew holds them in hand when you arrive — not in the cooler.
• An emergency bag in the car. Blister plasters, tape, rain jacket, warm hat, gloves, a dry shirt for the night. The things you need when everything goes wrong.
• Plan hot food for the night. Soup, potatoes, noodles in a thermos. After midnight, warm salty food sits better with most runners than anything sweet.
• No new products. Whatever is in the crew bag has been tested in training. A well-meaning friend bringing "something nice" is a risk, not a gift.

Communication: short, factual, agreed in advance

The most common crew mistake is talking too much. After twelve hours of running, every additional question is a burden. Asking "how do you feel?" produces an answer nobody needs and forces the runner to perform a task he could do without. Closed questions and commands work better: "bottle", "soup", "jacket yes or no".

A fixed protocol agreed in writing before the race has proven itself. Three elements are enough: First, a status question the runner answers with a single number — 1 to 5 for overall state. Second, a mandatory call from the crew when something looks off: unsteady gait, no drinking for two hours, pallor, confusion. Third, a stop rule defined in advance.

That stop rule is the least pleasant part of the preparation and the most important. Define it before the race, not in a low: "If I fall below 6 minutes per kilometre for 30 minutes and cannot eat any more, we stop and talk." Someone who has to make that decision at kilometre 85 makes it badly — either quitting too early or running into a genuine medical emergency. More on warning signs in the article on overtraining and in the pain traffic light rules.

Crew bag and gear: the checklist

A proven set for a 100-kilometre race with four crew contacts. Whatever is missing here will be missing in the race.

• Clothing: a dry long-sleeve, a rain jacket, a warm hat, gloves, two pairs of socks, a second pair of shoes half a size larger for swelling feet.
• Feet: blister plasters, petroleum jelly or sports salve, tape, a small towel, antiseptic spray.
• Energy: gels and bars in sufficient quantity for two contacts ahead, salt tablets or electrolyte powder, caffeine for the second half of the night — planned carefully, see caffeine in endurance sport.
• Light: two head torches plus a hand torch, spare batteries or power bank, all charged and checked.
• Other: sunscreen, lip balm, tissues, rubbish bags, cash, phone with power bank, a paper copy of the course map.

Everything is packed twice: once in the crew bag, once in the car. Head torch batteries do not belong in the runner's drop bag but in the crew's hands at kilometre 70 — exactly when it gets dark.

The rules: what is allowed and what is not

Ultra regulations are stricter than many runners assume. The three most common violations that lead to time penalties or disqualification:

• Support outside crew zones. Taking a bottle from your crew 500 metres before the official aid station usually means disqualification. Permitted zones are listed in the race manual, often with a map.
• Letting someone carry your kit. In most races the pacer may not carry the runner's mandatory gear. Head torch, rain jacket and phone stay with the runner.
• Pacer without registration. Many races require advance registration with name, sometimes a separate bib and a signature. Turning up unannounced risks the runner's disqualification.

Check the race manual two weeks out, not on race morning. And actually read it: pacer rules differ considerably between races in the same series — some allow pacers from kilometre 50, others only from 80, some not at all. Relying on hearsay can cost you the result of half a year.

How to prepare pacer and crew

A pacer you first meet on race day is a bet. Three things belong in the preparation:

• Training together. At least one long run of 20 to 30 kilometres at goal pace, ideally on similar terrain. That is where you find out whether the pace fits, whether communication works and whether he can slow you down without annoying you.
• A written briefing. One page with checkpoint splits, cut-offs, goal time, hourly fuelling plan and the stop rule. Printed for the crew, not just in a chat thread.
• A rehearsal with the crew. A training run where the crew supports you at two points. It sounds excessive but almost always uncovers two or three gaps — usually in the bottle handover and in the question of who has the phone.

For the crew itself the most important rule is: self-care is part of the job. Someone who stands at the roadside for 20 hours without sleep or food becomes inattentive and makes bad decisions. In long races with several crew members, a shift plan belongs in the preparation — one sleeps while the other waits at the checkpoint.

Common mistakes

• Too many helpers. Five people at one checkpoint all talking and searching at once are slower and more exhausting than two with a well-planned bag. Fewer people, clearer roles.
• The pacer starts too fast. A fresh pacer stepping in after eight hours of accumulated fatigue has a completely different sense of pace. He must orient himself to the runner, not to his own comfort.
• No plan for a DNF. Where is the car, who picks you up, how do you get back? Settle that before the start, not at kilometre 78 in the rain.
• Crew without course knowledge. If they cannot reach the aid station by car because a road is closed, they will not be there when you arrive. Drive the access routes beforehand, plan parking and walking distance.
• Emotional accounting. The crew is not an audience for your mood. Snapping at your helpers in a low loses them for the second half of the night — usually the harder half.

How Peakora supports race planning

Crew work starts long before the race, with the question of which split you will realistically reach each checkpoint in. That is exactly what the Peakora engine delivers: a goal time derived from your actual training data, plus intermediate splits for the aid stations — the numbers that end up on your crew's briefing sheet. The recovery monitor shows before the start whether your form actually supports that goal time, and the fuel calculator provides the hourly carbohydrate and fluid amounts that then go into the bags.

More on preparing for long races in the marathon training section, in the Peakora glossary and in the articles on ultramarathon training and ultramarathon nutrition.

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