Negative Splits & Why They’re Awesome

I’d been running over a year before I knew what negative splits are, and in my 2+ years of running I’ve only managed them during ONE race.

Negative splits are when later miles in a run are faster than earlier miles. It could mean holding steady at a comfortable pace and then increasing it towards the end, it could be a progression run where you run each mile 10 seconds faster than the last. If you’re running faster at the end of your run than at the beginning, that’s the heart of negative splits.

Negative splits are fantastic because they FEEL GREAT. You finish faster than you started, which is much better for morale than starting too fast and not being able to maintain it.

You’re able to put more of your energy into the faster miles, because you don’t need to conserve as much energy – most of your run has already been completed by the time you’re running your fastest.

Think of your energy as a glass of water. If you think of yourself as having a finite amount of energy for a given race, you want to pour that energy into your running as evenly as possible. But we don’t really know how full our glass is. Pour too much in the beginning, and you’re going to run out, walk/jog the last few miles, and end up feeling defeated. Save too much, and you’re going to end with that unsatisfied feeling that you could have done better.

That’s where negative splits come in. If you run a steady pace that is challenging but maintainable for the first portion of your race, you can slowly pick it up for the last portion of the race. If you pick it up too much, you can slow down – but you know that you only have a short amount left and you can just throw your energy into it.

The only time I’ve ever run negative splits during a race, it wasn’t my idea. I was running the Chilly Half Marathon and managed to meet up with someone from Greg’s company with a similar pace goal. We hit the last mile of the race, and he picked it up. We hit a half mile from the finish line and he picked it up more. He’s been running for decades, and he’d kept me motivated for several hours, there was NO WAY I was going to drop off in the last five minutes! So for the first time in my life, I ran the last mile of a race 45 seconds faster than my first mile. I have to tell you, nothing has ever felt SO good.

I thought about those negative splits recently, when the last 3 miles of my 10 mile run were unexpectedly fantastic. It feels good to finish strong. As an inexperienced racer, I do better to run slower than I think I could and then speed up if I’m feeling strong, rather than starting out too hopeful and finishing sore and defeated after taking walking breaks and having crazy positive splits.

Looks like I’ve finally found a reason to be negative about running 😉