Can you feel your pace?
Why learning to listen to your body could make you a better runner
We have never had more information available to us when we run. But when Emile Cairess finished fourth in the marathon at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, he did so wearing a simple Casio digital watch, with no GPS technology. Why? And how?
Our watches can tell us our pace, heart rate, cadence, power, elevation, training load and much more. And all of that information can be incredibly useful.
But there is a skill that is becoming easier to lose: Knowing how hard you are running without looking at your watch.
A recent Runner’s World article by coach Tom Craggs explores what he calls the “lost art of pacing” — the ability to judge pace by feel. His argument isn't that GPS watches are bad. Quite the opposite: they are brilliant tools. The problem comes when we become so dependent on them that we stop learning what different intensities actually feel like.
This ability to feel our effort or pace is an example of a concept explored in Steve Magness's book Do Hard Things: interoception.
What is interoception?
Interoception is essentially our ability to sense and interpret what is happening inside our body.
That includes things like:
breathing
heart rate
muscle tension
fatigue
temperature
hunger and thirst
pain
nervousness and excitement
our overall sense of effort
Magness's point is that being "tough" isn't about ignoring these signals.
It's about learning to listen to them and understand what they are telling us.
He describes four pillars of resilience, including Listen to Your Body and Respond, Instead of React. The aim is to create enough awareness to distinguish between different sensations and then make a useful decision about what to do with them.
For a runner, that might mean learning to distinguish:
"My legs are tired because I've been running for two hours."
from:
"Something doesn't feel right in my knee."
Or:
"I'm nervous because this is an important race."
from:
"I'm in genuine danger and need to stop."
The sensation itself is information, interpreting it accurately to make decisions is a skill.
This matters for pacing
Think about marathon pace.
Let's say your target is 5:35/km.
On a cool, calm morning, 5:35 might feel controlled and sustainable.
But on a hot, humid day, or into a strong headwind, 5:35 might suddenly feel much harder.
Your watch says:
5:35/km — perfect.
Your body says:
This is considerably harder than it normally feels.
Which one should you listen to?
Craggs's answer is that, in conditions where pace doesn't accurately represent the work being done, trust the effort rather than the number. The training stimulus comes from the work you are doing, not the number displayed on your watch.
This is where perceived effort, or RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion), becomes incredibly useful.
A simple 1–10 scale might look like this:
RPE | Feeling | Example |
2–3 | Very easy | Comfortable conversation |
4–5 | Easy aerobic | Relaxed and sustainable |
6–7 | Steady | Purposeful but controlled |
7–8 | Tempo/threshold | Challenging but sustainable |
8–9 | 5K effort | Hard and focused |
10 | Maximum | All-out |
These aren't rigid, it's a tool for describing what you are feeling.
The problem with always chasing the number
One of the unintended consequences of GPS technology is that pace can become the only metric or goal we use.
You set out to run 5:35/km.
You look down.
5:42.
"I'm too slow."
You speed up.
5:28.
"Now I'm too fast."
You slow down.
And suddenly you're spending the whole run trying to make the watch happy rather than actually running.
Craggs points out that this can shift our attention away from effort and towards numbers. Small fluctuations in pace can become frustrating, even when the actual training stimulus is exactly right.
The watch has gone from being a source of information to the boss.
It shouldn't be. The best runners use both.
They know the data — but they also know what the effort feels like.
So can you actually train this?
Yes. And I think the combination of Magness's ideas and Craggs's practical advice is really helpful.
You can deliberately train your ability to recognise effort.
The basic process is:
Feel → predict → measure → learn
Instead of looking at your watch and then deciding how hard you are working, reverse the process.
First feel. Then check.
Over time, your internal judgement becomes more accurate.
Here are three ways to practise.
1. The watch-later easy run
This is the easiest place to start.
How to do it
Go for an easy run with your watch recording as normal — but don't display pace, heart rate or distance.
You can use the watch to record the run; you just don't want it feeding you information while you're running.
Instead, pay attention to:
your breathing
whether you can speak comfortably
your stride rhythm
muscle tension
how relaxed you feel
your overall effort
Every 10 minutes or so, ask yourself:
What pace do I think I'm running?
Make a mental note.
Then finish the run and look at the data.
Were you right?
Don't worry if you're wildly wrong initially.
That's the point.
You're teaching your brain what different paces feel like.
Craggs specifically recommends this type of watch-later running because, with practice, runners can become surprisingly accurate at judging pace.
So if you think you're running around 6:00/km and discover afterwards that you were actually running 5:45/km, you've learned something valuable:
"That sensation of relaxed aerobic running is what 5:45/km feels like for me."
You're building your own internal pace library.
2. The out-and-back challenge
How to do it
Find a reasonably flat route.
Run for 20–30 minutes.
Run entirely by feel.
Don't try to maintain a particular pace.
Turn around.
Try to reproduce exactly the same effort on the way back.
Look at your times afterwards.
For example:
If the outward journey takes 15:00, your goal is to run back in approximately 14:30–15:30.
You aren't trying to run the second half faster.
You're trying to reproduce the same effort.
The closer you get, the better calibrated your internal pacing is becoming. This is one of Craggs's specific pacing drills.
To get the most out of the exercise afterwards don't just look at the times.
Ask:
"What did the same effort feel like?"
Did your breathing feel similar?
Did your legs feel similar?
Did you feel equally relaxed?
That's interoception in action.
3. The effort ladder
This teaches you to recognise different levels of effort, rather than simply "easy" and "hard".
Workout
5 × 4 minutes, with 90 seconds easy jogging between each.
Don't chase a particular pace. Your only job is to make each repetition progressively harder.
Your targets:
Rep 1 — RPE 4
Rep 2 — RPE 5–6
Rep 3 — RPE 6–7
Rep 4 — RPE 7–8
Rep 5 — RPE 8–9
Then look at your pace afterwards. The objective is to create clear differences in effort and learn the sensations and efforts associated with each zone.
Don't just notice sensations — name them
This is where Magness takes the idea further.
He argues that becoming good at interoception isn't simply about noticing sensations. It's about distinguishing and labelling them.
Instead of:
"I feel rubbish."
Try:
"My breathing is elevated, but controlled."
"My quads are fatigued."
"I'm feeling nervous."
"My shoulders are tense."
"This is uncomfortable, but it isn't painful."
"I feel the urge to slow down, but I don't actually feel physically unable to maintain the pace."
Magness describes elite performers as being particularly good at reading and interpreting the signals their bodies send them. The skill is not blindly following every sensation, but treating sensations as information.
In other words:
Feeling something doesn't automatically mean you need to react to it.
A useful question to ask during your next run
Instead of:
"What does my watch say?"
try asking:
"What is my body telling me?"
And then get more specific.
Breathing: Is it relaxed, controlled, laboured?
Muscles: Which muscles are working? Are they tired, tight or painful?
Effort: What would I give this out of 10?
Emotion: Am I physically struggling, or am I anxious about struggling?
Sustainability: Could I maintain this for another 5 minutes? Another 30 minutes?
Then — look at the watch.
The goal isn't to ignore the data.
The goal is to see whether your internal assessment matches the external data.
And here's the important bit: we're not throwing away the technology
I don't think the answer is to become anti-Garmin.
GPS watches are fantastic.
They help us:
monitor training
measure progress
pace races
understand heart-rate responses
assess training load
spot trends
Craggs makes the same point: the best runners don't necessarily choose between technology and instinct. They combine the two.
The watch tells you:
How fast you're running.
Your body tells you:
How hard you're working.
You want to know both.
But if the two disagree, you need the skill to understand why.
Your challenge this week
I'd encourage you to try just one of these.
Option 1 — Easy run
Hide your pace and predict it.
Option 2 — Out-and-back
Run 20–30 minutes out by feel and try to reproduce the effort coming back.
Option 3 — Effort ladder
5 × 4 minutes, progressively from RPE 4 to RPE 8–9.
And afterwards, don't just ask:
"What pace did I run?"
Ask:
"What did that pace feel like?"
Because that's the skill we're trying to build.
Your watch can tell you that you ran 5:35/km.
But your goal is to eventually know what 5:35/km feels like.
And once you can do that, you become a much more adaptable runner — one who can cope with hills, heat, wind, fatigue and race-day nerves without needing a number on a screen to tell you what to do.
As Craggs puts it, in an age of increasingly sophisticated technology, one of the most valuable running skills may still be one of the oldest: listening to your body.
References:
The lost art of pacing: Tom Craggs
Do Hard Things: Steve Magness
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