You make some good points... Pikes is different than most races because as you progress, the race gets considerably more difficult. Having altitude as a factor makes it very different than a sea-level race, where the course difficulty may vary throughout, but for the most part, has its ups and downs. Unlike Pikes, which is just UP. Even the marathon, which I ran last year, gets deceptively harder as you go. I ran it thinking to myself that going back down would be easy (I kept telling myself I could roll if I had to), but down was harder for me than going up was (much more abuse on my legs--I gained a new respect for downhill running). Starting off at a comfortable pace is important. So I guess I should temper my earlier comments to say it's important to consider the TOTAL effort that will be required before settling on which effort level is reasonable. A friend once gave me the analogy of a gas tank. You only have so much gas in the tank. You can burn it faster, but you won't get as far. I seem to do best when I burn at variable rates, but I still have to make sure I won't run out of gas.
