Pacing Profile: Graph Your Lap-by-Lap Splits

Students run 1,600 meters while their partner records each 200-meter lap time, then graph their splits. They identify their pacing profile (even, fast start, fast finish or U-shaped) and connect it with how hard it felt and with race strategies.

How to play

1. Explain the four pacing profiles with examples on the board or on a worksheet (3 min).
2. First turn: half the class runs 1,600 meters (8 laps) at a sustainable pace; the partner records the elapsed time at each lap with the stopwatch (9 min).
3. Second turn with roles switched (9 min).
4. Each student works out their splits by subtracting elapsed times and plots them on the worksheet as a graph of lap versus seconds (5 min).
5. Interpretation: which profile they got, on which lap they started losing or gaining pace, and what they would change in the next race (4 min).

Rules

• The goal is to learn one's own profile, not to set a best time.
• Timekeepers stand outside the lane, at the lap cone.
• Graphs are personal and are only shared if the student wants to.
• Anyone who needs to walk part of the way does so, and the partner notes it on the worksheet.

Variations

Adaptations

• Dyscalculia: the partner records each split directly with the stopwatch's lap function, with no subtraction.
• Wheelchair user: completes the 8 laps in the chair and analyzes their profile like everyone else.
• Low fitness: does 800 meters alternating running and walking and analyzes on which laps they chose to walk.

Learning goals

• Record and interpret one's own data from an endurance run.
• Identify one's own pacing profile and its consequences.
• Propose strategy adjustments based on data.

Equipment for a class of 25

• stopwatch: 15
• worksheets: 30
• cones: 4

Teacher tip

If you don't have a track, use a 200-meter rectangle marked with cones in the schoolyard. Stopwatches with a lap function make recording much easier.

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