Running

if it's your first race don't get swept up in the mad dash off the starting line either.

figure out your goal pace and stick to it. (a garmin helps in this respect)

you see a lot of people a mile or two out from the start often start dropping back because they got all super competitive and raced off at the beginning to try and pass as many people as they could, they then end up having to run the rest of the race feeling knackered which is fucking awful.

Just noticed this post. Spot on.

I tend to start out slow and spend the race overtaking people. I'm sure I could run the same time by starting fast, and spending the race being overtaken. But that sounds shite.