What is "race pace?"

Maximum sustainable effort.

For Sprints, and perhaps Olys, that will mean going into HR zones that you normally would not go near except for speed work.

I've defined race pace by perceived exertion. HRMs are great supplements for training purposes, but what with the race adrenaline, different conditions and so on I ditch the monitor for racing and just listen to my body. When you taper for a race, even if its a few days, your body is much more rested than when you were training so naturally you can push faster and harder than when you did your race simulation the day after your recovery day. For sprints I've always been at race pace just by keeping the thought of "red-lining" in my head. I want to hammer out the bike at just above what feels like threshold pace in training, take a half mile to shake off anvil legs and finish the run at a pace that leaves me collapsing at the end. This, of course, depends on how much you've been training and if you can effectively push that hard, or harder.

Theres a couple definitions out there. For olympics, just under or at threshold is where most competitive athletes like to push. Anything longer its the highest effort you can sustain. Actually its just the highest effort you can sustain for that duration regardless of distance.

Just listen to your body. Once you plug in the miles you can get a pretty good grip on how much you have left to give and distribute your energy accordingly.

^^^ this, but I would add "over the distance of said race".  My 5K race pace is far different than my marathon race pace.

Also, if you are referring to a plan's workout then, of course that particular workout should be done at the maximum sustainable effort for the particular race distance that the plan is for.

Many people make the big mistake of having their race pace be the time goal they want and then dividing the distance by that and working backwards.  That is a recipe for injury or major disappointment for most.

If you want to go by pace (vs HR) to find out what your current fitness is, then go out and race a 5k as hard as you can.  Then take that and plug it into here: http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/

Itwill give you training paces for different distances.  Here is the kicker....it's a predictive thing, so just because  you can run a 40 min 10k does not mean you can run a 3:07 marathon.  But it does mean that if you train properly, using those paces, you can be capable of running a 3:07.

So go find yourself a 5k and go to town.  Don't look at your watch and pace yourself, just GO!  Then you'll know your pace.

If you are not an experienced runner, I would actually recommend using the HR at a race effort and then develop that before switching over to pace based training.  But that's just my 2 cents.

If you are coming at this from HR Zone theory, your HR Zone at 'race pace' will be dependent on race distance.  Keeping in mind that you would base your zones off Lactate Threshold HR, and that  your Cycling LTHR will be different than your running LTHR.

it was accurately stated above that your race pace is your highest sustainable pace over your race distance.  The trick is knowing what that pace is, as any time you spend above that pace during a race, will ultimately cause you to finish slower.  So, you want to get right up to the intensity level you can sustain- and hold it there for the duration.

I've haven't tried to put this into words before so I'll be interested to know how others relate to this description...

For running 5 or 10 km in a race (I don't have experience at longer distances), race pace is not something you dial in and stay at.  Racing is hard enough that it requires a lot of internal negotiation.  There are slight increases and decreases in speed over the course of the race.  The excitement of the start wears off and inevitably some combination of fatigue and loss of concentration results in some slower kms in the middle part of the race.  Then, if you haven't gone too hard in the early part of the race, you find some way to pick up your pace for last km or two.

After a race like this you know your race pace.