keep pace

Verb

keep pace (third-person singular simple present keeps pace, present participle keeping pace, simple past and past participle kept pace)

1. (idiomatic) To run at the same speed as a pacesetter
2. (idiomatic) To progress at the same rate as another; to keep up
   • As he had grown older, he found that he had grown away from his people. Their interests and his were far removed. They had not kept pace with him, nor could they understand aught of the many strange and wonderful dreams that passed through the active brain of their human king. So limited was their...1912 October, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Tarzan of the Apes”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC; republished as chapter 12, in Tarzan of the Apes, New York, N.Y.: A[lbert]...
   • From the 'fifties onwards the development of the South Wales & Monmouthshire coalfield went on at terrific speed, and railway construction was hard pressed to keep pace with it.1939 September, D. S. Barrie, “The Railways of South Wales”, in Railway Magazine, page 157