Future Star: 1600 in 4:05 at High School Dual Meet

Flagpole wrote:

No sense in me continuing on this thread. I've made my point clear. I can see that I'm in the great minority here, and quite honestly I'm very surprised. Maybe most of you never won anything and can imagine playing second fiddle to some other runner.

Ah, those that don't agree with you must not get it because we never reached your lofty athletic achievements.

I was a state champion, on a World XC championship team, and NCAA championship team. Does that qualify?

Maybe you were a district champion in HS. Congratulations.

Flagpole wrote:

None of what you said changes my opinion. A kid on a track team should not be "over the moon" about pacing someone else. I can agree that dual meets are not important or 'utilitarian' as you say, but they should be for each kid to work on their own thing, not help some other kid.

And this is why I'm a coach and you're not. For the record, my 9:20 kid who paced his 10:19 teammate to a 9:58 pr, thus qualifying him for the upcoming league championships, WAS over the moon, and learned an important lesson about what true leadership is. That you don't understand this kind of boggles my mind. High school track is not some libertarian fantasy land. It's about teaching kids life lessons that will make them decent, kind, hard-working adults. Part of that involves learning the value in helping others. I, for one, am proud to promote that.

dontflushwhileyousit wrote:

This isn't what Flagpole is talking about at all. He's talking about a kid being forced to give up his own race for the sole sake of pacing someone else to a fast time. What you are talking about is competition.

We can break down semantics here, but I have a hard time believing the pacer was forced to do anything. If I had to guess, I'd think he was happy to do it, volunteered maybe. We won't know unless we hear it from them.

And if you want to know what Flagpole's problem with the race is, you don't have to make guesses like I'm assuming you just did. You can just read the thread and see what his problems are:

No other big names in the race

No cones or aluminum rail

People running on the infield (are you effing serious? One teammate jogged the straight so he could yell more)

Pacer not doing the best he possibly could in every race (he sacrificed a dual meet)

Pacing is assistance and technically not allowed

I don't see anything about this pacer being forced to do anything. The point he hit on the most seems to be that neither the pacer nor pacee have any self-respect for a) sacrificing their dual meet time (which I'm sure was a hardship for this kid - "sorry, you don't get to run against some barely sub-5:00 runners to try and improve on your 4:16" "Aww shucks!") or b) not coming to your PR using Flagpole's certified, approved method.

This, to me is silly. I've sat on runners before in slow, tactical races gunning for a win and nothing else. I've sat on faster runners in fast races (rabbited or just fast paced by a front-runner) trying to get pulled to a fast time. Likewise I've been the one to lead races with others in tow behind me, even though I wasn't technically rabbiting. I've paced teammates and friends plenty of times when they could use someone to help them get over a hump or just hit a standard. To me there's no difference in going along with a race or going behind a pacer. It's all racing.

I have trouble wrapping my mind around someone who can be such a dick as to proclaim neither of these kids have self-respect. He ought to tell that to those kids face-to-face.

Read the last three posts, Flagpole. Then read them again.

Well, I said I was done, but apparently I wasn't clear enough.Here are some things for you:1) You are not understanding. I'm not criticizing anyone for running fast in a dual meet. Exactly the opposite of that. I would want to see the pacer kid run a fast time, not sacrifice his race.2) You set your HS PR in a dual meet huh? Well, kind of my point. Who knows if that pacer kid would have set his own PR that day. He'll never know that's for sure because he was fooling around riding on the coattails of some better kid. Sad.3) Your coach was right to yell at you for pacing a kid on another team. What the hell?! Talk about being out of line brother. Why the hell would you pace another kid from another team for any reason? No need to answer that; you just think about it.4) The newspaper wrote an article about you showing good sportsmanship? Sounds like a topic for The View. You shouldn't be proud of that. Your coach was right. Helping a kid from another team is even worse than helping a teammate...WAY worse.5) No emotional baggage. I don't have emotional baggage. I just clearly see what competition is and should be, and that doesn't include sacrificing your own race to pace some other kid to glory. Again, there's a name for people like that..cheerleaders. You said yourself that you set you PR in a dual meet. You just can't tell when that perfect race is going to come together, and if you are someone who always finds a reason not to give it your all on most meet days, you are selling yourself short. Sometimes a kid breaks out in a dual meet, letting them realize that at the upcoming invitational that they have a chance to do even better.6) This point is for the other people in this thread who paced other runners to fast times. I love how they of course were the fastest on the team and they were pacing slower runners to their best times. While this is still not right in my opinion, it is not as bad as a SLOWER kid pacing the star to a fast time. At least here, there isn't any hero worship attached to it. Maybe the 9:20 kid would have run 9:14 that day had he not fooled around pacing some slower kid to a faster time.I remain shocked at the non-competitive nature of the bulk of you on this thread.

Fwagpo wrote:

Jim Ryun had the exact same scenario for his "HS Only" mile record. Fair play.

WTF????

Flagpole you are always right on in my opinion and this post is no exception! I couldn't have said it better myself. Not sure if it was mentioned earlier, but not every track in America has a curb, nor does every dual meet put out cones or like material if track doesn't have above said curb. Great effort by Marcus!

P.S. I once paced the McChesney brothers at an all comers meet thru the mile of a 5000 meter race. It truly was one of the highlights of my running career!

Placeba wrote:

Seeing Flagpole at that dual meet would have been quite the funny scene. Everybody there having a great time, whooping it up for the star runner's last home meet. The pacer feeling honored to be such a close participant. Flagpole ranting and fuming on the side about "rules" and "doing your best at every meet" and "none of this tomfoolery." And the little girl asking, "Mommy, why is that man turning purple?"

Probably how it happens.

Maybe the pacer kid ran the a couple of other races as well. Dual meets were an after thought for most of us. If anything we ran it as a workout, doing the 400, 4x400, 800, 4x800 and maybe some 200s. As one of the faster guys on the team, I would have been excited and focused to help our top 2 guys try and hit a school record. My parents would have been just as excited as well. Good Lord, it's one pacing session in a dual meet! And there are 6 pages devoted to this.

Flagpole, I assumed you were once on a track and field TEAM and had the experience of racing in meets over an entire season. Now I think your only real experience is living though your kids.

There are many ways to approach dual meet races:

1) Run as fast as you can and try to set a PR

2) Score as many points as you can for the team (this does NOT mean running as fast as you can)

3) Experimenting. What happens if I go out fast? What happens if I go out slower?

4) Helping teammates by pacing them, and why not pace a kid on the other team if it does not cost my team points. As a senior I paced a sophomore teammate many times who later became state champion and then ncaa champion.

5) As workouts. The goal is district and state, not a dual meet in the middle of the season.

Beyond middle school, I never met a runner who tried to set a PR in every race. I never met an elite runner who has never paced a teammate or other runner.

I'll add another vote against Flagpole. It would have been an honor to pace a teammate to a 4:05. My coach and teammates would have felt the same way.

Tweaker wrote:

well he probably wouldn't use drugs cause hes mormon...

And Floyd Landis wouldn't because he was Amish.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the abandonment of principles necessary to become a PED cheat, that usually means abandoning your faith as well.

My numbered points match up to yours...1) I agree.2) I agree (though I am also ok with it if winning the dual meet isn't a priority).3) I agree.4) I disagree.5) For SOME athletes, I agree. A freshman who isn't good enough to run in the post season but might be some day should race in most cases. Valuable experience with racing to be had early in ones career in dual meets.Now my comments to your last paragraph.1) I tried to set a PR every time. I knew that based on fitness and time of season I might not that day, but I ran my best every single time. When the reporter asked Mickey Mantel if he ever tried to hit a home run, he said, "I try every time". A runner should try their best every time. When you don't, you set yourself up for very few serious attempts at good times. If you discount all the dual meets and the meets where it rains and the meets where all the other runners there suck or the meets where it's too hot or too cold or you're saving yourself for the following week...you just put yourself in a great disadvantage.2) You've never met an ELITE runner who hasn't paced someone. Fine. I was talking about a NON-ELITE HIGH SCHOOL runner who was pacing the elite high school kid on his team. Very different thing and way worse than the other way around. I've spelled this out a few times now. It should be clear.The comment about me living through my kids is just flat out bogus.

Flagpole, it's a dual meet. Typically, there are 8-10 per season, and you can run 3 events per meet. That's not including counties, districts, state meets, nationals, etc. Stop getting all butthurt over some kid using ONE OF HIS potential 30 DUAL MEET RACES to help pace a teammate. Hell, the kid might have needed a good 800m warm up before the 3200 or other event. No one cares about dual meets. I went to CBA New Jersey and we haven't cared about Dual meets for 30 years (we also haven't lost one in 30 years in XC, and 15 years in Track). You might have a "pay to play" situation at your school, and that's great, but your kids won't have to pay any more, or any less for rabbiting one race at a dual meet.

I'll give you a scenario where you can be justified in getting your panties twisted: a kid has raced his heart out and qualify for his state sectional final, but there is barely a snowball's chance in hell that he qualifies out of his section. He does have a stud runner on his team and the coach asks him to rabbit the mile finals so the stud can go for the meet/stadium/state/etc record. In this scenario, he has qualified for something that was special, and he is asked to not race his best and throw it away. THEN you can start crying and carrying on. However, at a dual meet, most coaches are pulling people out of the stands to complete a 4x4. I think it might be time to have a talk with your kids and tell them that not everyone is a winner.

The MonBRO Doctrine wrote:

It would have been an honor to pace a teammate to a 4:05. My coach and teammates would have felt the same way.

Well, once again, I remain shocked that so many of you would bow down to some elite kid rather than to see how close to him you could get. Maybe I have more testosterone or something.

That not everyone is a winner is clear as is evidenced by the comments in this thread. Winners don't pace a BETTER kid to a fast time, sacrificing their own race.Also, you and several others have mentioned all these post-season races as if all the runners qualify to go to them. Usually on any given team, just a handful if that make it to the state meet. Just because Johnny McFast will go to the state meet and perhaps even some national meets doesn't mean that Johnny McPacer will. In fact, because of the way it all works out, it really should be Johnny McPacer who gets to go for his best time at the Dual Meet and Johnny McFast should be pacing him. That's still lame though...just not as lame as the other way around.

1) that everyone agreeing with FP is FP with an alias;

2) that at least 1/2 and maybe 3/4 of those arguing against FP are FP with an alias.

Flagpole wrote:

Maybe I have more testosterone or something.

Or something.......

Flagpole, applying your philosophy and assuming that you were actually on a HS team:

1) You were mediocre as a runner

2) Your team was awful

Now you are living through your kids (you brought your kids up in a previous post). If you don't want to ruin their athletic expereience then let their coaches coach and you should be the silent and supportive parent.

It doesn't have anything to do with bowing to an elite kid. In fact, 99% of the time it's the elite kid pacing a slower teammate at these dual meets.

Most of us have paced teammates. I paid a full entry fee to pace my dad to his half marathon PR. I have a friend who is an excellent marathoner and she ran Boston pacing a guy with prosthetic legs. Helping out your teammates by pacing them is common practice and I think you're the only person who frowns on it.