The qualities of a good racer

I like it.

I believe some of the less talented athletes actually can really go beyond what they view as "their potential" and get too discouraged to really discover their true limits. I've also seen people with ridiculously low vo2's running 15:30s, while they might not be olympic class hard work does account for a lot.

vo2 not a great measure. i've read of africans going much faster than their vo2 would suggest. I think a lot of the difference relates to muscle fiber distribution. if you only use slow twitch, vo2 might be more meaningful.

but yeah, many levers one can push to be successful. weight strength endurance speed training transmogrification of muscle fibers etc.

I think it best to leave out the elements that deal with training and make this about racing styles and mental strategy. Psychologically, I break racing into two different polarities, which can be admixed on a sliding scale:

-Assassins: These are typically the best kickers, but not always (e.g. I consider Wanjiru as more of an Assassin-type). These racers are driven by the compulsion to focus on winning the race at all tactical costs, drawing a bead on their competitors and throwing in surges, strokes and counterstrokes that are devastating to the opposition at their moment of greatest weakness, typically in the final 10% of the distance. They have the Killer Instinct.

-Martyrs: These athletes are willing to bear suffering, whether through pace, conditions, whatever, in order to acheive their goal, which may not be a focus on winning so much as giving the total effort. These are typically front-runners, who may not even see their opposition after the gun fires, yet they go deeply into a place inside themselves where they can extract a total effort. They have the Willingness To Suffer that pushes them to the forefront.

Note: "Martyrs" are often the the runners which people extol as having "guts" since they are obviously pushing themselves regardless of the situation, but it can also take guts to hang back and execute a perfect strategy of kicking, or to just hang onto someone who is aerobically superior in order to nail them in the final 100.

A runner can integrate both strategies, in the same race or from race to race, depending on the situation, but most runners tend to settle into the role they find most naturally suits them. Which are you?

Good call on not including #1 in the pep talk. Talent is so irrelevant and speaking to kids about it accomplishes nothing and may very well make kids that aren't good in the beginning turn away from the sport. I'm glad no one told me about talent when I started a year ago as I now run 5k faster than last year's mile pace. Hard work and guts are definitely important in the sport. but talent is irrelevant. Maybe if more people had that mindset we would see more obese americans becoming dedicated athletes, rather than seeing so many of them blame "bad genes" for their bad shape

Really interesting Reality Bath. Never thought about it quite like that. I'm definitely a martyr based on your descriptions.

Interesting that this thread has been resurrected. I would argue that assassins also may simply have more talent than the martyrs who put in more miles and post better workout #s, but just can't close the deal when it matters. And as you correctly point out, they are not always kickers, but some how, some way, finish ahead of the martyrs come race time and leave the martyrs scratching their heads and asking,

"What did I do wrong? My training was perfect, I took the race out perfectly and nailed my splits, but ...."

Indeed, the martyr may have done it all perfectly, but lacks the talent that the assassin has and may beat him a time or 2, but will lose most of the time, especially in big spots.

When I hear things like "talent is irrelevant" I can't help but laugh @ the ignorance of the martyr who keeps telling himself, "anything is possible with hard work." God bless him though.

One can make this talent-independent. A good racer is someone who when lining up against his/her peers (in current talent and fitness, lumped together as "potential for that day," will beat those peers most of the time.

Being a good runner is another matter entirely. That's where talent comes in. But to be a good racer in my mind, you must perform the act of racing to the best of your physical ability, whatever that ability may be. Racing FAST is about talent, training, and many other things. Racing WELL is about beating as many people as you can that day, relative to the number of people you CAN beat.

jenglan3 wrote:

One can make this talent-independent. A good racer is someone who when lining up against his/her peers (in current talent and fitness, lumped together as "potential for that day," will beat those peers most of the time.

Being a good runner is another matter entirely. That's where talent comes in. But to be a good racer in my mind, you must perform the act of racing to the best of your physical ability, whatever that ability may be. Racing FAST is about talent, training, and many other things. Racing WELL is about beating as many people as you can that day, relative to the number of people you CAN beat.

This ^ makes sense to me.

The talent angle also implies that everyone wants to be an Olympian. When dealing with kids, or even the average local 5ker, it is personal potential that matters. With hard work ANYONE can achieve personal potential. That is important to get and keep more people running.

Getting them interested in racing and pr's gives them a goal and motivates them to continue.

I really like the assassin/martyr thing. I think I'm a martyr.

These "Assassin" type runners aren't usually gutless though. You referenced Sammy Wanjiru as one of these and he definitely was not gutless. Sometimes they just want to win more than anything, and more than the "Martyrs" so they run over their heads.

I would say that I run as an assassin type, but I usually overperform in races because of what I believe is a different mindset when the gun goes off. My freshman year of high school I never averaged less than 75 for a 10x400s workout yet my PR was 4:48.

qwertyqwert wrote:

These "Assassin" type runners aren't usually gutless though. You referenced Sammy Wanjiru as one of these and he definitely was not gutless. Sometimes they just want to win more than anything, and more than the "Martyrs" so they run over their heads.

I would say that I run as an assassin type, but I usually overperform in races because of what I believe is a different mindset when the gun goes off. My freshman year of high school I never averaged less than 75 for a 10x400s workout yet my PR was 4:48.

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Agreed, anyone who races hard has guts. You can tell the gutless runners- watch a high school meet and see the kid who noticeably slows down at the 500 meter mark of an 800- just when it starts hurting, he/she gives up.

I was trying to be careful to distinguish "gutsy" from "martyr" running since people sometimes conflate the two. As more of an Assassin-type myself, I can tell you that some of my gutsiest, most painful races were where I had to hang onto a ball-busting pace set by a martyr, only to blow by him when he finally caved. To the outsider it might look like I was just sitting and kicking, while he "did the work", but believe me I was doing my part by hanging on and pushing them to their utmost, and reached down into a few remaing fast-twitch fibers that they either didn't have or unwilling to use.

So "Gutless" or "gutsy"is an adjective to the above styles.

So in essence the assassin needs the martyr to truly shine and certainly not vice-versa. Martyrs take the lead, set a legit pace and go until they can't take another step. Assassins may be just off the pace and also hurting no doubt, but they are not interested in wasting energy and simply wish to hang on and put themselves in a position to win in the end, rather than win by crushing his opponent on the front end.

Assassins are not setting records without a martyr out front to help him get there. In this respect, while it is certainly "gutsy" to win any race however you get there, assassins will rarely do so by leading wire to wire. Whereas this is almost always the way to a win for the martyr and imho, requires more courage.

I think of Pre and although at the time he was winning everything in sight, he was probably thought of as an assassin, he is the perfect example of a martyr - someone willing to push the pace from beginning to end and run until he passed out if need be. If the so called assassins who showed up to race him were able to keep up, good for them, but they usually were left sucking on his dust. Competitive racing needs martyrs and sometimes it's the martyrs who end up assassinating everyone in sight.

Aside from his overall "martyr" status owing to his untimely death while suffering indignities at the hands of the AAU, Pre is almost the quintessential martyr racer second in U.S. running history perhaps only to Gerry Lindgren. To see what happened when two strong martyrs met up, read this excellent story:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?board=1&id=4320425&thread=4319870

Pre's martyr strategy worked well for him until he went over to Europe, including Munich '72. He found out the hard way what the assassins were capable of when they were at his level.

Jim Ryun was an interesting case of an athlete with the tools of an assassin, but was often forced into the martyr role in order to "shine" due to lack of competition. His solution: front-running world records with tremendous negative splits, such as will probably never be seen again in these days of designated rabbits.

Just read the thread on the Lindgren/Pre dual. Spectacular. Thanks for sharing. My hs coach was a cougar from 71 to 75 and has told me many Pre stories. I never get sick of them and could sit around all night listening to how he and Lindgren raced.

Agree or disagree?

Bump this Bad Boy

4) Intelligence. I never considered myself very talented,but I always said I am smarter than the average guy and I will not lose by mental mistakes. Examples include but are not limited to while racing: going out too fast, going out too slow, making a move at the wrong time, not going when someone else makes a move, getting boxed in, pacing errors. Examples include but are not limited to while training: (yes, I think this is important as well because you can be the best racer in the world, but if you do not make it to the start line...) overtraining, undertraining, wrong type of training, etc.