8 Min Pace death march: Who has the edge......????!!!!

This should be the new Nike project!

Stephen King short story "The Long Walk"...go read it. (except they have to walk continuous 4mph).

8-minute pace is a run. It is not a marching pace.

Bump

Whoever does the highest mileage.

These are the questions that Keep me up at night

Jog your 8 minutes and when you get tired trot off to the outside of the tractor's path and watch it go past.

european.-, wrote:

These are the questions that Keep me up at night

whatever turns you on I guess

Runner with the most body fat.

I agree - after a certain amount of miles a runner with a higher body fat content would have the advantage

redux wrote:

Jog your 8 minutes and when you get tired trot off to the outside of the tractor's path and watch it go past.

Why even jog at all? "Huh. A tractor moving toward me in a straight line at 7.5 miles per hour. Guess I'll just walk casually in a line perpendicular to the path of the tractor until I've gone further than the width thereof, thus saving myself. It's getting closer, but it's still only going 7.5 miles per hour. I guess I still have time to sip this lemonade, adjust my glasses and tweet about my experience. Man, this is a weird scenario, though. What on earth did I do to end up in this situation? Well, anyway, that tractor's getting pretty close now so I guess I better take this short but lifesaving walk in a perpendicular direction. Hey, what's up with all those guys jogging in front of it?"

Whatif....... wrote:

Scenario:

Your 20 person XC team is faced with a death march..... it works like this: All 20 runners start from the same place while at the same time a gigantic tractor starts driving at a constant 8min/mile pace - first person to lag behind an average of 8min pace per mile gets engulfed by the tractor and loses.

Possible strategies: Since the tractor is moving constantly at 8min pace, a runner could run 10 miles at 7 min pace and get a 10 min break, or run 7:59 pace continuously with no break, etc.

The question is assuming all of these runners have very similar fitness / mental toughness levels who does this favor? The tall skinny runner with nearly 0% body fat? The tall but slightly more heavy set runner? The short nearly 0% body fat runner .. etc, etc etc.

What is the best runner / strategy combo to survive? Enjoy

Very interesting.. lol IMO the ones with the advantage are the short and tall runners with nearly 0% body fat. Those are usually the ones that can run faster than 8 min pace on easy runs. We usually run 7 minute pace while the top guys run sub 7 minute pace. The heavy runners may be at a disadvantage because they're used to running at that pace or even slower. Nonetheless, 8 minute pace is honestly a jog for RUNNERS. So if your entire team was fit then no one would be at a disadvantage.

What if it was a treadmill in a closed room and if you went slower than cumulative 8min pace you fall into a punji stake pit. what then?

PJW1 wrote:

Runner with the most body fat.

I will revise my answer.

The runner who ate the most calories in the last 24 hours will have the advantage.

The worst XC runner will lose.

You didn't ask this question, but the best XC runner will win.

Raysism wrote:

The worst XC runner will lose.

You didn't ask this question, but the best XC runner will win.

Not necessarily. Being a good XC runner means you can run fast for a relatively short amount of time. This challenge is going to favor the slow sloggers with high mental toughness. Sometimes those will be one in the same, a lot of times they won't.

oh please wrote:

Stephen King short story "The Long Walk"...go read it. (except they have to walk continuous 4mph).

This. Great book. I believe it was the first novel that King wrote, although it was not published until several years after he wrote it.

I think the optimal pace strategy portion of this question is quite interesting, the physique question less so.

IIRC the conventional wisdom is that even pacing is the most efficient way to run, but does that differ with an endurance contest like this that presumably for maybe the average college runner would go on well past a marathon.

lucky ducky wrote:

oh please wrote:

Stephen King short story "The Long Walk"...go read it. (except they have to walk continuous 4mph).

This. Great book. I believe it was the first novel that King wrote, although it was not published until several years after he wrote it.

It was originally published under the name Richard Bachman.

It was years later when someone figured out that Bachman and King were, in fact, the same person, that is was rereleased with King's name.