Has anyone ever done a study on why distance runners get faster times when racing (or being paced)?

Magness' article: https://www.scienceofrunning.com/2016/04/why-rabbiting-works-its-not-all-about.html?v=7516fd43adaa

I remember watching Farah run 12:59 WL with the last 2km totally solo in London. It was hot that day, and Farah closed out the last 2k in around 5:05 entirely by himself.

Finished with a last lap in 56 looking so easy and smooth, nobody to chase or even run away from.

I remember thinking that he looks dangerous going into the 2016 Olympics.

Put Farah that day in the 18C weather they had in Brussels, give him the three Ethiopians to chase and there is no way he doesn't keep with them.

Drafting and good weather makes a huge difference.

mwh wrote:

Magness wrote an interesting piece applying cognitive psychology research to drafting, arguing that reduced attention (mental) demands achieve greater physical endurance ("turn your mind off and go for a ride").

This rings true

Limbic Brain. It makes the machine run better/more easily with human companions about. There is even something from a mechanical pacer taking a mental strain off of a runner. Not nearly as good, but a boost.

Pure Hate Pupil wrote:

Do you really have to ask?

+1. This is a clown question bro.

"Athletic history has taught us time and time again that, when two human beings compete against each other, the most important factor is not the body but the mind." -- Marty Liquori.

LetsEatDoughnutsInstead wrote:

ex-runner wrote:

I didn't say it was the reason they ran fast. I said it was the reason Barega ran 12:43. I'm sure he can run 12:50 without any drafting.

Are you sure? My point was it would be nice to see some studies (which would be tough if not impossible to set up, I think). How much is it dependent on the person? How would you control for weather? Can this same effect be enabled using non-persons? Obviously it has some effect because if everybody was racing at their absolute best possible time in that moment, you wouldn't have a cluster of runners in one spot at all times on the track.

This isn't true. You still could. Why?

Well let's say that in a solo effort you have someone capable of 12:40, someone else capable of 12:42, someone else capable of 12:45, and someone else capable of 12:50.

Well, the guy in 12:40 shape is in best shape so he is the one at the front naturally running his own race. You would then expect 12:42 guy to gradually lose a meter a lap or something to the 12:40 guy and so forth. However, 12:40 guy goes off and 12:42 guy slots in behind. Well...running behind, 12:42 guy now only needs to run 12:55 effort to stay right behind 12:40 guy. Same for 12:45 and 12:50 guy.

However...that's easier than all of them can run except 12:40 guy at the head of the race. So what happens if 12:45 guy, currently behind 12:40 guy, comes out and starts running his 12:45 effort? Well, he quickly moves up on the 12:40 guy, until he moves out behind the 12:40 guys slipstream to come around...at which point....12:45 runner starts gradually losing ground as he is no longer in the draft. He realizes he is running slower out exposed to the full air resistance, and in order to get the fastest time, quickly moves back in behind 12:40 guy. This is why you get a bunch of guys in a pack, and why you get massive packs in cycling where speeds are almost double running and thus power to overcome air resistance approximately 8 times greater.

There is obviously a psychological component to it...but drafting is a VERY significant effect, even in running. Probably on the order of 5% energy savings (wind resistance isn't linear so this doesn't guarantee 5% faster race) at something like 5k. Perhaps approaching 10% at 800m. 1-2% at marathon speed.

This is also in part why KB was so much better than anyone we have today. Kejelcha got ideal conditions and pacing to 3k (lagging 2nd km might have cost him 2-3 seconds total) and "only" managed 12:45. Barega got pacing all the way to 4.6k...with 1600m of it behind the very tall Kejelcha. Could still only run 12:43 with a 55 high close....with literally perfect distance running conditions.

Bekele on the other hand had crappy pacing to just 2k, and then proceeded to run 12:37 on a day that wasn't quite as optimum as the Kejelcha/Barega/Gebriwhet race. Significantly superior performance by Bekele.

Who doesn't run faster when racing. Has anyone heard of adrenaline, cortisol, and other stress hormones. The better the field, the better the effect, in general. Also the younger you are, the greater the effect. However, a certain percentage of competitors choke when naturally hyped up.

Yeah it’s a fascinating combination of psychological and physical events and processes that lead to an outcome.

One thing I’m reasonably sure about however, is that nobody in the distance events will ever break an existing WR by sitting on another athlete until the final lap. Watch records set at both 5 & 10k for both male/female - all four have been front run in the final half after initially being paced. Of the four records the odd one out is Ayana in the Rio 10k - ironically you could argue it was the least impressive and the most impressive concurrently- least impressive in that the second place getter was only 120m behind her (other three records had nobody else in sight) but also most impressive in that it was an Olympic final with no designated pacemakers and historically run very conservatively.

In my opinion the pursuit of the WR requires enormous mental toughness in your ability to run at high pace all alone. I very much doubt we will ever witness a record breaking athlete with anyone else within shot at the finish.

We have no empriracal evidence of many elites even attempting a fast 5000 by leading from the beginning so don’t know a quantitative affect.

We saw Bekele lead and run 12:57 in the 2008 Olympics.

But he started a bit slow and it was 20 seconds off his PR.

I dont know if drafting has that much of an effect on a track 5k. Bekele ran the world record without anyone in front of him for the last 3000m of the race.

Star wrote:

We have no empriracal evidence of many elites even attempting a fast 5000 by leading from the beginning so don’t know a quantitative affect.

We saw Bekele lead and run 12:57 in the 2008 Olympics.

But he started a bit slow and it was 20 seconds off his PR.

Ah Star, we do though. I had a front row seat for the 2003 World Championships 5000m and Bekele went off running 60-61s laps one after the other, and for a time El Guerrouj's full elegant strides were wobbly and he was feeling the pain. But then in the 4th km he slowed to 2:40, so it was obviously too much for him too and he no doubt was on the hot sauce then but with the 10,000m in his legs etc he let El Guerrouj & Kipchoge back into the race. That was 12:52. The 2006 Commonwealth games 5000m was also very fast. If that is of any help.

It’s actually quite a hard thing to study, as the factors that influence one’s ability and drive to endure greater levels of fatigue are enormously complex. In the case of racing, the competition adds motivation, distraction, and context for the perception of effort.

However, when solo, it’ll likely vary widely from person to person as to how motivated they are on a given day for a given task, their ability to maintain concentration, and/or how they “feel” about how they feel. These all come into play during competition, but are much more stark when isolated. Every person brings with him or her a different basket of experiences and personality type that will wildly influence it.

So, if you line ten people up to race each other, then have them time trial by themselves (even the order in which you conduct this will have an impact on the output psychologically!), each individual will have many different reasons, both physiological and psychological, for having different performance levels in each.

My suspicion with Barega (or any other high level race), is that the primary thing that elevates the performance (aside from drafting), is the lack of situational attention required (shut down all cognitive processing; just relax, follow, and race), rapid pace by others subconsciously cueing/affirming that the speed and effort are plausible, and maybe most importantly, the adrenaline response from the threat and thrill of racing others.

Drafting and psychological is definitely part of a multi faceted thing. The truth is there are many different things that play into a increase of performance on race day. You cant just pin it on one thing. If you look at a mountain from 10 different points on a map you will get 10 different perspectives. All perspectives with be different but none necessarily wrong. When looking at performance you have to take a wholistic perspective or view point. You have to look at performance from many different angles to get a more well rounded view or perspective. From where we sit we only have so much information to draw conclusions from. I would argue that we are most likely missing a large piece to the puzzle that we are possibly ignorant of and without knowing that our conclusions are incomplete or short sighted at best...

I assume that the reason why racers are faster in general is just the higher catecholamine levels and lower rate of perceived exertion--psychological excitement allowing us to overcome our bodies' natural tripwires.

I would guess that the reason why particular races are particularly fast for many runners has to do with the by-definition perfect correlation in their conditions, including certain conditions that researchers and we as outsiders don't full understand. What is the optimal temperature for running? It may be jointly determined with the optimal humidity and barometric pressure. What is the optimal time of day for racing? It could depend on the time of year. Could their be certain atmospheric eddy patterns that sometimes allow runners to get a .5mph tailwind in all directions of the track? Who knows? I doubt anyone knows the answer to these questions with confidence. When a whole group of runners run unusually fast, it's safe to assume that some shared factor was working to their advantage.

I always think of how fast I ran on the BU track in college. I doubt the issue is that the track is short--wouldn't somebody have figured that out by now? There's gotta be something in the elasticity of the track, the air, the currents, something we don't understand yet.

This is less relevant to outdoor settings, but I'm surprised people don't talk more about ventilation for indoor racing. Huge evidence that having a crowd of people in an enclosed space can reduce the O2 content (and increase the CO2 content) by meaningful margins.

What if Rudisha was actually the kind of guy that couldn't run to his optimal potential in races but was the type of teammate we have all had that could always produce bigger during workouts and time trials?