At what point is "run as a pack" irrelevant?

Depends on people racing optimally.

I've raced XC fields where I've gone out and run evenish effort / pace and gone through the field like a knife through hot butter over the second half.

Getting some of the guys on my team who were falling apart over the second half to tuck in behind me for the first half and just try to hang on over the second let them finish much further up the field.

To all the naysayers,

There is a pretty strong correlation between the viability of training groups and the viability of pack running.

Our 1-2 girls, our 3-4 girls, and our 5-7 girls all train together, and we encourage and expect them to cue off of their partner during their races. 1-2 usually go out behind the leaders and make a surge to the lead before the mile mark. Our 2 in particular would get herself in trouble early trusting her own feeling, and it's easier to get her to relax and be patient early knowing the other girl holding back is the likely favorite. We have a freshman girl at 5, and it is a help for her to shadow our 6 when navigating larger invitational fields. She is becoming more comfortable at finding the point in the race where she can surge ahead, but it takes a lot of the uncertainty out of the equation when a strong, consistent runner can basically act as your early pacemaker. 3-4 have the best internal sense of pace and effort and will run more independently, but our 4 always has a vantage point on 3 and her movement up the field to be sure she's responding at appropriate times.

On the guys' side, our top four run virtually every training session together, and they race their best when they are in a tight group (within two seconds) for the first 2+ miles. Whoever is having a good day can keep the pace pressed down in the middle mile; whoever is hurting can tuck in like a marathoner and try to hang with guys they've hung with dozens of times before.

The point is not to artificially slow kids down, but to help them navigate the much messier racing field (compared to track) of the XC season.

"At what point is "run as a pack" irrelevant?"...........From the gun.

At what point is "run as a pack" irrelevant?

As soon as the gun goes off.

There are always people to race with, and an XC event should be a race. Find people in other shirts and then go beat them.

helpful advice wrote:

This is something that should have been developed in practice & workouts all season.

If you have a 3 min gap between your Letesenbet and #5 then pack running isn’t ideal.

Everyone needs to compete at the highest level they can. Maybe #1 races to win, 2&3 run together, 4-7 run as a pack.

Work with what you have.

Yep, that explains it. Especially as you get younger runners, they need very few thoughts going through their heads. That #1 needs to run hard and respond to moves. This aint cycling.

kmaclam wrote:

"At what point is "run as a pack" irrelevant?"...........From the gun.

CORRECT!

I think this makes sense. But maybe not truly "pack running" as OP suggested. I have people who perform beyond their expectations by cueing off someone else and i feel comfortable saying, stay with joe blow as long as humanly possible. But >3 or 4 people running together gets sticky.

Just because you have some runners with similar talent and current abilities doesn't mean there is any benefit to "pack running". You are just seeing runners with similar talent and current abilities finish close to each other. The idea that "pack running" is helpful is actually hurtful. Let's say you have 3 runners who have been finishing close together and doing similar workouts...well, one of them on a particular day WOULD HAVE had a breakout race, gained confidence, and perhaps not only destroyed those two she had been training with that day but then moved far beyond them in the next race and forever more. BUT, due do some encouragement and praise from their coach about "pack running", her breakout race didn't happen because her job on the team had been defined.

The job of every runner is to run the fastest time they possibly can each and every time (unless again there are bigger fish to fry down the line and it's time this week to step it back). It is not their job nor their responsibility to help others along in a race, cheerlead, or whatever.

What you say is true MOSTLY, and I believe you know yourself well enough to know that you would have ignored such a strategy had you been told to do that in high school and not felt badly about it (same here...but my high school teams sucked in cross country. I only had one teammate ever break 17:00 other than me...My HS PR was 15:48, so I never had a coach suggest such a thing), BUT there are a lot of people out there who either very consciously or less consciously, would feel guilty about wanting to run their fastest race. This "pack running" garbage (and it is garbage) is a good way to kill the competitive spirit of many runners. It sets up a mentality that helping #3 runner John is more important than going out there and attempting to destroy all the other runners, teammates included. Runners should be encouraged to go for the best they got on that day, and the way to stoke that fire in them is to praise them when they have a great race, ESPECIALLY after a PR.

This "pack running" mentality is nonsense.

It makes sense to tell the slower runners in the group to "run with the pack", as in catch up to the members of your group who are ahead of you and try to stick to them, and get pulled along. If I was a couch I would shout "Go Bekele" to my fastest runner. Then I would say run with the pack to all of the others. As a couch, I would want my runners to be strong and imagine there is a bit of Bekele in all of them, to inspire them.

I'm Aidan Puffers teammate Sean. There is less than a minute gap between Aidan and I. I run 16:09 on Wickham Park State course. We are looking to make New England's this year. But we have the same problem. The drop between Aidan and I, and the drop between me and our 3-5 runners. But our 3-5 runners run as a pack. So I agree that we all have to kind of do our own thing and whatever happens happens.

In a race, best case scenario, #1 pulls #2 most of the way, #3 pulls #4 most of the way and #5, # 6 and #7 run together, most of the way and then race to the finish.

Flagpole wrote:

The "Run as a Pack" thing is ridiculous and always has been.

If you've got a stud team and they are just running a race sort of as a tempo workout because they are focusing on bigger meets down the line, then fine, call it that, but as a strategy to do well in a race? No.

The best way for a team to do the best it can do is for each runner to run their best time. That's it.

Look at meet results at all levels of WINNING TEAMS over the years. Then tell me if pack running is useless.

If you train throughout the season and work on developing a tighter pack you’ll have better results. It starts with practice and continues in lower level meets. The final product is ready during the championship portion of your season.

Running as a pack boosts team camaraderie. Some of your runners might not be as confident but when they’re running side by side with your top runners it gives them something to focus on besides hurting/not being capable. They start thinking about how they’re running with the group, “I’m keeping up, I feel great! I can do it!”

It’s a process. You don’t just start pack running at league finals, it’s something that’s developed throughout the season.

Nope. BS. Top teams do well because they have 5 runners that come in before the other teams' top 5 runners. I can show you results where a LOT of teams that SUCK are all packed up at the end of the field. To coach Pack Running is ridiculous beyond belief.

Puffer's Teammate wrote:

I'm Aidan Puffers teammate Sean. There is less than a minute gap between Aidan and I. I run 16:09 on Wickham Park State course. We are looking to make New England's this year. But we have the same problem. The drop between Aidan and I, and the drop between me and our 3-5 runners. But our 3-5 runners run as a pack. So I agree that we all have to kind of do our own thing and whatever happens happens.

Your 3-5 runners run as a pack because they are of similar ability. It is not a strategy, and if your coach decided it was, then he/she is a fool.

Banana Bread wrote:

It makes sense to tell the slower runners in the group to "run with the pack", as in catch up to the members of your group who are ahead of you and try to stick to them, and get pulled along. If I was a couch I would shout "Go Bekele" to my fastest runner. Then I would say run with the pack to all of the others. As a couch, I would want my runners to be strong and imagine there is a bit of Bekele in all of them, to inspire them.

If I WERE a "couch", I would have people sit on me...or maybe a single person might be able to go pronate.

Looking at results doesn't address the usefulness of pack running The debate isn't whether having a lot of good runners in a tight spread is correlated with winning championships. Clearly it is, but that is just math. A tight spread, however, can occur naturally or through an intentional pack strategy or both (runners of similar ability from the team form into a pack naturally). Simply looking at results doesn't really address what happened in the race.

CORRECT! Other than just winning teams, there are middle of the road teams with runners who happen to finish close to each other, and really bad teams with runners who happen to finish close to each other. That just has to do with their ability level, and it MIGHT be indicative of bad coaching where these runners end up, or it might just mean (this is the most likely) that those teams just don't have any stud runners on them, so either they are full of mediocre runners or bad runners.

Dr Obvious but with a different device wrote:

It was a bit of both. I was the #1 guy but I was coming off mono and my coach wanted me to not go all out in races early in the season. We had two guys in the top 5 who were brand new to cross country who were bad at pacing, so the coach had us pack together so they could pace better. By the end of the year I could go all out so our splits worsened but we still had a 25 second split at state.

So I gave up a few places to help our 4-5 guys gain more. Plus it was cool to have 4-5 guys running side by side. It’s a confidence booster to have your whole team together. But yes, the guys have to be somewhat close to begin with.

It sounds like you were actually the 3rd or 6th runner...