Even DI runners do this. You'd think they'd have enough experience to not go out way too fast, but it happens like clockwork at every major DI XC race.
Even DI runners do this. You'd think they'd have enough experience to not go out way too fast, but it happens like clockwork at every major DI XC race.
My junior year our team went to state xc. It had rained heavily the night before and the course was really wet and muddy, not PR conditions. I noted in the races prior to mine EVERYBODY running in a big pack for the first half mile until natural selection kicked in. What made me change my strategy was EVERYBODY was wet and muddy after that first half mile. I figured I'd eventually get wet but why rush it. When the gun went off I followed my plan, I waited until everyone took off before I took my first step. At a quarter mile I was gaped by ~100m. After that I gradually picked it up and passed a lot of dudes. In the end my time/place is where I should of been! sackmaster, I'm long past HS. People don't learn, go to ANY road race it still happens.
As a side note, in this same race I pulled a MO. I was collecting the requisite material for a lug and thought it bad form to spit on someone I'm passing, when I let loose the speed and trajectory indicated 100% probability some cheerleader was going to get nailed.
This is true last year when I ran my PR I new what my capabilities were and my mile splits were 6:23, 6:23, 6:23 and like 47 for the last 200. However I have set PRS by going out a little faster especially when I don't really know my potential.
agc5k wrote:
whatsmyname wrote:By the way, kind of along the lines of #3 I actually support running a little faster than you think you can average. This is the way that young runners reach new heights. If you always go out at a controlled pace, you'll probably not improve much but the guy who is a bit aggressive/ambitious might fail the first 2 or 3 times but maybe the 4th time with fitness improving keeps it up and smashes a PR that a more conservative pacer never threatens.
Not necessarily. If you pace right you know your fitness, and you can judge your pace accordingly. If you want to break 17 you go out in 529-530. Then you hold pace and/or negative split. If you feel really good you might negative split by quite a bit for that breakthrough instead of going out hard and hanging on.
Typically, I think of it as "run pace, but surge in between when tactically beneficial, and kick when its time to kick." Surging is often overlooked and lacking at the HS level. When I learned to surge it took me to a whole other level. The problem though, is when most people surge they slow down to slower than race pace after the surge. Best way, is run pace and let someone else do the work, when they slow down you surge up to the next guy, when you sense him slow down you surge up to the next guy and so on. You don't want to stick on someone if they're slowing down.
whatsmyname wrote:
While there is some "stupidity" in it, I also think it's more admirable than the cautious way some adults approach their road races. Is it more stupid to go out at 5:15 for mile 1, 5:45 for mile 2, and then just die with a 6:45 in mile 3 vs. doing a nice even 6:00 for all three miles? 17:45 is still faster than 18:00. Sure I do know you don't optimize your time by running so fast early, I also suggest that the cautious adult runner is also sub-optimizing by running too slow early on.
Also, there's competitiveness that adults seem to lose to some extent. These kids want to beat everyone they know whether teammates or kids they know from other schools. Older people seem to be more comfortable with getting beaten. Maybe it's less stupid but also less admirable.
Good post.
Nothing wrong with guys that take it easy in a road race, but don't claim to be an amazing pacer because you sandbagged your way to a negative split.
Some of the time when people go out fast and blow up, it is because they think they can run the race that fast (this can be a lesson in what happens when you pace badly, or it can be good experience at a fast pace).
It was mostly my own stupidity when I went out too fast, but occasionally it resulted in a good (for me) result.
Yeah this is super common. Even if you run even splits you will pass a ton of people. Everybody thinks they have the balls to go out and hang on. That is stupid.
You go out feeling easy (still at goal race pace) for the first k. Then in the middle you work hard and compete well to maintain it and then you kick with all you strength to the finish. As far as PER goes you should be at 95-100% by 3 k and then just focus on staying smooth and strong and finishing. It is all about the middle.
I do this every race and in my last one I was 30th with 1 mile left and finished 10th.
It really depends on the course whether you should get out quickly in cross country. In my league champs as a senior, I was in pretty solid shape after a summer at 13,000 feet in Bolivia, and I had won our last race beforehand. At leagues, our whole team got out slowly--pacing it, of course--while every other team got out hard and the course very quickly narrowed from a large field to a trail without much space. There was no way to pass for that whole section, leaving us jogging behind worse runners until about two miles into the race. At that point, the course opened up and I was picking off runners rapidly but there was a huge wind and it was very difficult to make any progress by yourself against that. I think I passed ten runners in the homestretch where the wind was at our backs but it was too late to make much of a difference and I was sixteenth. A few weeks later, I beat the fourth place guy by two minutes at the SF half marathon. I had a similar experience up in Vermont at a xc race near Burlington, where everyone sprinted to the forest and then the narrow twisty trails made it very difficult to pass until near the end of the race and I ran around 19 minutes when I was in 16 minute shape. Something less dramatic has happened at national club xc champs a couple times. In Charlotte, the course starts across an entire field and then narrows to a trail within 200y and you can't really pass for the next mile or so. In Lexington, Kentucky, at Masterson Station Park, the course is much wider, except that after about 200y, the wide field has to take a sharp right turn onto a narrow path, which keeps you in that place until the mile mark. Again, you're punished for a slow start.
So, if you dog it at the beginning (and don't even use your ATP stores for the first 7-9 seconds), you will be punished for it on a lot of xc courses. Whether you should get out fast is contingent on the course and the conditions that day.
HS guys will chase anyone at any pace. Particularly in the small school division I raced in
Sr year at state I was the guy to beat by a good margin, but the course narrows quickly for the first mile and I didn't want to get caught up in the pack. I went out way too fast for me, knowing anyone I was worried about would follow.
We hit the mile mark within 7s of all of their mile prs (17 from mine). They all died a horrible death. I died too, just much less so.
It was risky and not necessary. But it worked and was fun.
Reasons:
1. Inexperience
2. Showing off for the girls' team
3. Pre taught us to run all out from the beginning and anything else is chicken salad. flip hair.
4. Testosterone makes them show off for the girls' team
5. Less likely to get the uniform muddy
6. showing off for the girls' team before you get to the woods where they can't see you
7. Coach told us to get to the front and burn the kicks out of their legs, meanwhile he was talking up the single moms about how he had big hopes for the JV basketball team he would be coaching that winter.
The best runner in the field goes out too fast and dies, but still wins because everyone else goes out with the leader and dies worse so the best runner (because of winning)assumes that that is the way to do it. I had a team at Nationals one year and at the first 400 our 7 were the last 7 in the field of nearly 200 runners. One of mine won by nearly 20 seconds and we also placed 5, 11, 16 and 26, an easy team win at nationals.
jjjjjjjjj wrote:
It really depends on the course whether you should get out quickly in cross country. In my league champs as a senior, I was in pretty solid shape after a summer at 13,000 feet in Bolivia, and I had won our last race beforehand. At leagues, our whole team got out slowly--pacing it, of course--while every other team got out hard and the course very quickly narrowed from a large field to a trail without much space. There was no way to pass for that whole section, leaving us jogging behind worse runners until about two miles into the race. At that point, the course opened up and I was picking off runners rapidly but there was a huge wind and it was very difficult to make any progress by yourself against that. I think I passed ten runners in the homestretch where the wind was at our backs but it was too late to make much of a difference and I was sixteenth. A few weeks later, I beat the fourth place guy by two minutes at the SF half marathon. I had a similar experience up in Vermont at a xc race near Burlington, where everyone sprinted to the forest and then the narrow twisty trails made it very difficult to pass until near the end of the race and I ran around 19 minutes when I was in 16 minute shape. Something less dramatic has happened at national club xc champs a couple times. In Charlotte, the course starts across an entire field and then narrows to a trail within 200y and you can't really pass for the next mile or so. In Lexington, Kentucky, at Masterson Station Park, the course is much wider, except that after about 200y, the wide field has to take a sharp right turn onto a narrow path, which keeps you in that place until the mile mark. Again, you're punished for a slow start.
So, if you dog it at the beginning (and don't even use your ATP stores for the first 7-9 seconds), you will be punished for it on a lot of xc courses. Whether you should get out fast is contingent on the course and the conditions that day.
Good point. The ATP stores is a good point. Knowing that physiology of it, I always tell myself "run as fast as you need to the first 5-10 seconds to get in the appropriate position for this type of course then settle into pace." If you only use that energy system in the first few seconds, just get in position, even if it means sprinting, then settle into pace. Usually, I'll sprint into position for 50m, max 100m if its a super huge invite and narrow trails early on.
I coached high School track and XC for 12 years. Let me tell you its not easy getting a 17 year old to start slow. Parents who know NOTHING!!!! yelling GO GO GO, Sprint, Sprint Sprint!!!!!
The gun going off, the roar of the crowd, these young men think " hey , look at me, I'm in the lead, look at me!!!"
I try to teach pace, strategy, and eventually, tell them to run behind the guy who goes out fast, and take him on the hills.
Even in XC , it's partially the parents and their ignorance and persistent yelling. they know little, and yet they claim to know more than any coach.
Agree with the posts about the need to set strategy based on the course. One other reason for lack of pace sense in young runners is lack of pace work in practice. This needs to be part of training from both physiology and mental standpoint.
Agree with the posts about the need to set strategy based on the course. One other reason for lack of pace sense in young runners is lack of pace work in practice. This needs to be part of training from both physiology and mental standpoint.
i reckon i was in ~60th in an ~80 person field at the 800m mark of a club xc race last weekend, ended up around 25th...some guys never learn:)
Holiday Inn Expert wrote:
Inexperience - plain and simple. I made that mistake a couple times and paid dearly for it. As you move up a couple levels of competition, races become mind games instead of just seeing who pulls a prefontaine burnout
[quote]u don't change u just get old wrote:
i reckon i was in ~60th in an ~80 person field at the 800m mark of a club xc race last weekend, ended up around 25th...some guys never learn:)
[quote]
maybe if you wouldn't have been such a wimp at the beginning of the race you might have sniffed top 10.
As a freshman, the high school mile race was a sprint, then a painful slog, thoughts of finding a hole to trip in so as to drop out, then a kick and you're done.
As a junior, I figured out to lay back, move up on the third lap, then race for the win.
But I got to college, and the XC coach told us to be ready to run a 60 second first quarter to establish position. Idiocy.
Xc races are just like that. Even At ncaa they take their first mile out in 4:20 and slow down a lot later on.
sackmaster wrote:
I ran my first xc race today and I started out in last place and ended up in 46th out of 77. Everybody starts out way to fast and ends up at like slowing down like 45s/mile. It was a varsity race, 2.8 miles I finished in 18:12.
It's quite similar to the way high schoolers masturbate. Some things only come with age.
I know that when I was in high school, I was always convinced that some day, at some race, I was going to have a monster breakthrough and just totally blow away my old PR and be the hero of the race. It was this delusion that led me to go out way too fast, at what I deemed my "dream" pace, instead of being satisfied with small breakthroughs.
Eventually, the small advances of fitness almost caught up to my "dream" pace so that I did not blow up as badly mid-race. However, it took until the state meet my senior year to reach that point. Even then, I kicked myself, because I later realized that with even pacing I could have been top 5 instead of finishing further back in the 20's.
I bet if you'd gone out a bit faster you could've finished a lot higher though. Try going out in the midpack maybe just a bit faster than you're comfortable with and try to move up to the front. Running a huge negative split isn't good pacing either and you should be aiming for even splits.