"Tactical Races" make no sense to me

Gurgle wrote:

mile high wrote:

If you are drafting in a race that has Mo Farah there is 0% chance you will win. No chance at all. Mo wins automatic. Not 1% chance of winning or 2% chance of winning. 0% chance. If you draft in a race with Mo Farah, you are saying you don't want to win and you are only racing for 2nd or worse. The only tactic you have is the tactic to not win. If you want to win Gold in a race with Farah, it can't be a tactical race. It's crazy that there is not one elite other than Farah that wants to win Gold. Slow race against Farah is giving Farah a free pass to Gold.

Not 0%

[/quote]

The biggest distance race of the meet closed out the evening, with World/Olympic champion Mo Farah surprisingly going down to Ethiopia’s Hagos Gebrhiwet in the men’s 3,000m. The race was much slower than expected, and it appeared that Farah guessed wrong on his tactics to wait until the final 300m to move. The 21-year-old Gebrhiwet, the silver medalist in the 5,000m at the 2013 World Championships, was able to hold off Farah in the last straight, winning in 7:38.08. Farah had to settle for second in 7:38.22.[/quote][/quote]

Even Bekele in his prime lost in meaningless non-championship races.

Put simply, OP, if everyone ran their hardest race in order to try and beat Mo Farah (or any other runner), they know they would not only lose to him but in the process probably run themselves out of medal contention also. By sitting and kicking there is a chance that a runner can beat Farah due to him making his move at the wrong time or getting boxed in or other tactical errors or perhaps Farah doesn't feel as fresh as another runner. They could put Farah in a position where he cannot overtake such as crossing in front of him at the bell forcing him to run wide etc.

If someone decides that they will take out the race hard from the beginning and make the race difficult, all that will happen is everyone will draft off them, using them as a pacemaker and then pass them at the end. Lots of these men have similar abilities and someone who finishes 2nd one meet could finish 6th the next.

Farah has been outkicked but never beaten in an even paced all-out effort race since 2011 in the 5000m or 10000m.

Does anyone who has better physics understanding than myself explain the study here: I have some questions..

1) the subjects were in a wind tunnel with a direct wind applied to them of 6m/s from 3m away from the subject

2) the author concludes that running 6m/s would be the same of overcoming air as running into a direct headwind of 6 m/s.

3) this is actually hard to believe because, while overcoming air does have some cost, it is not an opposing force that literally pushes you back. Air is actually a netural not negative resistance, shoud this number be a whole lot less?

Imagine if they put Usain Bolt on a treadmill, put a 21mph fan on him, then he ran a 19.2 on a treadmill. That shouldn't happen..

Does the author of this study conclude that constant wind(6m/s) is the same as runners speed entering into a new space (air density)?

I understand that running into a direct headwind of 6m/s does have a higher energy cost than being in a sitting position, but I wouldn't same that holds true on calm nights with 0m/s. Can someone explain that better?

I wouldn't say Geoffrey Kamworor has 0% chance of outkicking Mo. But his chances might be better if his teammates did work together with him to set a fast pace. It IS possible that Kamworor could be in better shape by the time of the WC. We'll see!

If you're a runner -- a true runner -- you're running against yourself, and no one else. How you finish compared to anyone else is inconsequential.

People have already responded, but first off EVERY race is tactical. Going hard from the gun is a tactic. In world class competition, it's not possible to run away from the best runners in the world. Really, no one can do that except an all-time great like Bekele. If you are a lesser runner than Farah, you are probably going to lose, regardless of tactics. However, you maximize your chances of placing high by waiting and kicking because a) things can happen in a pack -- falls and boxing in; and b) in a kick, everybody has a chance, it all depends on positioning and how they kick -- speed alone doesn't guarantee the best kick. Also, these are the best runners in the world, they're not going to concede anything to Farah. Imagine a top serve and volley tennis player playing against a player with a better serve. Is he going to concede the match before it starts and start hitting from the baseline? No, serve and volley is his game and what he does best. It maximizes his chances. He may lose, but that is how he plays best.

High school physics. Newton's third law.

If I push on you while you stand still and resist, you will feel exactly the same force as if you push on me with the same force and I stand still and resist.

The force is given by the relative velocity, that is, how fast the runner and the air molecules collide. It doesn't matter if it's the air molecules that hit the runner or the runner that hits the air molecules.

No maybe not 138.

But anyone who knows anything about running knows that his OLy 800 final win plus the world record leading just about the entire way was perhaps the greatest run of all time.

He was against a world class field and took the risk of leading and it paid off.

He essentially ran a solo time trial, breaking the wind the entire way.

Ok it was not solo, he was in a race and he knew the other runners were there and even though they were behind they 'pushed' him, but he did his own race and executed it to near perfection.

He perhaps knew that running this way was his best chance of winning, so he believed he could do it and did.

He also had to know that he was in great shape and had used that tactic successfully prior to the games, so was confident in it.

So his tactic was to run very fast and it worked. What might have happened if someone passed him and ran a 47 opening 400?

Was his tactic to run a fast pace or to lead?

The fact that he PRed, won, set a WR and so many people PRed behind him made it incredible.

People respect that run and win of his more so than others because of the way it was accomplished.

He just ran his best race focusing on his best pace. That was his "race tactic". No fancy plan, or gimmicks.Just run your best. Is this a lesson to be learned?

Randy Oldman wrote:

British physiologist Griffiths Pugh showed that at the speeds at which middle-distance track events are run (6 m/s or about 67 seconds per 400m), about 8% of the runner's energy is used in overcoming air resistance.

I used to believe this kind of thing, but not anymore. Drafting forces you to constantly make adjustments, small accelerations and decelerations in reaction to the leader, that can be just as taxing as the wind is. Only the leader can truly run smoothly.

mile high wrote:

If you are drafting in a race that has Mo Farah there is 0% chance you will win.

Farah has already been outkicked by Gebrhiwet, Makhloufi and Iguider this year alone. His mystique is gone.

Back to how Pugh actually calculated that..

This reminds me of the airplane on treadmill question, can it take off?

It actually can because the engine is actually pushing against the wind, giving it lift. The equation actually assumes the runner has zero air resistance (different from wind resistance)... when actually, the foot is displaced backwards, the knee comes back, and it has to accelerate forward to land ahead of its self.

The runner is not like a car, which if driving at 60mph on a 60mph treadmill, it would theoretically take up the same space (be still on the treadmill), thus giving it zero air resistance. The runner's locomotion is still having to accelerate forward against air.

As for how Pugh calculates, he adds a 6m/s wind to a treadmill run, then assumes that it is still air. I actually don't think that is right..

And that is also why it may be an incorrect conclusion for running against still air. For instance, at Monaco - Mo Farah lead the 2nd pack all the way until the final 100m. How could one assume he was spending 8% more energy than everyone else? Should he have run 3:25 if so?

Pre-lives wrote:

If you're a runner -- a true runner -- you're running against yourself, and no one else. How you finish compared to anyone else is inconsequential.

But if you're a true runner AND a true competitor how you finish compared to anyone else is not inconsequential. Sports are not just about doing better than you've done before but about how good you are compared to others in the sport.

HRE wrote:

Pre-lives wrote:

If you're a runner -- a true runner -- you're running against yourself, and no one else. How you finish compared to anyone else is inconsequential.

But if you're a true runner AND a true competitor how you finish compared to anyone else is not inconsequential. Sports are not just about doing better than you've done before but about how good you are compared to others in the sport.

No...I would say it's more of a personal preference.

PS,

If you're a true runner, you want to compete at the highest levels you can and there are some levels where you only get to do that by finishing ahead of others. That can be at as high a level as Nationals or the Olympic Trials where you need to beat all but two others to qualify or as low as making the first seven for your high school or college cross country team so you can run in your state or conference meet, NCAA Regionals, etc. And there is a thrill that comes from winning a race that's at least as good as the one that comes from a PR.

I smell a liberal arts guy. Take a physics course.

+1

js, do you believe it is coincidence that world record races are rabbitted?

Can you explain this to me then?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hF24PwbIrE

How is the knee's velocity not resisting still air? Doesn't it accelerate extremely fast against still air already on a treadmill to land in front of itself?

The reason why I actually am making a big deal of this is because it was over-calculated of 8% for overcoming still air. That number is actually quite high...

So high, that David Rudisha's performance would not be possible.. period. He would have been blocking the still air for the pack, and been more than 8% better than everyone else...

The real cost of leading vs sitting in a pack needs to be recalculated, not using a treadmill - because that distorts everything - but on either an indoor track or outdoor track with 0 m/s. I doubt 8% would be the cost.

HRE wrote:

PS,

If you're a true runner, you want to compete at the highest levels you can and there are some levels where you only get to do that by finishing ahead of others. That can be at as high a level as Nationals or the Olympic Trials where you need to beat all but two others to qualify or as low as making the first seven for your high school or college cross country team so you can run in your state or conference meet, NCAA Regionals, etc. And there is a thrill that comes from winning a race that's at least as good as the one that comes from a PR.

Run the fastest race that you can and you increase your odds of winning the race. Run a slower time and you are less likely to win.

That is kind of obvious.

If your tactic is to try and slow the race down with a slower pace you are more likely to LOSE.

I have a brilliant idea, if you want to try to win, try running the race as fast as you can. That would be my race tactic.