When you line up for a local race, do you select a place

Of course you select a place. It's a local race, you probably know half the people at the front, so you slot yourself in accordingly. Or you look at the apparent fitness and racing kit of people you don't know and make a judgment call. A couple years ago a guy new to road racing didn't bother lining up near the front, ran the fastest net time by quite a bit, but didn't cross the line first and went home with the 2nd place prize.

As long as I'm close enough up front not to be impeded, I'm good. I don't care about being all the way up front though. I know that many of those in front of me will start out too fast and I will gradually pick them off one by one as the race progresses.

Sore subject for most here because Letsrun posters typically should be on frontline but have to fight with 10 year olds and soccer moms and 74 year old men for position.

I didn't pick my place one time and that backfired. You beg that the next chance I got, I pinned myself to the front of the wave that was going out at my marathon pace. Especially in the kind of local race I am imagining that the OP has in mind, you got to.

Don’t forget the baby carriages and dogs

Time for some standards

A good starter/race director will tell people to start in the appropriate place, that means telling the kids and old fogies to get in the back! It’s a safety issue really

I do it like Jakob, start in the back and work my way up (if its less than 100 participants and not a single track trail run).

Does this actually happen, or is that a story you are making up? Little kids and geriatrics??

I have been running road races for over 20 years and have yet to see this as a major problem.

It isn't hard to show up with a clue about whether you'll be top-10, top-20, top-50 etc. And simply eyeballing the field is actually pretty accurate if you have any experience. (What's more, large races of course have corrals.)

As a 40-something running in the 17/36 area for 5/10k, I usually make sure I'm behind the obvious elites/sub-elites, slotting in with familiar people around my time and simply going by feel. (Usually there should be at least a few top women and high school kids ahead of me, but not a lot.) No problems at all with being "blocked," nor with lots of people running around me at the start.

Of course you take a realistic spot, it is common courtesy. And it beats getting a forearm in the back when faster runners go by.

But here's a funny story about racing in Oaxaca, Mexico where I lived for a decade. It is a mile high city with an active racing scene, and plenty of good local runners. There are also some Kenyans who live/train there.

But, at many local events, even with strong fields, you'll see grizzled abuelitas (grandmothers) on the front line. Nobody messes with them. The starts tend to be cordial. I've seen guys who are about to run low 29's in a mile-high 10k defer to the grannys. This always cracked me up.

I'd start way back! I'm old, and always fit, but it is an altitude race for this relative flat-lander. Plenty of time to crank it up and pick off stragglers.

It depends how big the race is. I'm in Portland, so we have some large "local" races that will actually seed you based on pace. It also depends if there is chip timing or not. If not, I'll get as close to the start as I can within reason, obviously let the faster-looking dudes in front of me. It's easy to tell who the serious runners are and who isn't, so I just make sure I have a relatively clear path in front of me, typically behind and between a few fast people since I know they'll get out fast and stay in front of me.

I like to start maybe 10-20 yards back from the front row. Virtually everyone in local races goes out way too hard. I like to sit back, gather my surroundings about 400m in, and decide if I should draft, chill, crank it from the front, etc.

I've been a top 100 finisher in the Indy Mini many years in a row, and without fail there is always a massive group of people in the front row who don't have a f*cking prayer of breaking 2 hours for the HM. I like to let those people just do their thing while I hang out slightly behind them.

Look at the race results from recent years. If your expected finish time would typically put you in 70th place then don't put yourself in the front row. You're just going to get in the way if you do that.

Not a major problem, but back in the day there was a 70+ year old grand old dame whose husband would drop her off as close the line as possible and she'd totter over, then turn around and back her way across the start line into front-row position. It was kind of a well-known local joke to watch for her and stay clear. I never heard of her getting bowled over, but it was always a possibility.

It's a problem in my area sometimes. Our scene isn't too competitive, and at smaller races the LRC doesn't usually try to sort people by pace. It's fairly common for 8-to-10-year-old boys to line up in the first couple of rows. Most of them start out pretty quickly, but the problem is when they slow down suddenly or veer to the side without warning. A friend of mine had a bad fall and was lucky not to get trampled when this happened.

Otoh, if the kid knows what he's doing, lining up in front might actually be better for him than risking getting tripped by tightly packed people not looking at hip level, as by the time the pack catches up to him, it has spread out a bit and is safer.

Yes, this really happens. I was in a 5k/10k combined start once and several middle school kids lined up front and sprinted for 100m before walking. Basically stopping in front of the field.

As far as local races I can usually tell my final place before the gun goes off based on who shows up and position accordingly. If it is a big race, I sometimes find someone I know is faster that will be on the front line and line up behind them if it is crowded.

Of course this happens a lot. Like this:

Open image

Consider yourself lucky if you have never run a race like this!

Why don't your major races use corrals?

Where I live there is zero chance of this happening in races with 1000+ people.

I've been to a race where the RD actually told all the kids to get in front...