Please explain me the point of race tactics. Serious question.

Wuubiooo

Front running is too difficult

Explain me why, please.

Is it psychological, physiological...?

As far as I know, the late scientific consensus is that drafting/wind blocking at running speeds/aerodynamics would only be a factor if the runner was behind a full phalanx acting as a screen, like the INEOS one.

And the higher energy demands of front running come from the cognitive effort of decision making, guessing... instead of following other guy.

If that's correct, going for even laps and locking a pace would not suppress all that stressors?

I'm sure most of you are better documented and had actual insight and experience.

Thanks in advance.

Tl;dr

So there is the weather, for example. There is the physiological advantage of drafting, which some say can be like .5 seconds per lap, some say more, it will vary due to many factors. Then of course there is the psychological advantage derived from following, which is hard to quantify. So yeah.

Ask Jakob how front-running a 1500 works

It's obvious that you've never run on the track.

Anyone who has (or even been in a competitive road race) knows exactly why you can't just lead everyone else around (unless you're way, way better than them) and hope to win.

For starters, you do in fact provide a slight draft; nowhere near as much as in cycling, but still a draft nonetheless. And that is accentuated as the pace of the race increases e.g. a kick finish.

You are also the one trying to force a pace to break the others, which is far more stressful than simply reducing the task to staying with the person in front. If you follow, you can essentially turn your brain off (figuratively), which is far more efficient and anxiety reducing.

There's also the psychological component, which is very important at the top end of the sport, where the margins are so narrow. If you have competitors in your visual field, there is certainly a competitive trigger that gets activated, and allows you to draw more out of yourself than you would if you simply time-trialled a race. Think how often you see people at the end of just about any race - from HS XC to your local parkrun - find something within themselves and unleash an almighty sprint at the end. It's usually always because they can see someone up ahead that they think they can catch.

Therefore, if Cheptegei is in 26:30 shape and he has competitors in 26:45 shape, that gets significantly reduced when you add in the stress Cheptegai has to overcome if he leads, the draft and mental cushion he provides for the others, and the additional motivation that they will be able to draw out of themselves by having him in their visual field.

Let’s say:

Runner A is in 26:15 shape with a perfectly paced rabbit and 26:30 front running with no rabbit.

Runner B is in 26:25 shape with a perfectly paced rabbit and 26:40 front running with no rabbit.

In the scenario above, if Runner A chooses to run in the front, Runner B can use Runner B and still run 26:25 while Runner A can only run 26:30.

Thanks. For real.

I'm not trying to stand my ground, but to learn.

That said:

#1 Drafting actually plays a factor at 10000 or even 5000 speed?

#2 If let's say Cheptegei just sticks to clock i.e. 62" laps until the bell and then close with everything he has left... that wouldn't suppress that mental stress/anxiety/fatigue?

Runner B can user Runner A.*

It's a competition against other athletes, not a time trial. Yes, an athlete can probably roughly determine what they are capable of on any given race day, but the problem is, they have no idea what the competition is capable of. His estimate of a time that would win the race might be completely wrong and the athlete running a set pace could end up being a pacemaker for the rest of the field. Any athlete or athletes sticking with the pace would very likely outkick the leading athlete at the end -- see Ingebrigtsen, Jakob. In a championship race, it's too risky a tactic even for a world record holder. At the top level of the sport there is not much difference between the best athletes so one cannot just run away from the best athletes in the world. At the high school level, where there is a huge disparity in talent, yes you can do this because at that level 4:10 always beats 4:20 which always beats 4:30. They can just run, not race because they are just more talented. This doesn't happen at the top level of the sport. It's hard to win a race. Any race.

Cheptegei can't run a 25:50 10k

This doesn't work because there can be a 1-2 second advantage of running in someone's draft versus leading. At the top level many athletes have similar fitness, so overcoming that advantage by running away from the field with even splits is unlikely.

*1-2 seconds per lap.

It is NOT 1-2 seconds per lap. Let us be real here.

The short answer is that if other runners get in your way, they can impede you from running the pace you want.

Some will also note that if the leaders go out faster than you desire, you may lose too much ground if you stick to your pace to come back and finish where desired. But really, running with others changes the pace you end up running out of necessity.

In this example I was taking a 5000, obviously.

This cannot be Joe Rubio!?!