Does anyone enjoy finishing mid-pack to rear in races?

well a whole lot of people seem to do it anyway.

If everyone on Let's run was as talented as their posts imply, the Kenyan's would never be a factor in distance running. I enjoy running 7:00 miles in the middle of pack. I stopped trying to prove myself to others years ago.

poll_asker wrote:

I know winning is #1 priority here on letsrun.com

Uh no. The #1 priority here is ACTING like they win.

Then, anyone who finishes behind them is a jogger/yuppie and should quit and all those who finish ahead of them are on drugs.

At first I didn't like it. But I got used to it because, well, I don't have another option. I can either be satisfied with top 20, or stop running. I prefer not to be near the back, but that happened a time or two when our club team entered a couple collegiate XC races.

If people organized recreational track events the same way they do 5k/10k fun runs, I would probably be able to win a few races (200m, 400m, 800m, maaaaybe even the mile). But anything further than 1 mile and my chances of winning, even on the local level, plummet.

If I am surrounded my hot tail, then the answer would be yes.

just saying wrote:

If everyone on Let's run was as talented as their posts imply, the Kenyan's would never be a factor in distance running. I enjoy running 7:00 miles in the middle of pack. I stopped trying to prove myself to others years ago.

Why pay to enter a race if you're not going to run hard? Please help me understand.

fdc wrote:

Uh no. The #1 priority here is ACTING like they win.

Then, anyone who finishes behind them is a jogger/yuppie and should quit and all those who finish ahead of them are on drugs.

Very true. Then they'll wonder why there's no money in the sport after there are only 2000 runners left in the entire country. I'm not sure how the letsrun philosophy takes aging into effect. I think you're supposed to spontaneously combust the day after you're unable to collect prize money in the master's division.

spot on

or regenerate as in Brave New World.

It does not bother me to finish in the middle of the pack as I have the triple handicap of 1) being 64, 2) not having a ton of ability, and 3) only running 2-3 days a week, including races. But I LOVE to run, and being 64, do quite well age-group wise.... as long as no one that's 60-64 and any good shows up !

I've jogged the Army Ten Miler to help someone that had never run that far before and there were some folks absolutely gutting it out at ten minutes per mile. They could not have run faster (on that day) without keeling over.

In a track race, being in the middle of the pack is great. Others get to do the work, you get to feed off of it, and if it's a good field, get a PR.

It seems like mid-pack in road races would be pretty crappy. You would start running along with stroller joggers and the like. I just couldn't enjoy being that non-competitive.

I generally hope to finish in at least the top 10% in local 5k-Half Marathons etc. While I don't consider that middle-of-the-pack, I'm no superstar. I've finished as high as 2nd place overall in really small 5ks, and that was quite a thrill, though I'd rather run 18:50 and finish further back in a big race than run 19:17 and finish 2nd in a small race.

just saying wrote:

If everyone on Let's run was as talented as their posts imply, the Kenyan's would never be a factor in distance running. I enjoy running 7:00 miles in the middle of pack. I stopped trying to prove myself to others years ago.

7:00 miles puts you well ahead of the middle of the pack these days.

Northwest Apprentice wrote:

Why pay to enter a race if you're not going to run hard? Please help me understand.

Here's a few possibilities:

1) Supported training run. I've run, for instance, a half marathon at marathon pace run. I'll run a trail race in a couple weeks at an easy long run pace just for a change of scenery, terrain, and the lunch afterwards. Most of us wouldn't drop the $100+ that many of the "event marathons" are asking these days to do a training run, but there's lots of local races in this area that are pretty inexpensive.

2) There are a lot of mid-packers out there who are running "hard" relative to their ability level and training, but are never going to be anything but mid-packers. You may claim that they should train more than they do, but to what end? To become a little bit faster mid-packers? Is it wrong for a 50 something woman to clutter your road race even though she has no prayer of keeping the post-collegent men in sight?

3) I first qualified for Boston one hot day a few years ago with a couple minutes to spare in a stagger over the line, puke, and go to the medical tent finish. When I ran Boston the next spring on an even hotter day, it was a notch or two below my potential because I wanted to remember the race for which I worked so hard to qualify. Someday I'll go back there and try to run fast by my meager standards, but I'll still be among the 19,999 runners who lose the race.

4) There are certainly a lot of "event type 'races'" where participating in the 'event' is more important to most participants than participating in any sort of competative 'race'. The Nike Run Hit Wonder events are certainly in this category, way too short and crowded for all but a very few to race.

While many of your points may be valid, I was responding to an individual who stated that he enjoyed running in the middle of the pack because he didn't need to prove anything to anyone anymore, implying that he could run faster if he wanted to. What I was not saying is that those who run as hard as they can but finish in the middle of the pack are wasting their money and time.

Here's the thing about this question though. To finish in the middle of the pack or the back of the pack requires a VERY slow performance. I'm not sure that any runners here are in that group except for perhaps the very very old. In many local 5Ks, 21 minutes still puts a person in the top 10% or so. That's pretty slow and yet not middle of the pack and certainly not end of the pack.

poll_asker wrote:

I know winning is #1 priority here on letsrun.com, but are there any letsrunners who enjoy (or at least don't mind) finishing mid-to-rear pack? It can be a whole other experience back there, just chillin', letting everyone else do the work up front.

I know sub-3 marathoners who run only one serious marathon every year or two, just to keep their qualifying times current. Otherwise they go and jog and finish in 5:20 in any goldurn mara they feel like running. This sounds like a great idea. It would probably prevent you from getting old and gnarly the way too-frequent marathoners tend to.

Gosh. If I could run faster, I'd go and finish in 5:20 four times a year too.

Egotistical Ultra-marathoners don't mind finishing back there. Because they're egotistical. Like Dean-o. He loves running slow.