Race shock

science? stupid is more like it. you can witness this in practically every hs track and xc meet there ever was. do high schoolers ever get faster? sure, once they learn to slow the f*** down. don't listen to gerry the nutjob if he starts posting his usual nonsense.

I don't believe in it... just makes a race lose confidence and throws the usual pacing off. Once in a blue moon it may work to reach a new level, like maybe you miraculously pull through and are faster than you thought.

i don't think running a 1:05 second 400 to an 800 for a 2:00 is very beneficial. It's probably better to do a quality 400 in 51 or 52 and then followup w/ a cooldown.

I doubt it will make you any fitter, but if done correctly and compared to splits from other races, it can tell you the exact pace you need to run to run your optimal performance in an important race.

I did this about every 5 races to make sure I wasn't giving up any time since I negative split most races. On the other hand, if you are positive splitting races, you should go out slower to find out how much faster you can run for the whole race.

my old coach would do this wrote:

Race shocking is basically where you go out fast as f*** and just try and hang on. Does this really work?

The only thing you learn when you go out too fast is that you went out too fast and "died". It doesn't help with splits for your future races. Starting the race at a reasonable pace and finishing strongly will give you more information about splits that the aforementioned method. After the race, you can look at the splits and plan your next race. By the end of the season, your should be running perfect races. Another advantage of running controlled races early in the season is that you will recover faster than if you had run a "shock" type race.

i'd suggest doing some shock racing - here's how it works - if johnny dumbass goes out too fast like he always does and then dies like he always does, get that cattle prod out and shock the shit out of him behind the stands. he'll remember next time. i promise, it really works.

Excellent idea.

Only those that go too far truly know how far they can go.

I spent a whole year doing this. I ran 4 major PR's, won a local "big" race outright and dropped out of twelve other races. I got to the point where I dreaded going to a race.

I realized this was suicidal and the next year I returned to even pacing. Using this method I broke each of the 4 PR's I set during my "Race Shock" year.

that's paavo for you. if you buy into the paavo method, then it works. if you don't, then it's all a scam/decimates runners/burns them out for college/etc.

I think you guys are missing the part where he said "every once in a while." Obviously going out and having a huge positive split isn't going to yield a great result in that particular race. The theory is that going out hard this race will help you hold on better the next race.

I don't know the science behind it, but many coaches and athletes I've talked to says it does work. I had experience with doing it in the 800 a lot. One season I kept running 2:00 to 2:01 running near even splits. Finally I just said f*** it and went out in 57 low. I died and ran a 2:01.5 or something. However, the next week I went out in 57 high and ran 1:58, PRing by 2 full seconds.

That's just one of my examples; I've seen the same thing happen with several other people I know.

When I was in high school many years ago, we had a lot of worthless duel meets where I was able to run all different paces.

I did run a "shock" race one meet splitting 61,70,72,73 for a 4:36. It was extremely painful. Another race I ran 70,70,70,66 for another 4:36. My log notes how easy I thought the race was. Unfortunately, I wasn't smart enough at the time to truly decipher these results and still went out a little too fast in the big races. My fastest was 63,70,72,64. This is a classic way to run a race going out a little too fast at the beginning and resting up a little in the middle to have a good kick at the end. A better strategy would have been to run 68,68,65 and close in 64 for a 4:25. My lack of knowledge probably cost me 4 seconds.