How do you prepare for a crazy fast start in HS races ?

I think its on the coach to have their runners go out with a set strategy. How do you expect them to have any confidence if they haven't tried moving up from the back and being able to run even splits?

Stupid Kids wrote:

how do you train for the idiotic fast starts. HS boys & girls are not confident enough to run 20 seconds off the back and move up through the crowd. So the only thing I can see is you have to train for that kind of race.

You ask a question and then say it's not possible, which is self defeating.

The way to do this is to practice, prepare, then do the same thing in the races.

It's a lot of fun to start in the back and move up.

Carlos Lopes and John Ngugi were great cross country runners who did this routinely.

I remember George Nicholas using that tactic at many invitationals in Ohio in the late 70's early 80's.

It certainly works but these were elites running proper pace. Imagine a 20:00 girl who is number 4/5 on her team and the entire field goes out sub 6. Do you got or hold back 40 seconds (180 meters) off the back.

Doesn't work that way in HS. She won't catch up until the final 1 mile. It's a long ways to run solo in last.

It's tough.

My high school coach would have us line up on the track and run a hard 400m (62-63 secs), then go immediately into a 3 mile tempo run on the roads (5:50-6:00 pace) followed by another hard 400m on the track (90% effort). This kind of race simulation workout made us calloused to starting and finishing hard in a race situation. We did this workout roughly every 2 weeks as the big meets approached at the end of the season.

drunk runner. wrote:

My high school coach would have us line up on the track and run a hard 400m (62-63 secs), then go immediately into a 3 mile tempo run on the roads (5:50-6:00 pace) followed by another hard 400m on the track (90% effort). This kind of race simulation workout made us calloused to starting and finishing hard in a race situation. We did this workout roughly every 2 weeks as the big meets approached at the end of the season.

This.

Or, pair up a confident upperclassman with an underclassman for a controlled start and have the older one show the younger one through the pack.

Dual meets are a good place to work on this kind of thing. Have your runners run a fast first half-mile in a couple of dual meets per season.

I'm in high school and I try my best to even-pace my Cross Country races. I'm not fast enough to go out with the leaders, even at a dual meet, but I am able to be confident with my strategy because I can feel the pace I'm going out at, while not "hard" in the first 800m, is fast enough so that all I have to do is hold it to have a great race. Also, I have been successful using this strategy in both Track and Cross Country. You're right that the average high schooler runs huge positive splits but if you averaged my best races, you would get an even-split or even a slight negative-split.

So while I encourage you to be confident about this strategy, I must admit that it can take more than one race to execute. This was the first year I really focused on executing even-split races and it took a few tries but by the second-half of the season, I was confident going into every race that my strategy would not hold me back.

As others have posted, it is wise for a coach to prep his team for such an eventuality by training for it.

There is a conundrum for coaches who teach even-split/negative-split training methods since an all out 1st segment runs counter to that philosophy. The simple solutiuon is to dedicate 2 or 3 training sessions (toward the last half of the season) to a faster-than-race-pace 1st interval/repeat, then have them do the normal even pacing and negative pacing for the rest of the workout.

I would go with nothing shorter than 800 meters and nothing longer than 1600 meters on that 1st fast segment.

Having the runners morph that fast segment into a continuous tempo run is a good prep workout.

It is very difficult to run even pace as most courses are narrow and there is no room to move up.

So, not much choice but to go out fast, but not too fast, and hold position.