Orville J. wrote:
Flurry of 10 runners? In a field of 19? In a 5000? On a 300m track?
Dude, it's just a race. This isn't UFC 179 or whatever.
Here's an idea -- let the competitors deal with it and keep the old men in bad, not-fitting khakis out of it.
Yeah, exactly. You made a good example FOR ME. There was a field of 19, leave all those runners in and you have 19 people on a 300m oval fighting it out for 8 scoring places. Except that 10 of them have no chance at affecting the outcome, or scoring points, when they are LAPPED.
At the top girl's pace (16:10), that would be 58 secs per lap. one runner every 3 seconds. So on the last lap the winner has to deal with the actual runners she is competing against and (in your ideal world) 11 people who will end up not scoring.
And it is the SLOWEST of those 11 people that will end up interfering (at more like 63 secs per lap) with the top placers on the last lap.
Are you starting to see why nobody beyond 17:05 (14th place and a non-scorer) - exactly 58 seconds beyond the winner - was left in?
Like MANY people have said, this is a race to decide points for a CONFERENCE Championship, not an opportunity to achieve your best effort or time. If you have no chance at scoring some points but you have the possibility of affecting the outcome for others, you don't belong there.
One thing that nobody has brought up is the POSSIBILITY that a teammate could help a runner vying for the win, and hinder some others. Maybe you don't have much experience, and have not seen this classic race where JUST THIS VERY THING happened:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVOJhGOU6MI