Is it always the slowest guy on the cross country team that tries to lead on easy runs?

I always spell incorrectly incorrectly.

I don't think so, but I am pretty sure that people that worry about it are far too insecure themselves.

the REAL Hingle McCringleberry wrote:

when i were a freshman, the top 7 guys pinned me down and farted in my face for pushing an easy day. Do you think it had any long term mental health consequences?

Finisher,

Nice to have you back with your quality additions.

the REAL Hingle McCringleberry wrote:

when i were a freshman, the top 7 guys pinned me down and farted in my face for pushing an easy day. Do you think it had any long term mental health consequences?

Finisher,

Nice to have you back with your quality additions.

are we talking high school or college here? Because the slowest guys on my high school team couldn't lead the easy days even if they wanted to. 7-7:30 pace was faster than their race pace. I'd imagine that's true for most high school teams.

Think of it this way. If you were/are the one getting dominated in every workout or long run it would feel good and give you a little boost of confidence, even on an easy day, to be able to lead a run with the top guys on the team.

This makes me think of college when a few of the "slower" freshman would be up front the day after getting drilled in a workout. Good way to keep some kids from getting so frustrated they would want to quit.

If the slowest guys are leading the easy days the top guys aren't running fast enough or aren't very good. Usually it's both.

We have one kid on my team who followed us on an easy run of ~8 miles, then turned back after 2-3. When he finished his 5-miler a minute or two after us he was so excited that he "beat us".

He's also a member of XFit for Teens where I live.

The slowest guy wouldn't be having an easy day. Yeah maybe he was trying to improve as well.

Pretty sure proper procedure for pushing easy days is covered in Once a Runner in the chapter The Morning Run. Read. Enforce. Repeat as needed.

I was not the fastest guy on the team when I started, but I almost always led faster runners on training runs (both easy runs and workouts). I had several reasons for doing this, no particular order:

1. I didn't like running in large packs - easiest out was the front.

2. I wasn't a scoring runner, so I considered my contribution to the team pacing workouts for the others. I had an talent to run even splits when I focused on it.

3. Since I wasn't scoring anyway, why not work harder in training to focus on the long term?

4. A lot of the faster runners had different training ideologies where they took "easy" to mean closer to "recovery" than I did.

By the time 5 years had gone by: I was faster than a lot of the guys who I would lead on training runs. That was not one of my reasons, but a fact I figured had relevance to this thread...

Give the kid a break. Trust me you're probably not half as good as you think you are so why don't you just shut up and let the kid lead then offer him a word of encouragement. Running needs all the people it can get!

Me Duh Leader wrote:

How dare a slower runner run faster than a faster than runner on a training run!!!

Blasphemy !!!

Nonsense!!!

Bull-sheet!!!

Every runner must know their place, and the finishes of training runs must exactly match the expected finishes in real races.

This is a pretty common reaction but in reality it is a problem in some cases for the slowest runner to be trying to lead easy days. In college I saw this a lot with Freshman trying to show they belong. It's not a problem if they're running a comfortable pace they can recover at but a lot times that wasn't the case. If you're pushing it to hard on your easy days and then crapping out on hard days or breaking down as the season goes on it is an issue. Sometimes if the top guys are running slower than you on easy days it isn't because they're lazy. They just know what they need to do to be ready when it counts.

In the end, you'll all be pretty much the same after college, the real prospects going pro aren't here posting.

I ran easy days on pure hate

I was/am that guy who has potential to push the pace on easy runs. It's because when I started running I was the 3rd kid from the back of the pack and every day at practice was the hardest I had ever pushed my body. I had to go very fast so I wouldn't lose sight of who was ahead of me and get lost. Now I'm a little more reasonable, but if I'm feeling good, I'm still gonna roll on an easy day.

Me Duh Leader wrote:

How dare a slower runner run faster than a faster than runner on a training run!!!

Blasphemy !!!

Nonsense!!!

Bull-sheet!!!

Every runner must know their place, and the finishes of training runs must exactly match the expected finishes in real races.

Good post except I don't think most picked up the sarcasm.

the new guy should grow up wrote:

Give the kid a break. Trust me you're probably not half as good as you think you are so why don't you just shut up and let the kid lead then offer him a word of encouragement. Running needs all the people it can get!

Circling back on this from an old team rule: if they don't ever beat you in races, but they do in an occasional practice or two, no worries. If they make it a point to beat you in practice, whatever the workout, they go in a dumpster during a long run. End of problem.

There is no mention on pace...

Most likely the complainers have NO f*ing idea of what an easy day is and think 5k-10s is easy enough and their coach wants them to pace correctly.

Let the slow guy enjoy. The 'slow' guy will probably be most likely to continue running when everyone else 'retires' as they actually enjoy it and will be whooping their asses well into their 30s and 40s (faster than college days).