A team is locally dominant, and has state aspirations. In a smaller meet, the coach instructs his two best runners to wait on the starting line 45 seconds after the starting gun is fired, then chase the pack balls out, in order to get those runners used to going out hard against better competition. Good strategy? Insulting? How would you react if you coached a rival team? BTW those runners went 1-2 and the team won.
I know you probably won't see this response but here is one:
If you're team has a reputation for being a great team then I assume the other team knows this and has this in their mind. For our team, that would be Tahoma HS which is better than all of the other teams in the league by a large margin. We typically see the team as being dicks but don't see the individual runners that we know outside of the race as being such just because they are always winning and that is their reputation. I think it would be partially insulting but on the other hand, I would understand why and how would you do that as someone on the other team. However, it still cements any reputation you have as a team and I think your team should save your faster running for invitationals and state and make a tempo pace out of this. The only way this wouldn't work I imagine would be if your league is a very small division school or something like with Northwest HS in Seattle and the two runners could run Tempo pace and still beat everyone else because they're just that fast. This would be like 15:00-16:00 runners against 19:00 or slower runners. Still, have sportsmanship, don't do this to the other teams, even if it's not actually that offensive.
My thoughts. Either run the damn race or don't show up. Yes it is bad sportsmanship. How about I instruct my soccer team to start the game off by kicking the ball into the wrong goal 5 times. Practice bring down 5. It's insulting.
Good point. I think that sums up my final thoughts that I gave.
That's terrible strategy and here is why.
If I was the coach of a team battling them for a spot to go to the state meet but I knew they were stronger than my team, I would have my 6th and 7th runners go all out for the first mile and take these two runners with them. When they start to tire, my top runners (as well as the runners from the other schools) can catch and go around them and beat them.
A better strategy would be to have them run with the pack the first two miles and then see how fast they can run the last mile. You want to teach how to run fast at the end of the race when it matters, not the beginning.
It's also a low class move that is insulting to the teams they are doing it against.