Deer Let's Run,
I'm a long-time reader and sometimes poster. I was a division III runner in college (30'22 PB) and then moved up to the half marathon and marathon where I've seen more success since graduating, running 63'38 and 2'16'59 respectively. This year, I also tried my hand at the 50km distance and was selected to run on the US team at the 50k World Championships in Doha on December 4th.
Here's where my question for you comes into play - the course is 10x 5km loops and each loop features what looks to be 2 hairpin (180 degree) turns (yes, this is the course they've chosen for the World Championships). My question - what's the best strategy for running hairpin turns during a race?
Personally, I've always struggled with hairpin turns in races and find myself losing a lot of momentum coming off the other side of the turn-around. Has anyone found a strategy that's been successful? Do you go wide and try to keep your speed up? Do you cut it very close and essentially stop at the turn-around point and then start running again in the opposite direction? Any suggestions would be helpful. It's definitely something that I'll need to practice over the coming weeks; I'd like to turn this weakness into a strength.
If you're curious about the rest of my training, I post on Running2Win under the name STRIVE and I also publicly log all of my training weekly at
http://www.strivetrips.org/category/tylers-training/
Thanks for any input and see you out there!