not in kansas anymore wrote:
First, that WC course was awful, second there were only 100 runners in the race instead of 250 and the course was wide enough to accommodate them.
I actually think Terre Haute's 10k is tougher than Louisville's. It's a lot hillier. I have no problem with tough courses. But the course has to be fair in that it's possible to pass people. Lville is just too narrow. It's almost impossible to move up.
That course was difficult, but definitely not "awful." It is cross country, not track.
Let's say that the Louisville course is too narrow - I don't think it is, but I'll play along. As I said, in cross country you compete against your competitors on the course presented. If you know ahead of time that there are sections where a bottleneck can occur, then you plan for that. You preview the course, don't you?
If the course dictates that you need to get ahead of the pack earlier than your "perfect-world-negative-split" race needs, then that is what you need to do. Again, this isn't track fer-God-sakes.