"Your best race is NEVER one where your first mile is your fastest"

World Half Marathon Champs 2016.

Talking 5ks

It's crap, particularly if you are racing a mile.

My best 5Ks were when my first mile was the fastest.

huhwhat wrote:

Is this true? Is this a known fact or is the crap?

Your best race is NEVER one where your first mile is your fastest. NEVER!

Read more:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=7747637&page=1#ixzz4MgHgF9gB

Define "best."

If you mean that, that race was the absolute fastest you could have ever physically run, then no. Pretty much anything over the 800m you want to run the first mile slighty slower than other miles in the race.

If you mean that you went with the pack and then things slowed down after the 1st mile and you were able to handle things tactically to win the race, then quite possibly, yes.

Maybe we can take a poll here.

How many people have set their 5K PR in a race where the first mile was their fastest?

Whether you could have run faster is speculation.

Just start with facts.

I went out in 4:38 in a 14:55 5K.

I was behind at the first mile and took the lead halfway through the race and held on to win.

Probably my ten best 5Ks were with mile one being the fastest.

Now I was a miler and 5K was going up in distance.

For those that focus on the 10K and marathon, you probably have more even splits.

Harry? lmao

huhwhat wrote:

Your best race is NEVER one where your first mile is your fastest. NEVER!

Only a Sith speaks in absolutes.

You have to be WAY more specific. In the 200, yes, the first 100 is slower b/c of the start. In the 400, your first 200 is ALWAYS faster for PR. In the 800, same deal. As you climb the ladder in distance, you MUST go out faster. In the 5K, it's physiologically impossible to run your maximum by going out slower the first half. The best pace is to go out 2-3% faster. If you go out in your first mile 7-10% faster, you won't get the best out of yourself. Do the math with 2-3%...works every time!

dothemanbrah wrote:

. In the 5K, it's physiologically impossible to run your maximum by going out slower the first half.

Except for that's how the 5000 world record was run.

My point is that some run their best by going out faster and some can run their best with a negative split.

Star wrote:

[quote]dothemanbrah wrote:

My point is that some run their best by going out faster and some can run their best with a negative split.

That's total bullsh!t. EVERY runner will run their fastest 5k and up race by going out slower and negative splitting. Most either don't have the patience or intelligence to do so. If you go out too fast EVERY time, then your fastest time will be set with a positive split but it will NEVER be the fastest time you were capable of that day.

If it was possible to run faster by positive splits, then you could extrapolate that out to where you could run a 10k at a faster pace than a 5k and we all know how RIDICULOUS that is.

Kenenisa Bekele world record 5k splits

2:33.24

2:32.23

2:31.87

2:30.59

2:29.42

Don't confuse running the fastest with trying to win a race. Sometimes it is better for a runner to use tactics against other runners to try and gain an advantage.

huhwhat wrote:

Is this true? Is this a known fact or is the crap?

Your best race is NEVER one where your first mile is your fastest. NEVER!

Read more:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=7747637&page=1#ixzz4MgHgF9gB

What if you are running the mile?

put it to rest....... wrote:

EVERY runner will run their fastest 5k and up race by going out slower and negative splitting.

No.

It would be an extreme coincidence that most runners positive split if that were the case.

It's not the patience that prevents negative splitting, it's the fitness.

If you don't have a lot of distance background then you won't finish strong.

And if you have a lot of 800 and mile speed without the distance background you are more likely to handle a quick initial pace but not have the strength to keep it going.

You can't put everyone in the same box.

Star wrote:

put it to rest....... wrote:

EVERY runner will run their fastest 5k and up race by going out slower and negative splitting.

You can't put everyone in the same box.

That would have to be one enormous box.

Even splits are most efficient. We aren't machines so rarely will we ever run a perfectly even split race.

Whether a negative or positive split is better comes down to the individual runner. Some people are wired between their ears to run better with a positive split, others a negative.

I've never run a good 5000 with a negative split, even when I've set out to try. I could never get my brain to switch into "race mode" when I went out slow, and always followed up a slow first two miles with a slow last mile. I've had teammates that were very successful coming from off the pace to win races.

Roger Bannister disagrees.

Star wrote:

put it to rest....... wrote:

EVERY runner will run their fastest 5k and up race by going out slower and negative splitting.

No.

It would be an extreme coincidence that most runners positive split if that were the case.

It's not the patience that prevents negative splitting, it's the fitness.

If you don't have a lot of distance background then you won't finish strong.

And if you have a lot of 800 and mile speed without the distance background you are more likely to handle a quick initial pace but not have the strength to keep it going.

You can't put everyone in the same box.

You have that backwards. The worse shape you are in the MORE you should negative split the race. The athletes in the best shape possible are the ones that can come very close to even splits. That's why there isn't that much difference between their 5k and 10k pace. A poorly conditioned athlete will have a large difference between 5k and 10k pace. If they try to go out too fast, they will blow up much sooner and run slower.

I have run Boston 14 times. Mile one is very downhill. I have results from my 5k splits for each year. The first 5k has *always* been my fastest of the eight 5k segments in the race--and and that includes the five years when I ran the second half of the race faster than the first.

I only ran negative splits in the 800 twice in my entire life. Those were both PRs, one of them being my all-time best (61.5/58.5)