last one standing, a 5000m elimination track race

Close to if not the dumbest thing I've read all day

i think its a rad idea, creative presentation like this is what the 5 and 10k races need to spice themselves up to the non running public

This concept has been done before. Devil's 5000m I think it was. It was entertaining.

This sounds like the pacer test from PE. Fun in concept! But too little room for strategy and too much emphasis on pure fitness.

I think it's a great idea, looking forward to hearing how it goes!

I don't think there needs to be 2 more elimination laps after the safe lap. Either remove the safe lap or remove the subsequent elimination laps.

This kind of stuff is already done a lot in track cycling, it's nothing new.

Yeah it's totally inspired from track cycling. They've done a much better job than athletics at trying to bring in different types of interesting events. The difference though being that cycling has more strategic opportunities given the drafting benefits

Good to hear it was entertaining! It could fall on its ass, but hey, worth a try!

Yeah it should still result in the fastest winning. However, with prizemoney on offer the aim is to have a field of athletes with similar ability meaning that strategy should come into play throughout

Hey thanks for the feedback. Is the reason why the 2 elimination laps post the safe lap aren't of value in your opinion is the over complexity of the event?

Yep they have this at the walter johnson track meet each year devil take the hindmost. I think there it gets long as crap as they start with like 50 people and eliminate multiple people per lap at the beginning. Its still like 4-5 miles or more. There is some of the sprinting to avoid being eliminated but that seemed to just turn into a grind it out regular race with a singular winner pulling away.

For the 5k event yeah its a good idea but I also think its too complicated. Also a little too nice. There should not be any safe laps etc if you want to make an elimination race then eliminate every time you cross the finish line including the first time. If you wait until 1000m unless everyone is exactly the same then there will already be people who are tiring and not at the same level so they will easily be eliminated with no fuss or drama. The other way the best person in the field could go out right away if they arent paying attention which is kind of the point if youre trying to make the race different from normal and dramatic etc.

I think I get what you mean. The idea of the safe lap is to completely avoid that risk of a single person dominating from gun to finish (boring) and just having a super spread out field throughout the race. Knowing that there is a paced lap late in the race means it is wasted energy to go out and dominate early, you're better off just biding your time and just keeping ahead of a bunch.. So it could be that this domination happens at the later stages, but the aim of the race structure is that most laps are then more likely to be bunched

I'm just going to suck up this complication for this year and see how it goes. I'll report back if it completely failed ;)

These races are fun. Eliminate every 200m's and don't allow the lead runner to be any more than 100m ahead of last place.

25 runners in each race.

Great idea. I watch a lot of cycling and the omnium/elimination is one of my favorite to peddle on the trainer to. I'll disagree with others who say get rid of the safe lap, I think you need that so it isn't one or two people who flat out take off and make it no different then a regular 5k just with more runners getting pulled. What pace will the safe lap be at? I am curious to see how much grouping happens.

I like the idea, but what about changing it to be the other way around? Run for some distance (maybe 1 mile), and then the first each lap gets wins the place and is eliminated.

I think it would be much more fun tactically, since you have to decide and pace yourself to attack when you think it suits you best and you have to be aware how many of your competitor have already burnt their matches. This way there's also some tactical options for the slower part of the field..

We did a workout like this in college but you could only take the lead on the straightaway. We kept running until everyone was eliminated. Fun game but terrible workout. The slow people barely got a workout in and the fast people had to all out sprint every straightaway for like 10 laps.

The best way I have seen to do this is to make it a workout race. 400ms with 30s of rest that starts when the first person crosses the line. Keeps everyone on a bunch

Or have some really good primes to encourage crazy pacing where some people are trying to win the race, others trying to lead for the first 4 laps, and so on.

They did this at the Portland indoor in about 1979 over a mile on a 165 yard board track. Began dropping athletes at about 3 laps and then every lap thereafter. Was an absolute hoot as there was a race every lap at the back of the pack. Lots of athletes looking around trying to make sure they didn't have someone sneak up on them. If I recall, there were 4 athletes left with 2-3 laps to go. Crowd really got into it and was the most talked about race of the night. Very entertaining. The key to it is having athletes of the same ability and conditioning.

Puma and the Keystone Track Club did this awhie back!