How to shift gear at the end of a race

I'm a slow 50 year old so take this with a huge grain of salt. It's all mental. You gotta channel something.

1) PURE HATE (Trump. Hillary. Ex-wife.)

2) FEAR (Imagine a doped-to-the-gills pitbull right behind you.)

3) RAGE (That f'r just ahead of you stole your wallet.)

4) PAIN (it will all end when you get to the finish line so get it over with ASAP)

I always felt that running at different speeds was mechanically different. To me I could just feel the difference. You have jogging, running, and sprinting and they all feel/look different. You can be jogging and pick up the pace for a while but at some point you have to change to running if you want to go any faster. Then you can pick up the pace while running but at some point you will have to change to sprinting to reach your fastest possible speeds.

In a race at some point towards the end you should change from running fast to a sprint. And it feels different when you start sprinting. Most of the time it will feel easier for short time because you are running differently than you were before. Some distance runners never change to the sprint at the end and don't have very fast finishes.

Some analysis here :

https://canute1.wordpress.com/2015/09/05/cadence-stride-length-and-mo-farahs-finishing-kick/

Once you've summoned your inner Hulk you're going to have to increase either stride length or cadence. Different strokes for different folks. I find increasing cadence more effective, but that's just me.

You can run workouts that focus on shifting gears.

One workout I've encountered is 1k repeats going the first 600 easy (around 5k tempo pace) then closing the last quarter under mile pace (so a 4:30 miler might do 2:10/65). The first 600 is intended to feel really easy and the runners should be working on clearly shifting from the relaxed pace into a controlled hard effort once they hit the last 400.

Repeat 150s, striding through the curve and then going into a sprint in the straight can also be pretty good. It just gets the body used to the mechanics involved in changing gears.

Strength and flexibility work is also useful. Seb Coe's training has a lot of info on bodyweight circuits, and I recommend that you look into it.

The exact body mechanics involved in changing gears differ from person to person. There isn't a golden ratio of stride length:frequency. Form and flexibility work in general helps, as does speed work; plenty of amateur distance runners don't do enough of any of these things, and as a result struggle in shifting from the pace that they usually train at.

Finally, keep in mind that, in order to significantly shift gears at the end of a race, you need to have something left in the tank. A 4:30 miler isn't going to have another gear in a mile race that hits 1200m in 3:22.5.

The same way you shift gears in the beginning of a race. Take your foot off the accelerator while putting your foot on the clutch, then move the gear nob to your desired gear position.

cali boy wrote:

Repeat 150s, striding through the curve and then going into a sprint in the straight can also be pretty good. It just gets the body used to the mechanics involved in changing gears.

My college coach used to have our middle distance runners do this via what he called "sprint-float-sprint." Essentially the same idea, get out well, relax, then bring it home, all over a relatively short distance.

Aside from that, generally speaking, I would agree that it is more of a mental issue than a physical one. I have good speed for the class of runner that I am, and I used to be able to outkick most guys whenever I decided to lay it down. The question was always who was willing to actually lay it down?

Find a place in the hurt locker. See how long you can take it.

Some simple tips during your final kick phase:

1. Consciously pump arms backward and quicker than before. That should increase your cadence. Do not swing arms across the body.

2. Shorten stride slightly and focus on increasing turnover.

3. Keep eyes focused forward. Too many people drop their head or roll it back and forth in their closing kick.

4. Run the route before the race and pick out a place to start your kick before the finish line.

Try this workout. It has helped two masters runners I've trained... and it works for me.

3 sets of 3x200m. Run the three reps in each set as follows.

Rep 1: First 130m run as normal. Then, increase cadence as much as possible for the last 70m. Don't attempt to run faster. Chop the stride length. Focus only on rapid turnover. You should be at least 20 and maybe even 40 strides per minute faster than normal. I'll say again. It's not about running faster, it's about getting cadence as high as possible. You will be more tired than normal after this rep.

Rep 2: First 130m as normal. Then, push off forcefully with each stride. You can slow your cadence a little to help with pushing off really hard. Don't attempt to run faster. Concentrate on pushing off to the point that you are almost (but not really) bounding along. You will be more tired than normal after this rep.

Rep 3: First 130m as normal. Then, increase cadence while also pushing off harder. Combine the two movements to sprint as fast as possible. You will be a LOT faster over the last 70m than the previous reps. This will feel awkward at first and you will be a lot more tired than normal after this rep.

Jog/walk a lap.

Repeat for the next two sets.

Pure Hate

I could show but then I'd have to kill you

Magness posted about kicking several years ago. Basically, there are some Olympic-level runners who increase cadence, and others who increase stride length.

Here are two of his posts (possibly outdated now) about training for a kick:

http://www.scienceofrunning.com/2011/09/science-of-finishing-kick.html

http://www.scienceofrunning.com/2011/10/training-to-kick.html

Thanks so much to everybody for the many useful replies and for the links provided to relevant papers on the web.

I found the reply by Hobby_jogger_999 funny at first but then I got to appreciate that it is a tremendously good suggestion that is backed by science, too. Indeed, if, as Magness illustrates (thanks to "you lit review" for providing the links!), there are anaerobic energy reserves that can be accessed only in states of very high motivation, the mental imagery tips that H_J_999 has provided to "summon the inner Hulk" are nothing to laugh at, rather they are excellent means to arouse strong basic emotions such as hate, fear, anger, which are powerful triggers that should enable the athlete to tap into their anaerobic power reserve. I tried such a mental imagery exercise (the stolen wallet image) this morning at the end of a local 10k road race and it worked quite well, I was flying (for my standards) in the last 150 yards or so.

Cali boy, Smoove, and Fisky provided rich and interesting examples of drills and workouts aimed at learning how to effect a drastic change in speed. A common theme in these posts seems to be that this skill should be practiced repeatedly over a series of workouts in order to improve it. Today I myself found on a website the following related short paper that might be of some usefulness:

http://runsmartproject.com/2015/07/20/part-3-race-kick-tips-and-workouts-for-shifting-gears/

The tips provided by Iowa800 (e.g., pumping arms backwards and quicker, keeping eyes focused forward) appear to be very useful, as they represent practical advice of what needs actually to be done by the body in order to effectively shift gears. If other fellow runners would be so kind to graciously share their tips about the practical aspects of the rapid and dramatic change of pace needed to kick most effectively (the "how" of shifting gears à la Yfter), or about useful workouts or drills to learn and ingrain this skill, I would be grateful. In the meanwhile, thanks a lot to everyone who contributed to this thread.

Iowa800 wrote:

4. Run the route before the race and pick out a place to start your kick before the finish line.

Yep, this is spot on. The last 1/2 marathon I raced, I thought the finish was a whole lot closer than it was. The mile markings were off and the last 0.1 tuned out to be the last 0.4. It was brutal.

your lit review wrote:

Magness posted about kicking several years ago. Basically, there are some Olympic-level runners who increase cadence, and others who increase stride length.

Here are two of his posts (possibly outdated now) about training for a kick:

http://www.scienceofrunning.com/2011/09/science-of-finishing-kick.htmlhttp://www.scienceofrunning.com/2011/10/training-to-kick.html

Read Magness critically, very critically. He's off on a lot of things.

When you say "5k tempo pace" do you mean the pace that a 4:30 miler would run a tempo workout of 5000m in length or do you mean 5000m race pace?

SlowFatMaster wrote:

When you say "5k tempo pace" do you mean the pace that a 4:30 miler would run a tempo workout of 5000m in length or do you mean 5000m race pace?

I tried to do some math in order to answer myself this question and in this way to take the opportunity for a bump :-)

Given that our fellow runner is talking of a 4:30 miler, the mile race pace is around 67 secs per lap and the 5k pace should be around 76 secs per lap. A 600 at that pace would be way faster than 2:10, so I think that what is being talked about is tempo aka threshold pace. In fact, the HM pace of our hypothetical 4:30 runner would be about 85 secs per lap, which means 600m in 2:07.5, pretty near the 2:10 indicated. If I did the math correctly, the workout would be as follows: 600m at threshold pace (around HM race pace) followed by 400m at faster than mile race pace (around 1k race pace).

I hope the calculations are right, please correct me if I am wrong. Wishing everyone a nice weekend!