Is it lame to kick hard for the last .1 mile of a 5K if you are in 20th place?

Yes. Lame as all hell, EXCEPT if you and a buddy had a wager for beers and you had to outkick him.

Cheers!

Not if it gets you to 12th place.

Let me see here, you entered a competition and another runner was competitive and you are unhappy. This is exactly what is wrong with America. Damn Panty Wastes.

Its never lame to run fast. Its only lame that you didn't start running fast sooner. It is called a "race" after all.

if it was such a meaningless race then maybe this guy was using it as a training run and his coach asked him to kick down the last few hundred metres.

either way it doesnt effect your race. go with him if you want...or dont. who cares?

If they are scoring points for teams, then yes, kick your butt off.

Cross country team score factor? Kick!

She Works Out Too Much wrote:

I'd say it is. Especially if you are not going to PR and you are not fighting for the top 3 overall spots.

Happened to me last weekend as I was absolutely tanking my race and some dude wanted to sprint for the finish. We were in a larger race and we were about 2 minutes behind the overall winner anyways. I just let him go because it wasn't worth the effort to kick to cut 3-5 seconds off my time.

If you are on a cross country team, you need to get the points. Also you should always give your all.

Not lame unless you were running easy the whole time then suddenly got serious for that .1

I always wonder about the people I see at marathons finishing somewhere north of 5-6 hours, or ironmans in the 16th hour who are full-on sprinting through the finisher's chute. What the hell have you been doing this whole time? We all know you were walking... if you put some of that energy into your race you could've saved a half an hour or so and rolled in suffering like the rest of us!

Definitely not, but who cares either way. You're there to run your best race, not look cool (whatever that means). What's everyone going to think - 'oh look at that loser, kicking in the last 150 when he's in 20th place. Doesn't he know kicking's for winners??!!' Yeah probably not.

Nah... was running a 10000 a couple weeks ago. 2 months back in building up/ training after a couple months of not running. So I was nowhere near PR fitness. Nearing the finish, a guy tries to pass me... well you can guess what I did. Made him work for it and smoked him like he was standing still. I dont care if i finish in 36 or 37th place per se but if some guy wants to lay it down in the homestretch, lets do it.

why save it for a kick? wrote:

j walter wrote:

Not going to argue the semantics over what constitutes a kick, but you are neither a student of physiology nor running.

I'm not really clear on what exactly you disagree with. Are you claiming that running a faster overall pace would not diminish one's kick?

In my mind, there is simply no excuse for falling off the pace in the first place if you have a kick left in your legs at the end. I am, however, quite willing to consider any actual argument you wish to present that counters this opinion.

But they are not falling off pace to ensure having a kick left in their legs at the end. They fall off pace for whatever reason… it happens, you know. And then at the end they have a kick or they don't. Sometimes you fall off pace and also don't have a kick left in your legs at the end.

You assume intent where there is none. And you assume that falling off pace guarantees the ability to kick at the end. What nonsense.

Depends on what you mean.

1) Do you mean “sit and kick”?

At the local 5k?

You finish 20th in 20:56?

Out kicking the winner of the women’s 55-60 AG?

And the 70-75 men’s winner?

Yes, that is the very definition of “lame”!

(CrossFit doesn’t change things. Still lame!!)

2) Do you mean “finishing fast, leaving nothing.”

No, that’s what you are supposed to do.

Gravy wrote:

the real lame wrote:

what's lame is poorly doling out your effort so that you have a thunderous kick left. that's a lack of proper pacing. finshing should feel like a kick but you don't go any faster because you used it all up already. that's the perfect race.

^this.

On the other hand, doling out a monstrous kick in an easy-paced social club run? That's lame.

This is basically impossible. Nobody runs at their physiological maximum. Too many other factors at play. Why does every WR after the 800 have a fast finishing lap?

Or something like that. I'm halfway thru Alex Hutchinson's book

Here is a story of lameness, kicking and CrossFit:

About 8 years ago, I was pacing my 9 year old for a 5 k.

I let my 9 year old out sprint me at the end.

Unfortunately, this also allowed a CrossFit gym owner to also passed me.

The CrossFit guy thought that his victory over me meant I should join his gym.

I countered that my 9 year olds victory, over both of us, meant that we would both need to join my nine years olds gym.

It's lame to even talk about the "last .1 mile of a 5k." Especially if you have run enough of them that you know how far a kilometer is, and can easily estimate 100m, or 200m, but still insist on starting your kick from an estimated 176 yards out instead.

Every American or English runner still pointlessly converting to imperial units is a disgrace to their country. Is this a GPS watch thing? Yet another generational regression?