They got another one of those articles up about 400/800 runners being the strongest kickers. There article shows absolutely no correlation between the two. Problem is kids will read that and then tell their coaches they need to do more speedwork to work on their kick, not knowing Milesplit is run by morons.
I guess they've never hear of Bekele or Haile.
How many times have you seen an 800 runner fry race after race at the end because they don’t have the mileage to run 5k? I would think the data might show the opposite of the milesplit premise.
3200 wrote:
How many times have you seen an 800 runner fry race after race at the end because they don’t have the mileage to run 5k? I would think the data might show the opposite of the milesplit premise.
You couldn't be more wrong.
Amos just closed in 25. 400 guys close in 23. 5k guys close in 27.
African champ wrote:
Amos just closed in 25. 400 guys close in 23. 5k guys close in 27.
What high school cross country race was that?
A race with a very steep downhill the last 200
I agree man. The kick at the end of a race comes from strength not speed. Hassan Mead has talked about this before and he has a pretty good kick when he winds it up on a decent pace from further out than 100m and most high school xc races aren’t tactical, they are all out often with positive splits so kicks at the end of the race favor strength athletes even more. The only way a 400 or even 800 specialist would outckick a well aerobically trained 5000m runner is if the pace was too slow for the ability of the 400/800 guy which happens fairly often in Hs xc because the 4-8 guys don’t know how to race and run too slow until the last 50-200m and then pass people (but they aren’t anywhere near the front) and people think it was a great kick but really they just didn’t run the race correctly and could’ve run much faster or placed much higher if they expended their energy correctly. Milesplit is encouraging these idiots to not try and then sprint at the end of their races and have great “kicks”. This is why I’m disgusted with milesplit.
You guys are over thinking this lol
Those are facts. So the 400 guy is the best kicker followed by the 800 guy. If those guys are equivalent 5k runners, who is going to win?
African champ wrote:
Those are facts. So the 400 guy is the best kicker followed by the 800 guy. If those guys are equivalent 5k runners, who is going to win?
It would depend on what point in the race the kick started and how hard they had run up until that point.
I coached a 49 second kid who routine was in the fight for his life at the end of races just to hold on. Speed doesn't have a ton to do it or 100 dashers would win every xc race. What you do the last 400 of a race has little to do with what you can do in a fresh 400.