in the recent Eliud Kipchoge video (link below) there was a short section, at 5:00 in the video, where a friend talks to Kipchoge about the future of distance running and how he, the friend, can see it becoming like cycle racing, with teams.
I imagine he means something like the Tour de France (though not as long), where the team members work together to ensure the success of the team rather than a race consisting of every man for himself.
I don't follow cycling and won't pretend to know much about it but I think the general idea is that the team members are acting as pacers for the team head, so that instead of a race like, say, the London marathon where there is one set of pacers and you either go with them or you don't, each team will have its own pacers who go out at the pace that has been determined as best for the team.
I think this is an interesting idea and can see it working in long races where instead of three guys following one pacer for twenty miles until he drops out and THEN the racing begins, you could have the varied interplay of the different teams and their tactics acting against the interests of other teams. you could get breaks like you do in cycling and then over the next several miles the breakaway is reeled back in and a different team makes a move and from an audience perspective I could see this being a lot more interesting than Monday's TV broadcast of the Boston Marathon which was, by all accounts, virtually unwatchable.
the deciding factor, I think, is whether the benefit of drafting behind someone else is as large in running as it is in cycling. in cycling the team aspect works precisely because the main guy is drafting behind his team members until it is time for him to make his move, on the sprint section, or on the hills or at the finish, or whatever, but I'm not sure the benefit to a runner would be as large.
what do you guys think. can this be made to work or is it just a really bad idea?
cheers.