Why are Steeplechase races, cross country races, and road races never tactical?

>>>>>>>>> wrote:

What the f*** have you been looking at? Open up your f***ing eyes!

I've been looking at race results. I think you've been looking at the dusty remains of some cocaine lines, which would explain your childish verbal ejaculations.

weird hah wrote:

What the f*** have you been looking at? Open up your f***ing eyes!

I've been looking at race results. I think you've been looking at the dusty remains of some cocaine lines, which would explain your childish verbal ejaculations.[/quote]

It's clear to even the casual track fan that you are not looking at the race results.

Fast steeplchases (sub 8:10s) are rare in Championships: not this years' World Championships, nor 03, 99, 93, 91, nor the World Cups in 02, 98, 94, 92 nor the Olympic Games in 2000. In fact, in many of those races the winning times are over 8:15.

I've never seen any of these races be tactical although many track races are. In cross-country and on the roads I see everyone going all-out from the start. Slow downs seem to be natural due to fatigue rather than deliberate.

And I've never seen a tactical steeple. Even the heats are run in low-8:00 times.

All races are tactical, child.

in the steeple, it is advantageous to be leading so i would imagine that lends itself to faster times. i've seen smaller road and xc races go out slowly but i think the sheer amount of people running the races make it inevitable that someone will want to make the race honest. longer track races tend to have, what, about 12-25 runners at most?

Look at the splits from the WC Steeple final today and then rethink your question. As for cross country, it's more tactical than track. You have the elements to deal with...hills, blind turns, mud, etc. Factor in the team tactics in XC, and it takes on another dimension. Road races are almost always tactical affairs, at least at the elite level.

Some smaller xc races are tactical... And The steeple is too burital to let it come down to a furious 200-300 meter kick. Not to mention you still have to hurdle and a water pit during that segment of the race.

A tactical steeple usually is a break from 1k-800m out.

I always thought it was funny that "tactical" means, to track fans, a slow pace at the beginning and a manic dash at the end. What's so tactical about that? Are there not more tactics to employ?

In high school, I used to race a kid with a huge finishing kick. He had faster sprint speed than I did.

So, I took the tactical approach and took the race out really, really fast. He had no kick at the end, and I would win. I took away his best asset.

It's weird that there are so many tactics you can use in a race, but the only one track fans recognize is the "start slow, finish fast" manuever.

By tactical I mean the "Wait for the kick" tactic. You are correct in saying tactical can apply to anything, but it is so commonly used as waiting for the sprint finish that it seemed clear enough that that's what I meant.

No elite cross-country races go out, for instance, like last year's Athens 5K in 77 seconds for the 2nd lap. The pace may be 77 per 400, but it's because of hills or some other obstacle. The effort is always high.

I've seen more "tactical" (i.e., kick at the end, in your limited parlance) steeplechases than I've seen other. That used to be the tactice of choice for almost an entire generation of American steeplers.

Track races have a more limited number of runners, so maneuvering later in the race is more feasible than when there are 100 people in the race.

you have to excuse the mid90s steeple races because the times they were won in low 8's to under 8:20 was not that far off the world record at the time actually. to be under 8:05 was a very big deal. Although this race was won in 8:13, the 8:13 type race of the 90s would be a more even paced affair with surges in the middle by the kenyans then a fast last lap. Just running 8:13 even paced would drop most of the field back then anyway.

And in regards to the word "tactical" yes it is used somewhat incorrectly by distance runners since a race can have many tactics. But that's just how the word has evolved for some reason so everyone knows to use it with that meaning in this context. I think the analagous word for tactical meaning employing any sort of tactics would be strategic. So for the guy who employed the tactic of running hard to get away from the fast kicker, you employed a pretty smart strategy to dispense with the kick. Not that it sounds any better to a non-runner, but to the hardcore fans, that would be what to say I think.