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Quote from: Final Phenom on December 30, 2017, 05:46:38 pm

your approach to races always confuses me.

why? it's literally racing, lmao.

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Why not focus all your efforts into getting the best possible 5k time, what's the point in splitting your focus into 2mile and 5k?

my main objective is always top 3.

after you hit 2 mile (~3.2k?), 5k is only 1.1 more miles away.

best possible 5k time isn't racing. If I say to myself, i'm going to try as hard as possible to stick it out for 2 miles (with the leaders), then that's racing. If I let them dust me and pace safely, then that's not racing, that's PB/time hunting, which is fine but i'd rather race. If you hang with the leaders for 2, you never know how it will turn out .. gives you the best possible chance at top 3, even if you're dead by 2 miles - because alot of people die out hard in their third mile. You never know who else is being pulled out of their comfort zone by there being more people in the pack racing for top 3, and if they get pulled out of their comfort zone, they can fade as well, especially if they were expecting an easier race.

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I feel like you would end up getting a suboptimal result for both than if you just paced yourself identically for each mile.

if you're the fastest guy there you can do that .. but if you're not the fastest, you can't do that if your goal is top 3.

even pacing is fine but there's less risk. risk is what makes or breaks you. it can make you - by allowing people who are faster than you to "pull you", adrenaline etc. It can break you because you can end up going way beyond threshold and not being able to finish strong. If keeping up with them eventually breaks you and you can't finish strong, well at least you tried - and if you tried hard enough, you'll PR something because you're running with people faster than you. If you PR something that's progress. Doesn't matter if it's the 5k itself or subsets of it (2.5 mi, 2 mi, 1.5 mi, 1 mi etc). PR is a PR, limit has been pushed.

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If you really want to PR for 2 mile why not just run 2 miles?

where in a race setting?

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Not claiming to know better you are the board endurance specialist but just curious 

nah np. it's fine.

this race is ~5:20 min/mi guys for 5k. I've done 5:24 min/mi for 1.7 on my own. So, I know I can hang with them for 2. I might have problems around 2, or I might be able to keep it going. If I have problems, then I have to gut out a good mile while fading, and still probably PR my 5k (because I already PR'd my 2 mile). If I keep it going, then I have the opportunity to crush my 5k PR considerably, while also PR'n a ton of other segments within the 5k (like 2 mi etc).

If this race was 4:50 min/mi guys for 5k, my goal would be to hang with them for 1.x (~1.25).

If it was 5:55 min/mi guys I wouldn't be talking about 2 mile PR's, 5k PR's etc. That would be a more comfortable race, and would probably be even pacing.

In a nutshell, racers make more progress than time hunters, from what i've seen with people on the local scene. Racing mentality is very different: it's considerably more aggressive. Time hunting with safe/precise pacing is fine, but there's usually much less risk. Taking huge risks can wreck you or pay off big. If you play it safe, you're always in the middle. If you take the risk, you may have the run of your life unexpectedly and perform well beyond what you thought you were capable of.

When I look at a race, i'm looking at top 3 and how fast they finish historically (for that race). Then, based on their times, i'm trying to figure out how long I should be able to keep up with them & what will I PR if I do, then what should I manage to finish the race with after that effort.

Also here's a recent example of it:

https://www.runnersworld.com/chicago-marathon/jordan-hasay-makes-a-bold-decision-be-brave-and-race

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Jordan Hasay Makes a Bold Decision: Be Brave and Race

Defying her coach’s advice, Jordan Hasay made a midrace decision to stay with the leaders at the 2017 Chicago Marathon. And her instincts to do so paid off.

In her second attempt at 26.2, she finished third overall in 2:20:57. She had a two-minute PR, and her time vaulted her to second on the all-time list of American marathon performances.

Early on, she faced a quandary. She could either stick with Tirunesh Dibaba, who has won three Olympic gold medals on the track and has a marathon best of 2:17:56, which is five minutes faster than Hasay’s previous best of 2:23:00.

Or she could hang back off the lead pack, tuck in behind a male runner going at about 2:22 pace, and try running a PR.

Hasay chose the former.

“I think it’s more important to compete,” she said. “I’ve studied the different marathons, and it’s easier, mentally and physically, to be sitting in a pack than it is to run by yourself. I just kept looking at the lead car, and our kilometers were anywhere from 3:15 to 3:20. Our projected time was 2:17 to 2:18, so I just thought, ‘Well, okay!’ ”

She wasn’t scared, even when she went through 10 kilometers in 32:29—faster than she ran the 10,000 meters on the track in 2016 at the Olympic Trials—and halfway in 1:08:50.

pace in training, race in racing!

^^ That's also "The Kenyan Way" btw..

Anyway, can't be afraid of taking beatings etc.. The racing angle is much more like combat. Need to take beatings but stay in their valiantly, before you can dish the beatings out.

peace!

Quote from: Final Phenom on December 30, 2017, 11:26:21 pm

Quote from: adarqui on December 30, 2017, 07:58:03 pm

In a nutshell, racers make more progress than time hunters, from what i've seen with people on the local scene. Racing mentality is very different: it's considerably more aggressive. Time hunting with safe/precise pacing is fine, but there's usually much less risk. Taking huge risks can wreck you or pay off big. If you play it safe, you're always in the middle. If you take the risk, you may have the run of your life unexpectedly and perform well beyond what you thought you were capable of.

Hmm. I definitely see your points but for the sake of argument I'll go against your point of making more progress with a racing mentality, I think most progress would be made during training not the actual race. I could be underestimating how much the higher intensity of a race can actually help you improve though.

Sure but, you can train all day and be horrible at competition. You have to "train competition". If you have a great training group, you can try to stimulate that environment outside of official competition, but it still falls short. Better than nothing though that's for sure. However, you just can't stimulate the pressure of real racing, just like you can't stimulate the pressure of a official basketball/ultimate game/tournament, boxing match, dunk session in front of random people/fans etc.

One can make incredible progress outside of competition, but then fall apart during the actual competition.

So training needs to extend itself to competition -> if you don't have alot of experience competing, you need to "train" it more. Once you acquire years of experience competing in your chosen field, then it becomes a different story.

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I do see your point that your potential is different day to day. I guess I was thinking more of anaerobic training where if you don't pace properly you can end up really burned out at the end and end up with a really suboptimal result.

well it's the same in a 5k race or mile etc.. if you step outside of your comfort zone, it becomes more anaerobic and you can start to tank, or you might be able to battle more than you expected in a competition environment. Adrenaline & competition stimulation (chase) is a huge difference maker.

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Which is what would happen to me conditioning during practice and burning out early because I would start too strong. Terrible feeling and you look silly for not knowing your limits. Endurance running is a completely different beast from that

Right but, the difference between training & competition:

In training, you are more likely to quit when you surpass your thresholds. In a race, you are more likely to keep going, though perhaps in a more debilitated state. For example, i've quit on myself hundreds of times in training, especially when training alone. I've never once quit on myself in a race, even when PR'n my mile in the very first mile, then holding on the last 2.1. I wanted to quit, but I didn't. The race itself & competition stimulation keeps you going. So, in such an environment, you have a few new weapons available to push your limits.

My splits for my PR 5k (18:22 official, 18:16 watch)) last year were like, 5:15, 5:55, 6:35 (just off top) something like that. That's still my best two mile EVER (11:20). So, not even 2-mile attempts on my own have beat that time, though i've come close. Nor has my 5k PR of 18:05 official (17:51 watch) beat that time either. My strategy that race was to last 1.5 with the fastest guy there. I think I made it ~1.1 or so before he started pulling away. After the race he told me I really "scared him", he didn't know who I was, he wanted to win. So I pulled him into a faster mile than he was expecting. He finished running ~16:30 IIRC. IMHO, that's a great example of it.

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So by racing you are gambling on your body to be at its best and if that ends up the case you end up with the best possible result that you couldn't have achieved by strict pacing.

nah .. body doesn't have to be at it's best. Just need to push yourself. It may or may not be at its best: the idea is to find out. If it's not, no problem, just keep trucking. If it is, you've now tapped into this new potential that was made available to you. You leveraged the "release" of a certain level of inhibition. Huge opportunity for growth, have to be ready to grab it.

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I bet its a lot more fun to race with the top runners too

yup, definitely. You learn alot about them and yourself, while it's happening. You listen to how they breathe, see their cadence, watch how they adapt/force pace changes, watch how they use the course (where they run), how they round turns etc.

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As for the 2 mile PR in a race setting.. If you were PB hunting you could go all out in the 2 mile and walk the rest of a 5k lol

Yup.. nothing wrong with that IMHO .. Ideally, you'd PB and just coast it out. To gut out the remainder of the race, is a great tool. It's not easy, it's absolutely brutal. So I take advantage of that. However, I tell myself that if I need to walk in order to get the PB, i'd do it.. Just to try and convince my body to give me more resources when I request them.

Alot of my theories lately around improving performance center only on reducing inhibition. So, that's why you see me trying to leverage competitive environments (races) as one of the biggest tools to push my limits. If my goal every time were to run a "strict race", well within what I think i'm capable of, based on training sessions & such, that would be fine but it's not aggressive enough to get to the elite level IMHO.

My racing strategies are alot like how I dunked. I loved throwing lobs high as fu*k and trying to catch them. Now my lob is someone faster than me that I have to catch.

Finally, I linked this in one of the previous posts, it's the guy who came in third place last year at this same race:

https://www.strava.com/activities/816857463

He's an "old fart" (46?) who is a local legend (probably could be competitive masters nationally). Has top 3 (many #1's) in so many races around here. He's beat me every race but that might be ending fairly soon, hopefully. I have mad respect for him, he's consistent af and he knows how to win. He has so much experience it's crazy .. can pace exactly, can do negative splits, can do whatever he wants usually. He's pretty fast. I mean he can drop 16:XX 5k's @ ~46 and beat a D1 college kid home for winter/thanksgiving break, that's damn good.

Anyway, look at his splits:



Those are racing splits. This is a guy who will pace evenly if he has #1 in the bag. So for some reason, he was "worried". He hung with the lead pack for mile 1, then fell off considerably for #2 and #3. That 5.19 was outside of his comfort zone that race, but he got sucked into it for whatever reason. He's in good enough shape to recover from it and keep battling out some nice splits, but you can see he really took a hit.

Anyway he got #3 overall in that race (17:08 @ 5:31min/mi). Had he not gone out with the leader for mile 1, he probably wouldn't have gotten #3 overall because he wouldn't have known how hard he'd have to work to overcome some of the other people in that pack.

Also look at his 2 mile.. "2nd best estimated". This is a guy who has dropped several 16:XX 5k's and that's his 2nd best estimated 2 mile.. Shows you alot. Normally he paces himself better, but that's probably because he's comfortable about his position in the race.

Here's a similar race, from 2014:



Similar first mile split, better 2nd/3rd. That 5k is even faster than the one today, much faster. So he was probably much more prepared to handle it than the traditionally slightly slower one.

So in a nutshell, if you analyze the data of successful "racers", if they aren't THE FASTEST, you see lots of fluctuations in splits etc. Someone who is easily the fastest can just go TEMPO their 5k etc.. no problem. But for everyone else, it's more of a battle usually.

That's just my perspective/experience on it so far.

peace man!!

- run 5 km in 22:58
legs dead, especially calves just felt heavy. meant to run farther but this was a struggle. funny that i still beat december goal despite feeling like crap. did not check pace once during run.

- walk 1 km

- stretch

getting on a plane in a few hours. tired and sad.