Disclaimer: pardon my French.
I don't want to win unless I know I've done my best, and the only way I know how to do that is to run out front, flat out until I have nothing left. Winning any other way is chicken-shit.
- Steven Prefontaine, Without Limits
Anyone who's been running any moderate amount of time - especially if you ran in high school - is probably familiar with Prefontaine. He's the gateway drug for young runners learning about the history and tradition of their sport. (Because of that, he's also probably overrated as an athlete, but that's a topic for another time)
Pre is also a quote-machine, and I don't think this one sums up his trademark front-running style best of all.
Now, I don't completely agree with his sentiment. I like the parts about 'winning doing your best' and 'winning any other way is chicken-shit,' but I'm not a huge fan of the whole 'run out front, flat out' thing. It leaves a lot to be desired in terms of strategy and tactics, which are essentially to winning a race (unless you're David Rudisha and are absurdly faster than anyone else in the world). Pre's agonizing 4th place finish in the 1972 Olympic 5,000m is testament to the importance of tactics.
So if you don't know where I'm going with this and what it has to do with the Thanksgiving Day Race, here it is: I ran 31:23 and finished in 2nd place, one second behind the winner. He used a sit-and-kick strategy, and it was chicken-shit. But (*sigh*) effective.
The first mile went out in a big pack, and after that I threw in a surge to break it up and start racing. Two people came with me, but one of them fell off a couple miles later. For five miles, the eventual winner sat on me. He didn't run next to me, or trade off with me; he just ran right in my shadow. Followed my exact line through turns and across the road, didn't do any of the work. Just sat on my shoulder. And then he kicked for the win in the final block of the course.
Chicken-shit.
And it still pisses me off, even writing about it two weeks later. (Which is part of the reason it's taken so long to get this post up)
Looking back, I suppose I should have played tactics too, and maybe fartleked the pace a bunch, or slowed down to make him do something, or swerved around to get him off my shoulder. But to be honest, I also wanted to run a fast time, which is what makes the 31:23 fairly disappointing. It's a time that I ran last year when I was coming back from an Achille's injury and doing minimal workouts. It's a time I split for the first 10k of the Mill Race Half Marathon. It's a time that is a minute slower than what I've been doing workouts for in the last month. It's a time that I should be much faster than.
(That said, I've been told the new course was running 40-ish seconds slow. And since there were no mile markers or clocks anywhere, that doesn't surprise me. I mean, we've been running this race for 104 years, and we still can't get mile markers? Come on.)
Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to the sit-and-kick tactic. On the professional level, it's what wins championships and Olympic medals. Hell, I've used it plenty of times on the track. However, it does have more of a place on the track, and not the roads (or cross country). It belongs in championship-style races, not turkey trots. In this situation, it just didn't seem very sportsmanlike. It was chicken-shit.
And hell yeah, I'm jealous.
So this one was just a frustrating way to lose. It took a good week or so to get over it. Usually I try to maintain a positive outlook on bad races and look for improvements right away. This one was demoralizing and took some time away to move past it. But now I have, and I've started ramping up for a great winter base and then a fast spring racing season. Can't wait to redeem myself in 2014!
I don't want to win unless I know I've done my best, and the only way I know how to do that is to run out front, flat out until I have nothing left. Winning any other way is chicken-shit.
- Steven Prefontaine, Without Limits
Anyone who's been running any moderate amount of time - especially if you ran in high school - is probably familiar with Prefontaine. He's the gateway drug for young runners learning about the history and tradition of their sport. (Because of that, he's also probably overrated as an athlete, but that's a topic for another time)
Pre is also a quote-machine, and I don't think this one sums up his trademark front-running style best of all.
Now, I don't completely agree with his sentiment. I like the parts about 'winning doing your best' and 'winning any other way is chicken-shit,' but I'm not a huge fan of the whole 'run out front, flat out' thing. It leaves a lot to be desired in terms of strategy and tactics, which are essentially to winning a race (unless you're David Rudisha and are absurdly faster than anyone else in the world). Pre's agonizing 4th place finish in the 1972 Olympic 5,000m is testament to the importance of tactics.
So if you don't know where I'm going with this and what it has to do with the Thanksgiving Day Race, here it is: I ran 31:23 and finished in 2nd place, one second behind the winner. He used a sit-and-kick strategy, and it was chicken-shit. But (*sigh*) effective.
The first mile went out in a big pack, and after that I threw in a surge to break it up and start racing. Two people came with me, but one of them fell off a couple miles later. For five miles, the eventual winner sat on me. He didn't run next to me, or trade off with me; he just ran right in my shadow. Followed my exact line through turns and across the road, didn't do any of the work. Just sat on my shoulder. And then he kicked for the win in the final block of the course.
Chicken-shit.
And it still pisses me off, even writing about it two weeks later. (Which is part of the reason it's taken so long to get this post up)
Looking back, I suppose I should have played tactics too, and maybe fartleked the pace a bunch, or slowed down to make him do something, or swerved around to get him off my shoulder. But to be honest, I also wanted to run a fast time, which is what makes the 31:23 fairly disappointing. It's a time that I ran last year when I was coming back from an Achille's injury and doing minimal workouts. It's a time I split for the first 10k of the Mill Race Half Marathon. It's a time that is a minute slower than what I've been doing workouts for in the last month. It's a time that I should be much faster than.
(That said, I've been told the new course was running 40-ish seconds slow. And since there were no mile markers or clocks anywhere, that doesn't surprise me. I mean, we've been running this race for 104 years, and we still can't get mile markers? Come on.)
Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to the sit-and-kick tactic. On the professional level, it's what wins championships and Olympic medals. Hell, I've used it plenty of times on the track. However, it does have more of a place on the track, and not the roads (or cross country). It belongs in championship-style races, not turkey trots. In this situation, it just didn't seem very sportsmanlike. It was chicken-shit.
And hell yeah, I'm jealous.
So this one was just a frustrating way to lose. It took a good week or so to get over it. Usually I try to maintain a positive outlook on bad races and look for improvements right away. This one was demoralizing and took some time away to move past it. But now I have, and I've started ramping up for a great winter base and then a fast spring racing season. Can't wait to redeem myself in 2014!
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