RACING TACTICS
Installment 1
Breaking a Race into Manageable Sections
A 5k race can be a demanding task. A 5k cross country race with a variety of challenges such as hills, sand, roots, etc. can be even more of a struggle. A sound approach to planning for a cross race is to break the course down into mile or even half mile sections. By focusing on smaller sections at a time the challenge of running a hard 5k cross race is less daunting.
If you’re able to get your hands on a course map, with even the most basic description of mile markers and the terrain of the course, your ability to plot out a race plan becomes that much easier. For the courses that you have already run the ability to visualize the different sections of the race is simplified. For a course such as Holmdel, when you think of the first very challenging mile your approach is clearly going to be much different than when you think of Gloucester County College’s fast first mile on all three variations of the course.
Instead of obsessing over splits in cross country, which are not nearly as important as on the track, think of the amount of energy each section of the course will require and the desired position you would like to be in at each point. The first 600 meters of Holmdel is going to put your breathing and legs to the test earlier than a course such as GCC or Delsea will. Your recovery from that first hill is going to be at much more of a premium, and picking a rough place range you want to be in coming out of the woods to the open field heading to the mile at Holmdel is more important than worrying about the Bowl and the final 2 miles. Similarly, focusing on positioning entering the woods at Delsea and GCC is much more important than worrying about the split at the half mile or mile.
Another effective way of visualizing and then executing a segmented race plan is to view the first half of the race as “Pacing”, and the second half of the race as “Racing”. By keying in on such things as your form, breathing, and positioning in the first 1.5 to 2 miles of a race, your mental energy will be much higher as you get ready to rock and roll the last half of a race or even last mile of the race. By narrowing your focus to half mile or mile segments, and checking off each in your head as you go by the markers, your energy stores will be much fuller as you get ready to close a race off than if you think 10-15 minutes down the line. Remember, you can only control your own race, and even then the control is limited to the next stride you take.
