Track and Field Blogs - RunDMC

I have run two races that were largely comprised of high school kids in the past few weeks because they are having training camps here in Mammoth. By the way, “training camp” is a serious misnomer. They stay in resort condos, are well fed, and have vans drive them to all their runs on marked courses with support stations. When I was in high school, “training camp” was showing up at school at 8am for the 2 weeks before school started to go for a run with the team. I’m just jealous.

The first race was a trail Half Marathon and the main problem with these kids was a lack of pace judgment. To me that is pretty minor because I would not have had a good concept of pacing for a race that long in high school either – especially given the 8000ft altitude. A few of them surprised me and held on all the way to the finish ahead of me. The second race was the Chart House 5k/10k in Mammoth. This start of the race was a melee to rival the battle scene of “Braveheart”. These kids were shoving and darting back and forth. Inevitably, there was a fall in the first 50 meters. Some kid jumped out to the side without looking behind him and took himself and at least one other person down with him. Of course everyone behind had to come to nearly a stop to go around the people pile.

Next we entered the first turn and there was more darting back and forth. Some kid almost took my legs out cutting sideways through the group. He did it again in the next turn 100m later so I gave him a little swat on the side with the back of my hand and told him to run in a straight line. He looked at me uncomprehendingly like a Kalahari Bushman would look at a nuclear particle accelerator. Then came the first hill. It is about 1/2 mile long and I passed about 30 of the kids who had jockeyed so hard for their position in the first 1/4 mi.

There was a split at about 2mi where the 5k runners made a U turn and the 10k kept going. That is when the course cutting started. We turned a corner where there was a very wide sidewalk and the kids next to me jumped up on the sidewalk and cut about 20ft off the course. In a neighborhood loop, they ran through people’s yards at corners. I was embarrassed for them. On a bright note, they did take the straightest line on a main road through an S turn and I followed cutting across both lanes of traffic twice. Outta the way, Mr. Giganto Truck. I gotta cut you off. I’m running a race here!

I spoke to the coach of the kids after the race and told him about the course cutting but was also clear that the kids that beat me would have beaten me anyway. He seemed to understand my concern. I don’t know if he would say anything to them, but I said my peace. He also told me that many of the kids were running quite a bit more mileage than me. That made me feel good since only 4 or 5 high school kids beat me in the race. I think that is further proof that they do not know how to pace or conserve energy for later in the race because many more should have beaten me.

Running is not just throwing one foot in front of the other quickly. There is pacing, tactics, conservation, surges, patience and recovery all during the same race. Some just know these things inherently. Others will learn, some faster than others.