KICKING
BUTT
KICKING
BUTTDoes the race director look directly at you while announcing that only the faster runners should be up front? Do you really strain it for a sub-forty 10K personal best only to rank 16th in your division? When you finally get an award, is the applause weak? Well, it's time to get in there and start kicking butt!
Let's say, as an example, that you can realistically expect to run a 40:00 10K. Only a small fraction of such runners go at a flat 6:26 pace. No, the overwhelming majority run races of gradually diminishing expectations. They go out at about a 6:15 to 6:20 first mile tapering off to a determined 6:30 to 6:35 final mile. Well, if that kind of 40:00 10K is possible, reversing the pacing is equally possible.
Go out at a 6:35 first mile. Relax and use the first couple miles just to get warmed up. Don't pay any attention to the other runners. Many of the fast starters start to fade at about the mile mark. At about the two-mile mark, pick up the pace a little and slowly begin to systematically pass runners. Every now and then someone will take up the challenge, but just stay calm: the challengers have already lost the race back in the first two miles. Don't stop at the aid station. Use it to pass another bunch of runners and turn up the pace a little more. Turn it up again at the four-mile mark.
If there's going to be a fastest mile, the last mile is the place for it. Bear down until it hurts and the breathing is labored and remember, relief is only a few minutes away. Here's where the principle rivals come back into focus (remember, the ones who were pulling away early in the race). Only now you're doing a 6:15 pace and they're doing a 6:35 and it's a race to the finish line. After the race, a lot of runners ask about how you finished and explain how they tried to keep up but couldn't. That's kicking butt!
Kicking butt in Track Club races is always fun, but the smaller fields of tougher, more experienced runners makes these races less than ideal. No, the best races for the back-in-the-pack runner are the larger charity 10Ks having several thousand participants. Here's the place to put on the Track Club uniform, run a smooth, tightly disciplined race, pass hundreds of runners and finish with a personal-best or near-personal-best time.
Several events deserve special mention for being particularly enjoyable kicking-butt races. One is the Night Moves 5K on the San Diego State campus. At least 90% of the thousand or so participants are students. There's a lot of obnoxious fraternity guys, some in cut-off jeans and high-topped basketball shoes, plus plenty of good looking women. Watch out! This is one of the fastest starting races in San Diego, but it's also a race where people are walking at the one-mile mark. The course is tough. When going down the steep hill amid the chorus of slapping footsteps in the first half mile, just remember the course comes back up that hill at 1 1/2 miles. But shortly after the two-mile mark it's flat and here's the place to really turn it on. Hundreds of thoroughly dissipated students watch helplessly as you glide smoothly by. (Being a 50-year-old professor at that institution doubles the pleasure.)
A second especially good kicking-butt race is the San Onofre 10K held on the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base. At least 80% of the 300 or so participants are marines. This race also gets off to a fast start. The course is a fairly easy loop over pavement, gravel and dirt roads. Start bearing down after about two miles. Expect a lot of challenges here; marines are feistier than students and carry an image of great physical prowess. When they look over and see a man more than double their age passing, they don't give up easily. Some throw in two or three major surges, but all for naught. A several block long straight stretch provides a great place for sprinting across the finish line amid raucous clapping, whistling and cheering and followed by a stream of gasping marines. Now that's kicking butt!
December 1986
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