Your First Race!

Your first race is probably coming up in about a month. Yikes! What will it be like? How do I warm up? When is my race?

If you are new to cross-country, you will have many questions like these. Your first race might be just a small gathering against a few other schools, or it could be a huge invitational. Let's review the different kinds of races you will probably run.

Dual or 3-Way Meet
This kind of meet is simply a race against one or two other schools. There won't be many runners, and the timing and scoring is likely to be done by hand. Announcements will be made informally, with one of the coaches simply shouting something like, "OK, varsity girls, your race starts in 10 minutes!" Once everyone gets to the starting line, one of the coaches, who will act as the starter, may give some basic instructions, like an overview of the course or a reminder not to cut in front of another runner. Then he or she will step out of the way, and say something like "Runners to your mark; GO!" Off you'll go. When you finish, the coaches who act as scoring officials will have some way to record your place and time. The old school way is to have the runners stay in a line in the order they finish, and hand each runner a popsicle stick with the number of their finishing place on it. You will take the stick to a scoring table where someone will record your name, school, and place. Once everyone finishes, they will tally up which team won the race.

Center Meet or League Meet
This meet is similar to a dual meet, but involves more schools. With more schools, there will be more runners and they may split into more divisions (e.g., separate freshmen and sophomore races instead of a frosh-soph combined race). The starts may be a little more formal, but will still probably be done simply by a coach from one of the participating schools. The scoring logistics could be the old school method described above, or it could be a little more formal, like using bib numbers with tear-off tags.

Invitational
These are big, sometimes huge, events with dozens of schools competing. The atmosphere is usually more formal (and exciting!), with announcements made by experienced race announcers over loudspeakers, perhaps more than one race for each division, and more formal scoring and timing (often using electronic timing chips).

Runners often feel differently about these different types of meets. Some runners like the smaller meets because they're more down-to-earth, but some don't like these because they might feel they are obligated to perform better, maybe even win. These latter runners may like the bigger meets better because there might be less pressure to win, given the tougher competition. Some runners don't like the biggest races because they worry about getting trampled.

Warm-up
Warming up should be easy - your coach will tell you what to do, but it will probably be about the same as what you do to warm up before every workout.

How to Race
I will write more about specifics of racing through the season, but your best approach is to listen to your coach. He or she will probably have some specific recommendations for specific races. Often, early season races, especially smaller ones, allow opportunities for runners to try different approaches like starting out faster or slower than you would otherwise.

"When is My Race?"
This is something that, as a coach, I hear more often than anything else. My usual answer is, "I have no idea." That usually isn't completely true, but the reason for it is that meets usually have an order of races, but not specific starting times. Each race starts a few minutes after the previous one ends. Because you never know when any given race will be complete (i.e., when the last runner will finish), you don't know when the next one will start. There can also be technical glitches that slow things down. The best solution is to listen when your coach tells you the order of races, then keep track of where the meet is, how long each race is taking, etc. After a few meets, you'll get the hang of how they go.

Watching the Action
One of the best things about races is that you will have a chance to watch your teammates and other runners race. Besides the fact that cheering for others is fun, you can learn a lot about racing by watching others. Where do various runners position themselves in the pack, and how does that work out for them? When are the most successful runners speeding up on a specific course? When does everyone start their sprint for the finish?

Let the season begin!!

One Runner at a Time

One of the challenges of running in a larger race (like a big invitational) is that there are so many runners, it might seem overwhelming to try to pass people and move up in the finishing order. That is, it will probably seem to be too big a task to look ahead and see 30 runners that you want to pass: "How can I pass 30 guys?!"

So here's what you do.

Once you get through the chaos of the start, try to find what seems like your "race pace." Then, look up ahead. But only look at the very next runner in front of you. Your mission - indeed, your only mission - is to pass that runner.

Do not think about anything else.

Do not think to yourself: "Self: let's pass those four runners up ahead of me."

Do not think to yourself: "Wow, that runner is too far ahead of me to think about passing him."

Do not think to yourself: "Look at the lovely trees and pond."

The only thing to think to yourself is: "Pass that runner that I see ahead of me."


Within 10 seconds or so, you will pass that runner. Now, your mission is complete.

But you then have a new mission: to pass the runner that you now see in front of you.

Within 10 seconds or so, you will pass that runner. Your second mission is now complete.

But you then have another new mission: to pass the runner that you now see in front of you.

Do you get the picture?

That is all.

Race Pace - Know Where You Should Be

Eventually, you will learn how to pace yourself during a race. You will develop a sense for what a given pace feels like. But until you do, one tool you can use to help you during a race is to know about where you should be finishing. You can do this in big races because you can probably find results from the past year's event.

Here's an example.... Our team is headed to our first invitational of the season this weekend. The newer runners ran their first official race of the season last Friday on a course that is about the same length. Using their per-mile pace as a guide, I could estimate what their time might be this coming Saturday. Based on that time, I am able to guess about where they might finish. For the fastest guys, they will probably be in the top 20 (out of 150-180 runners). The medium guys will probably be in the top 50 or 60. So I can tell the fastest guys that if it looks like there are a number of guys about equal to the total number of guys on our whole team (about 30) ahead of them, then they are probably going too slow. Similarly, if the medium guys see only a couple dozen guys ahead of them, they're probably going out too fast. For the slowest guys, it's probably best to primarily use their own teammates as a guide, i.e., they shouldn't be keeping up with guys they know will finish a minute ahead of them.

It's also possible that you might look up previous years' results and find that you might actually have a chance to win. The only downside of this knowledge is that you probably shouldn't get out and try to lead wire to wire - you might accidentally start out too fast. Instead, you should be a little more patient, and let someone else lead for the first half of the race or so, then move ahead after you determine that's the best plan.