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Comment by wging | Hacker News Reader

> Running in a pack is also just easier, not even considering the wind breaking potential depending upon speed and prevailing breeze.

It is worth noting that for mid-d races it's not just about countering wind, but also air resistance. There is a significant performance impact even if it's not windy. See for instance https://www.runnersworld.com/training/a20823445/does-draftin...: "Pugh runs some calculations to determine that at 4:30 mile pace, drafting one meter behind another runner on a still day saves about 80% of the energy you'd otherwise spend fighting air resistance. That corresponds to about 1 second per 400 meters at that pace, and more on windy days." (Highly recommend Hutchinson's other work on the running and sports science, btw.)

(I am sure you know this. I'm mentioning it for others, because it's applicable to Sowinski's work, far more so than your own pacing for the longer races.)

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4:30/mile pace is faster than all but the fastest amateur runners, and the effect would I assume be less at a slower pace. 1s/400m is less than 2 minutes over a marathon, so something, but not a huge amount.

1m behind is also pretty close to be directly behind someone, you'd be liable to kick each other.

> 4:30/mile pace is faster than all but the fastest amateur runners

The article is talking about middle distance running, typically 800m-3000m, not long-distance running. 1s/400m is actually pretty huge in competition.

> you'd be liable to kick each other.

Front-to-back contact happens sometimes, even in professional races.

But the parent comment is talking about long distance.

I addressed this above: "... because it's applicable to Sowinski's work [meaning middle-distance pacing], far more so than your own pacing for the longer races."

Track races are often won in photo finishes. Everything matters.

And that 2 minutes over the marathon is currently more than the difference between a sub-2 hour marathon (1:59:40) and not (2:01:09):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliud_Kipchoge

Nobody but 'the fastest amateurs' is even doing track.

And Kipchoge is both the fastest and not an amateur.

A 4:30 mile is a respectable mile time for a high school boy.

It's good enough to be competitive at a state level (4:28 placed 7th in CT this year) but won't have D1 coaches salivating at the mouth.

4:30 is not an elite mile pace at any level of male competition except races above 8k. For mid-distance races (typically considered 800m and 1500m, or 1000m indoors or 1600m in Europe outdoors) it would be quite slow. A typical elite (D1 college) 800m time is 1:50, and champions are around 1:40. An above average high schooler recruitable to D3 can run 2:00.

D1 recruits typically have mile time of 4:15 or faster. Most high school distance/mid-distance runners compete in 5k in the fall and 1500 or 3k in the spring. D1 recruitable times for those are 15:00-15:30 for 5k (mile pace of 4:50), 3:50-4:00 for 1500 (equivalent of about 4:07 - 4:20 mile time), and 8:30-8:45 for 3k (mile pace of about 4:30).

Regarding air resistance and "drafting" off a pacer, this is definitely a real effect, although it's a much bigger deal outdoors especially with wind. Often in mid-distance races, there are multiple rounds and you need to qualify for the next by placing highly (not necessarily the same as "fast") in the prelims - it's common for early rounds to have slow times because of "tactical" races where every runner stays in the pack at a slow pace for 3/4 of the race, and then the "real race" happens on the final lap.

source: used to be sort of fast.

In the real world the entirety of college athletics sits inside 'fastest amateurs'. Anything shorter than a 5K is a blip on the landscape of amateur running.

nitpick: 800m world record is 1:40.91

... the 800 is also not a race where the WR time is challenged on a regular basis. Championship 800m racing is a wait and kick affair which never lends itself to ultrafast times because the first 400 is loafed.

The scary thing about David Rudisha's WR set at the 2012 Oly was that it was a solo wire-to-wire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKEOjWEzVGs

That DOES NOT HAPPEN in championship middle distance racing. Does not happen.

Almost all middle distance records are set with precisely controlled tracks, weather, pacers, and racers to provide best conditions and drafting and temperature for the best times.

Rudisha showed up a the Olympic Final, threw down a gauntlet to the field, and blew them away.

You can see at the 500m mark of the video there were four or five runners who perfectly paced and tactically positioned themselves, where 999/1000 times the leader will fall off and get blown away by the chasers. What happens as a chaser is that instictive additional adrenaline surges as you chase down your quarry, and you're running through a draft for additional momentym.

At 500m, Rudisha accelerates and leaves these other runners, who perfectly placed themselves for the usual chasedown, and just leaves them in the dust.

Now consider he is losing 1 second a 400m without a draft/rabbit....

Also, I'd like to point out that the 800m is probably the most painful race of the track events. Typically you'll be well into anaerobic debt as you complete the first lap, and the second lap is allllllll pain. A typical 800m racer will hit 500m or so, his body is saying "HOLY SHIT STOP WHAT ARE YOU DOING" and that's when the racer ... has to kick and exert maximal effort for the next 200-300m.

Rudisha as I understand wasn't a rift valley tribesman, the usual source of Kenyan elite distance runners who have genetic adaptations to altitude and efficient oxygen use / high VO2. He was a Maasai from the central lowlands.

Just an amazing race.

Now, I'm also a cynic of Olympic level performance, but that's for another day.

RE: D1 recruits at 15:00/5k: the NUTS part of that is that 15:00/5k is barely competitive pace for elite MARATHONs these days (under good conditions like Rotterdam, Chicago, or London). So you get recruited for D1 for running a speed for 3 miles that an elite racer keeps up for 26 miles.

Kind of along those lines, a lot of people don't realize how elite rabbits have to be just to run the proper pace for 1/2 to 1/3 the distance. They can't really go under the top 50 in the world to rabbit, otherwise they won't have the reliable talent to run the pace even on a so-so day.

> At 500m, Rudisha accelerates and leaves these other runners

In his 2012 Olympic 1:40.91 win (and WR) his splits were 49.28, 51.63, so he didn't accelerate. He slowed down less than the rest of the field.

In his prior 2010 WR of 1:41.01 his splits were 48.9, 52.1.

So in 2012 he went out slightly slower and then faded less in the second lap. Which is interesting because it's typical of the 800M to run positive splits, but he improved his time by running a bit closer to an even split.

From https://www.runnersworld.com/races-places/a20800858/800-mete...

> In 2007, [exercise physiologist and Science of Sport blogger Ross] Tucker analyzed the 26 men’s world records set for 800 meters in the modern era. He found that 24 of the 26 were set with positive splits. In fact, the last time a world record was set with a negative split was in 1972, when Dave Wottle ran 1:44.3 to bring gold home to the United States. His last lap of 51.4 is also the fastest ever in a world-record race, despite the fact that record has fallen more than 3 seconds in the last four decades.

1:44.3 was at the US Olympic trials. Here's the 1972 Olympics 800 final (one of my favorites):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LHid-nC45k

Wottle wins in 1:45.86 with a slight negative split of ~53.3, ~52.56. Here you could legitimately claim Wottle accelerated on his competitors (he's in last place at 500m), though mostly they went out much too fast and faded badly.

Technically you are correct on splits, but you need to consider what is going on in terms of speed vs effort. The first 100-200m of the first lap involves phosphate energy systems and anaerobic expenditures without debt. Essentially, that is "free speed".

The 800 begins as a race at 150-200m. There anaerobic debt starts to rise in the next 100m, and by 400m we are officially in substantial anaerobic debt.

By "acceleration" I suppose I mean a more nebulous "increase in effort / selling out". At 500m in Rudisha's race, you can see the change in the leaders as everyone begins to try to exert effort above and beyond what their mounting anaerobic debt would sanely allow. I think what happens is that racers try to use the last mental and physical reserves at this point to gain momentum and transition to a sprinters stride in order to gain more RELATIVE speed over the last 300m.

The massive amounts of anaerobic debt in the last 300m, relative to the phosphate and no-debt first 300m of the race, will invariably be slow by the clock. But the speed produced relative to pain and physiological debt, it is much more stark.

Every runner will perceive "kicking" at the end in this manner. The sense of acceleration, real or otherwise, is in relation to an inability many runners don't have in these moments. Physiologically middle distance "kickers" have some sort of hybrid fast twitch muscles they can employ in situations like this that produce higher speeds under extremely high anaerobic debt than other runners. Whether this is also related to higher pain tolerance or other physiological aspects (reduced "lactic acid" release like they claimed Armstrong and Phelps had, etc).

Dave Wottle's victory, which I recall vividly described by Jeff Galloway in one of his books, was a fluke. Wottle was injured, and basically was limited to that speed for the first 400. It was almost as big a fluke as Rudisha's race. He was trying to simply not embarrass himself in the race. So he ran a careful first lap just to try to finish.

The 800m is such a painful event that relies so much on anaerobic tolerance and anaerobic energy stores, that essentially it is a crapshoot under most circumstances. You can't know whether or not that moment of truth: whether you still have kick/speed at 500-600m when everyone else starts also goes "all in" to try to win, whether you'll have the speed that day.

Wottle that day got lucky: all the people in front of him didn't have the stuff, Wottle was able to survive the first 400m and then adrenaline the last 400m. And perhaps the wind that day was particularly graceful towards someone running through the pack, since wind resistance is a factor where you are running 17-20 mph.

By "wind breaking potential" I meant both that from air resistance as well as that from a breeze, but I appreciate the clarification.

Even at the marathon distance it matters as we saw with Kipchoge’s Nike sponsored sub-2 run a few years back. Of course, Kipchoge ran that thing at 4:34/mi pace, not far off middle distance race pace!

I can't remember the source anymore, but I've heard that air resistance becomes a significant factor above roughly 16kph (~6min/mile).

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