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Comment by dorkwood | Hacker News Reader

"Beat the Freeze", a half-time show the Atlanta Braves used to put on, is pretty close. It's where a member of the crowd takes on a former collegiate sprinter in a 160m race, and they're given a five second head start.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3UzW1aJXRUw

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> half-time show the Atlanta Braves used to put on

halftime in baseball?! :P

Yeah, halftime in baseball is after the first two quarters, and before the third and final quarter. :P

That last one is very unlucky — it was never a full 5 second head start!

I hadn't heard of this event before but watching the video it does seem like the last one might have beaten the freeze if they had got a full 5 seconds head start. Makes you wonder if the freeze head start is based on how fast you run / how fit they think you are.

It seems like when the freeze is beaten, he is beaten by a hardcore amateur:

https://www.mlb.com/video/braves-fan-beats-the-freeze

It's clear from his form that he's an experienced runner. I googled a bit. He ran track in HS and at least the start of college. These were his HS senior times:

> Was the Region 6-AA Champion for finishing first in the 5k in 2010… Finished third in the state in the 5k in a time of 17:46.66 during the 2010 season.

https://ksuowls.com/sports/mens-track-and-field/roster/parke...

https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/new-dad-atlanta-braves-supe...

It's likely when the challenger happens to pass a certain part of the field, and most people cross that around 5 seconds in.

The dudes they pick utilize poor strategy. They come out the gate hot, and are gassed by 50% of the race. Really, they should be running at a pace they can just barely maintain to the end, and then push all out the last 20m

I've run over two dozen marathons. Even at that distance, it takes a lot of discipline to not go out too fast. These are random people they find in the stands who are going to be very amped up in the moment. Strategy is the furthest thing from their minds and even if weren't, it takes practice to know what your ideal pace is.

Strategy is only good for really, really good runners.

At ~160m, (similar to the 200m), at-pace speed for the pro is already all-out for the average person.

At 10,000 meters, "at-pace" for the Pro is already faster than 100m sprint for the average (Western, sedentary) human.

Do the BOTEC yourself, you'll see.

There was a display at an airport I read about. Had a projector showing the average speed for a champion marathon runner. Most normal people couldn't match it over the short distance.

Couldn't find the link but here is a similar video of people (mostly amateur runners) trying to match a 2h marathon time for two minutes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRYtn0j5ccA

It takes a lot of practice and training to learn how to pace yourself in order to do that strategy. Some rando off the field isn't going to be able to do that. Hell, I think even experienced runners may have trouble doing that for distances that they don't run regularly (e.g. a 100m specialist doing a 800m or a marathoner doing a 100m or 400m).

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