Training — Tips for developing your kick at the end of a running race

Coach Joe English

What we’re talking about here is the following scenario. Let’s say you’re in a 5K road race. You’ve made it through the first 2.5 miles and you’ve found yourself in one of two situations: 1) you’ve just caught up to someone ahead of you and you decide to overtake them, or 2) someone has just caught you and you need to decide whether you are going to challenge them.

These present themselves somewhat differently. In the case of catching someone, you’ll likely have the element of positive energy and adrenaline that may take over and carry you forward. If you’re being passed, you’ll have to first make a split-second decision as to why you’re being passed (are you slowing down or did the person behind you speed up, for example) and defensively decide what to do. In either case, let’s assume that we’re 1/2 mile from the finish-line and we’ve decided to go for it. It will now come down to what you did to prepare and how you play the next 30 seconds!

Those first 30 seconds
Those first 30 seconds are so critical, because you have the ability to blow the whole finish of your race apart in how you react. As we’ll get to in talking about your training, you must have trained at higher speeds to be able to sustain higher speeds over more than a period of a few seconds. If you haven’t done that training and you pick up your pace to a speed that you can’t sustain (let’s call it a ’sprint’ for now), you’re likely going to carry that speed for about 30 seconds or so and then dramatically slow down. In fact, you’ll probably slow down to a speed even slower than you were running before you took off — because you will have plunged yourself into oxygen deficit and will be suddenly panting or find your muscles screaming at you.

Now if you have done the appropriate speed work to ready yourself, you still have to be careful in that first 30 seconds. You need to remember that you’ve only got so much speed to give. You need to make sure that you pick up the pace to a pace that you can maintain without going over your limits. Remember that you don’t know that the other runner is going to be able to sustain their kick pace. Often times another runner may pick up the pace to a pace that they can’t sustain. I’ve seen many a runner pass another runner at a high rate of speed only to slow down and have the other runner over-take them 250 meters or so further down the road.

So that first 30 seconds is essential in that you have to pick up the pace, but not get so crazy that you blow yourself out of the water. Now if happen to be within those last 30 seconds of the race, you can pretty much go all out, because you are going to simply go anaerobic for a few seconds and the race will be over. The more difficult case that we’re talking about is when you have to pick up the pace and keep it there for say 2 1/2 to 4 minutes at the end of the race.

Training for the Kick
So if you want to keep up that speed for that last few minutes of the race, how should you train to develop that closing speed? Here are a few things to keep in mind.

First, your quality (or speed) workouts are crucial in developing the muscular strength and efficiency to run fast. If you’re not running fast in your speed workouts, you can’t have an expectation to close a race at high speed. You will already be fatigued at the end of a race, so you’ll be asking your body to push even harder than it is already going. This means that your speed training has to have been there to give you the jets when you ask for them. The type of speed work that will really pay off here are 1) short, fast intervals of 50M, 100M, 200M and 400M; and 2) speed work in which you raise the pace at the end of the interval, such as an 800M interval with the last 50 or 100 meters hard.

Second, you should incorporate closing speed drills into your long runs. You can do this in any or all of the following ways:
— Run at goal pace until the last three miles of the run and then pick up the pace progressively in each of the last three miles. Do this run without stopping. For example, if you were running at a goal pace of 7:00 per mile, you’d drop the pace to 6:55, then 6:50 then 6:45 in the last three miles. This works you by making you push hard when you’re already fatigued and let’s you get a sense of what it feels like to push the pace when tired.
— Run at goal pace until the last two miles and then stop to recover for 1:00-2:00 minutes. Then run the last two miles at time trial pace (as hard as you can over those last two miles). In this example, if you were running a goal pace of 7:00 minutes per mile, you might try to run these last two miles evenly at 6:30 pace or below. This will be a very fatiguing effort, but will pay off. Usually, you won’t close hard for more than a mile in a race, but this will definitely get you in the mood to do so.
— Close your runs by progressively picking up the pace over the last mile and then pushing as hard as you can in the last 30 seconds or so of the run. This will develop closing strength when you are fatigued and coming to the end of a run.
— Simulate being passed at the end of a run by cranking up the pace with one mile to go and seeing how long you can sustain it.

One final thing that you can do to work on your kick: get out and race. If you put yourself in racing situations, you’re going to practice these skills. If you live someplace with 5Ks most weekends, enter yourself into these races frequently. You can use them as speed workouts and then you can practice your kick by challenging other runners or responding to their challenges. This is definitely an area where practice makes perfect.

If you’ve paced yourself correctly in a race then you should be able to draw up the reserves in those closing moments. Many people get passed at the end of races, because they’ve gone out too hard and then they have nothing left when someone passes them at the end of race. My hope for you is that you pace yourself correctly and that you can be the one doing the passing as you close those races.

Now, go out there and kick some tail!

Coach Joe English, Portland, Oregon, USA
Running Advice and News
www.running-advice.com

No related posts.