Use the Course to Your Advantage
What makes a cross country or road race different from the track? The course. The track is predictable and should be the same place to place, while non-track races vary throughout and almost never the same course to course. While, they may vary, the components to a course are very similar. There will be uphill and downhill and turns and curves. Having a general strategy to approach each of these, we can race to use the course to our advantage.
Turns and curves. This one may seem silly to cover but hear me out, as there is a lot more to it than just running at angle. The easiest way we can use the course to our advantage is by cutting tangents. Just because a course is set up to weave and curve, doesn’t mean we have to run it that way. We don’t have to run in the center of the course or follow along the boundaries. We can run, connecting curve to curve, cutting down distance and running the shortest race possible.
Another strategy is to position properly for tight turns. Generally you want to stay on the inside of a turn, because it’s the shortest distance. But what happens when the turn is almost 90 degrees? If it’s a spray painted boundary keep that inside turn. You can step on the spray paint and keep the inside position, minimizing your distance. However, if there is a post marking the turn keep to the middle or outside. Everyone has the right to maintain their position during the race, which means that if you are inside you may have to slow down, stutter step, or worse get pushed right into post. I have seen too many kids stay inside and take a wooden post to the chest. It’s not worth it. You will lose much more time and have way more splinters getting knocked over by a post, than you would simply staying middle to outside and tacking on a little distance.
Hills. Secondly, most courses will have hills and you must have a plan to run them well. With running downhill we want to lean our hips into them. A lot of runners will stick their neck out in an attempt to increase their speed down a hill but often does very little. Try this yourself- stand up and see how far you can lean your head forward vs. leaning with your hips. We carry most of our weight in our hips and letting gravity pull us down by them will maximize our momentum.
When it comes to running uphill there’s really only one way that makes sense to run them- steady. Why waste a bunch of energy powering up a hill when you get more benefit using the energy on level ground? However, there are always exceptions and here are a few of them.
Hills are a great way to create space between you and the competition, especially towards end of the race. If there is a big hill before the finish, pushing up it can give you the distance you needed as most people aren’t going to chase you down up the hill.
If the top of the hill goes straight into a downhill pushing a little harder can make sense as you can use the momentum downhill to let the burning subside in your legs.
Top off the hill on the upcoming flat or downhill to gain the position advantage. Topping off a hill, is a short surge done right as the hill ends. This is where everyone generally slows down and putting in a little extra here can give you the advantage.
Bottom line, have a plan for racing each part of the course.