I've been doing a lot of thinking lately of how XC races tend to be run, and this past weekend I got the rare chance to watch one of the meets. I noticed 3 different types of racers.
1. The FFTF
The classic "fade from the front" made famous by everyones favourite marathoner Rob Watson, but surprisingly enough after how much he has told everyone it sucks people still go out way to hard and pay for it in the final few km's. It doesn't surprise me that this tactic is often used in collegiate racing, but still, come on guys! Know your place.
2. The Confidence Booster
I must say that I myself am a big fan of this style mainly because of the benefits of boosting the confidence. It's simple start the race at tempo pace and keep the place you wanna finish in your sights and slowly creep up through the pack and boom, you feel great and you just passed a ton of people. But the downside always is you wish you either did more during the race, or just ran a workout instead.
3. The Winner.
Pretty self explanatory here, the winner of the race, the guy who often did everything right, usually the right mix of guts and blood gets this one. But not always the winner, even 5th place could race like a winner, if they didn't execute either of the 2 other types of racers above, if they ran the perfect race for themselves. That's winning too.
In a Championship race on the other hand, everything goes out the window. Everyone leaves a little blood on the course.
rj
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