Brian Hanley looks at the implications of a study into pacing at the World Cross Country Championships

A world cross-country champion, in the opinion of many, has always been the best pound-for-pound endurance athlete on the planet.

It s hard to argue with that statement. After all, they need strength, speed, tenacity, tactical awareness and the ability to leave the six best athletes from each country in their wake. Racing successfully over the country also requires a good sense of pacing and, unlike track or road races, there are no accurate distance markers to check an athlete s progress.

In a recent study published in the Journal of Sports Sciences, the pacing profiles used by senior men at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships were calculated using lap times from 1273 competitors across 10 races. Each individual s lap times were expressed as a percentage of the eventual winner s lap times and athletes were grouped according to their finishing position.

The results showed that, as seasoned cross-country enthusiasts will have guessed, most athletes started the race very quickly and slowed soon afterwards. This pacing profile is not unusual in endurance events despite the risk of early fatigue, and reflects the nature of a competition where the times achieved are only meaningful in the context of where they place the athlete.

No matter what standard the athlete, variations in underfoot conditions and challenging course design are common features of cross-country running, and those competing at the World Cross Country have to face the same challenges in pacing themselves correctly as the average club runner.

Here are six key findings from the study that can help cross-country runners to get their pace right:

1. If you aim to win, get close to the front

The results from the World Cross Country races showed that the winner was almost never more than two seconds off the lead pace, with the silver and bronze medallists also keeping up with the front runners.

While starting more cautiously and gradually working your way through the field has certain physiological benefits (and it feels good to overtake the opposition), advantages of being close to the front include an ability to respond to breaks or control the pace if required and crowding at bottlenecks can be avoided.

It is a good idea for elite-standard athletes to undertake prior training sessions that replicate this pacing profile, such as where a fast 800m is completed before 10-12km of less physically demanding, but still fast running. Alternatively, this strategy could be practised in build-up races with the advantage of other competitors being present and more realistic conditions under which to run.

2. Be realistic about your finishing position

Cross country events often have hundreds of competitors and few expect to finish in the medals, although many runners start the race as if they do! This was found to occur even at the highest level at the World Cross, where nearly all athletes followed the lead pace from the gun.

Research suggests that this approach is taken simply because it is the easiest decision to make when the aim is to finish as high as possible. A more sensible approach for athletes who are unlikely to win, but want to do their best, is to avoid the early fatigue caused by starting too quickly and hold back in the early stages. While they started quickly, the very best athletes didn t separate themselves from the larger lead group until after halfway and the winners didn t detach themselves from the other medallists until the very end of the race. A patient approach like this can also be valuable for slower athletes, particularly those who are competing for positions that might affect team standings.

3. Feeling good doesn t mean your pace is sensible

Many athletes enjoy the initial charge at big cross-country events like the English National and it can be difficult to hold back when it seems that no one else is. Research has shown that one reason why athletes start at a quicker pace than they can hope to maintain is because their rating of perceived exertion is low. Put simply, the runners are relatively fresh and excited about competing and so base their pace on psychological feelings at that point, rather than how they expect to feel some miles later.

For many athletes, the right” pace to start with will probably feel like they re going too slowly, but will benefit them later in the race when others are starting to feel the effects of premature fatigue.

4. Make sure you know the course in advance

A typical sight before any cross-country race is groups of athletes making their way around the course to get an idea of such things as lap lengths, positions of hills, muddy patches and the location of the finish line. Because extra small loops are often added to laps to make up the total distance, it s not unusual for small” laps to be almost as long as the large” laps, and runners should make sure that they know how many of each they need to do in total.

Mistakes can be made even by the very best athletes six-time world long-course champion Kenenisa Bekele reportedly misunderstood how many laps were left during the 2007 event in 33C heat in Mombasa and ended up dropping out when he realised he had more distance to cover than expected.

Knowing how much of the race remains is crucial for correct pacing and this also applies to the sprint finish. In six of the World Cross races analysed, the difference between gold and bronze was less than 10 seconds at the finish and judging the end-spurt correctly relies on knowing when to start that final burst.

5. Starting too quickly can be detrimental

The results from the World Cross analysis showed that 8% of the starters ended up dropping out, although it should be added that 28% of these dropped out of the 2007 race that was held in very hot conditions. Many athletes simply start too quickly and drop out once they realise that they cannot maintain their early pace. For example, 17% of those who eventually dropped out had completed the first lap within four seconds of the lead pace but stopped once they slowed to a lap time approximately 35 seconds slower than the winner. However, even those athletes who start unreasonably quickly can still complete the race if they consciously adjust their pace to a more realistic speed.

The knowledge that the finish is near has been found to give a psychological boost (fewer athletes drop out during the final third of the race than either the first or second, and some can even recover enough to speed up again).

6. Cross country provides an excellent training stimulus

Micro-variations in pace have been found in what appear to be even-paced track events and, because of this, training models that involve frequent but small changes in pace have been recommended for elite distance runners. Because of the challenging and varied nature of the courses used, cross-country racing can provide this training stimulus and should be incorporated into a distance runner s annual training programme. Experiencing such variations in pace might also be better for athletes who want to improve their pace judgement rather than running a single, repeated target pace.

Brian Hanley is a senior lecturer in sport and exercise biomechanics at Leeds Metropolitan University and a Level-2 endurance coach

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