The race to 74 (Boys) or 76 (Girls) points. Win the relay or waste an event. Top three score for individuals. Short rest. Large workloads. Stretching athletes ranges to eek out some extra points. Racing the competition, not the clock. Later today is the annual Boulder vs. Fairview dual meet.
We as coaches spend a lot of time evaluating our strengths and weaknesses (and our competitions). We try to predict where the competition will put their strongest runners. And where they might be vulnerable. I don't wish to reveal all my tricks for this year's meet, so I'll highlight some aspects of last years meet to illustrate the strategy.
Example 1 In Colorado the first distance event is the 4 x 800m. Since 4 runners race, we warmed up 5. This serves two purposes: 1) if the other team is watching they don't know who they'll be racing against. Either the "A" squad or a watered down version. 2) We can then make a "game time" decision on who to race. Last year, on the boys side after 2 legs it seemed apparent the competition was not racing their best team. We started with our top two 800m boys and were then able to hold out our 3rd best 800m runner for the 1600m and 3200m he had later in the day. Bam! Fresher legs...
Example 2 One the girls side we only had one 400m runner we thought could score, so we focused our sprinters on other events. Noticing this I entered one of the distance runners into it on the outside chance the competition only entered 2 athletes in it. I was wrong. They only entered 1. And our distance runner beat her. Bam! 3 extra points we didn't think we had a shot at!
Example 3 Then in the girls 3200m, we raced tactically. That's the nice term for it. Our head coach would probably call it "pimping". Our top two girls would utterly dominate, thus no reason for them to worry about the race. So I told them to sit behind the competition's top runner through 4 laps, then make a big strong move past her. For four laps, she thought she was having the race of her life, trying to push the pace to hold onto the lead. (They came through the mile in about 6:05, but my athletes had already run 11:40 and 11:00 the year before so not at all fast for them). They made their big move, and it demolished her, demoralized her. As they opened the gap she kept slowing, and slowing. Our third runner was running a very paced race, about 25 seconds back at the mile. As they kept going she narrowed the gap, and finally our crowd got into the race. With 200m to go she was still easily 30m behind 3rd place, but she could FEEL the crowd, ABSORB their Energy. She unleashed a kick I never thought she had in her and with 20m to go passed the girl and beat her to the tape before she could comprehend what had happened (It was sort of a "Look and Mills! Look at Mills! moment). 1st, 2nd, and 3rd! 9 Points! Capping our title even before the 4x400 started.
We'll see what I've got cooked up for this meet. This year (as opposed to year's past) I think it's pretty obvious we're the underdogs. It's going to take a great day of competing for us to win.
Speaking of competing (and further adding to my stress!). Fairview's coaches have issued a challenge to the Boulder coaches. A medley relay (200m, 200m, 400m, 800m) at the end of the meet. As the only male distance coach I have been drafted to run the anchor leg. I'll be led out by some fast 20 yr old coaches, and a high 46/ low 47 by our world class sprint coach. Fairview's distance coach is pretty quick though. Will the 7-10 second lead my sprint guys give me, be enough for my old/slow/semi-fat butt to anchor us to the win? I honestly don't know. I sure hope the race goes more like this, than this.
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