[TomasBlack]

Hi, my name’s Tomas and I’m a young mountain runner from the UK. Before my races, I tend to do some research of other competitors to get a better idea of their strengths/weaknesses in order to help decide on a race plan and certain pacing strategies. The amount of research/analysis I do depends on the distance, elevation and overall importance of the race. For example, for my A race this year I made a spreadsheet of all my competitors and analysed their training leading into the race in order to gauge different strengths/weaknesses as well as making a spreadsheet of previous race times (past 8 years) in order to calculate what sort of time splits I’d need to be hitting in order to achieve my goal. In smaller races (mainly B races), I usually do analysis of certain competitors. For example, for my B race in July I researched that another competitor is a very fast runner overall, but didn’t have much experience on technical terrain. This allowed me to know where and when I was going to hold back or make a move before the race had even started.

I’ve done some opposition analysis/research before every race this year and I must admit sometimes it’s not helped me at all and the race plan went out of the widow, but for certain races it has worked perfectly and allowed me to place higher than what (I believe) my physical capabilities would allow.

I’m just curious as to how much time (if any) is spent researching other athletes/competitors prior to races, or does the full focus go onto the individual athlete and how they can utilise their own strengths, instead of how to exploit the weaknesses of other athletes? I so, what type of analysis is conducted? Would you look at the training history leading into the race, or would you look at splits at previous races in order to identify if any athletes are weaker in certain areas? Thank you!

[Scott Johnston]

Tomas:

Thanks for writing in with your question. It is an interesting approach that I have heard of being used in such detail. I tell my athletes to focus on what they can control, themselves and not on their competitors, whom they can’t control. Say you beat one fo your traditional rivals. Did you beat him because you had a great race or was it because he had a bad race. Say you had a the race of your life and still placed below others in the race that you expected to beat. That can color your perception of what was an outstanding race for you.

What if your rival, who normally fades late in the race o the uphills has changed his training and now is a beast on the hills and you are hanging back waiting to make your move. Especially in these ultra long races there is so much time elapsed and so many ups and downs I just don’t think that sort of calculation can be super successful. It doesn’t even work 100% in a 5000m on the track when there are far fewer unknowns.

I hope this helps,
Scott

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