Fast finish or sub-par effort in rest of race?

by patrick voo
(barrie, ontario, canada)

Fast finish or sub-par effort

"Hi Marius,

As part of a 7-week training plan between marathons, I just ran a 10k race where I had a strong finishing kick over the last 200m - probably the fastest sprint that I'd had all race.

My question is - does the fact that I had such a strong sprint finish mean that I didn't run hard enough through the rest of the 10k? Did I hold something back? I felt like I was running as quickly as I could (and still maintain decent form) but knew that I had something in reserve for a good dash at the end.

Would love to hear your thoughts - thanks!

Cheers,
Patrick Voo"

Answer: Hi Patrick and thanks for your question.

It is quite an interesting one, and I have two answers to it :

1) MOST runners, when they have pushed themselves close to their potential AND is in top shape have little left in a finish - and especially not a full our sprint. Even the best runners in the world - when they do record attempts, have very little left usually.

2) HOWEVER, some runners seem to always have a little reserve left - probably due to muscular components, and will almost always have something like that, no matter what. You may be one of them, but usually (and for most of us) such a strong sprint indicates that you could have had just a little bit higher average speed on the way (even if it felt like you were pushing as much as you could)

I wish you all the best,
Marius