elmer j. fudd, he of looney tunes fame, famously and dubiously, we might add, proclaims, "be vewy vewy quiet. i'm hunting wabbits!" it was and is a constant battle for him to catch these said "wabbits." the same cannot be said for runners.
rabbits are a pacing mechanism used in some races by elite athletes to hit goal race finishing times. the theory goes that the rabbits will pace the lead group for at least half of the race distance at the goal pace time in order to help them attain a specific finishing time, most often of the record (course, national, country of origin, world) variety. one could rightly ask, what would be the point of these mechanisms otherwise? the rabbit has a predetermined pull-off point at which they stop running. not fall back to a slower pace, but literally stop and quit running.
the wall street journal has an interesting article running today about the ban on rabbits in the new york city marathon. for several years the race organizers have eschewed rabbits for tactical racing. the idea behind this runs something like this: when you eliminate people employed in a race for the specific purpose of pacing the lead runners to a goal time you require the runners themselves to manage and dictate that pace over the total duration of the course, not just part of it. it also requires that the runners accept the mental burden of running in a tactical race for, say 26.2 miles in the case of the marathon, versus part of the race, say 13.1 miles in that same case of the marathon.
i have run competitively, granted not at the same level as people running for a living, and found that one of the most difficult parts of managing a race in order to achieve a desired outcome is the very lack of knowledge of the runners you are running against. in most cases you don't know what their race strategy will be. will they try to lead from the front the entire race? will they yo-yo their pace in order to test the strength, fitness, and endurance of the other runners? will they have a back half pace of brutality that is designed to see who has the most heart in a race rather than the fastest legs? in other words the mental game of furtive glances at the runners, watching as a runner disappears around a corner at a pace you can't maintain in that moment, or playing your cards at the moment you feel is right by accelerating the pace on a hill, flat, or downhill in order to pull away from those around you is not an easy game. it requires an extraordinary amount of mental toughness in the moment.
do rabbits hinder these game? do they steal from the beauty and art of play that unfolds over roads, trails, and fields as runners perspire? and are the two even mutually exclusive? do rabbits inhibit tactical racing?
what say you readers and runners? rabbits or no rabbits?
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