Where Should You Line Up at the Beginning of a Race?
One of the interesting things to observe at a road race is where people line up at the starting line. Invariably you will see people line up at the very front who have no chance of winning the race, sometimes forcing the true contenders to line up further back and have to run around (or inadvertently trample) the slower people. I’m not sure what goes through their minds, but I’m sure they just want to be in the middle of the action. If you are one of these people, the courteous thing to do is to line up further back and let the fastest people line up in front.
In some races, especially marathons, the race directors put up signs indicating where people should line up, based on their goal pace per mile. So that’s a good thing to check for.
In most races these days, you get an electronic chip that records when you pass the starting line and the finish line. That means you can line back aways and still get an accurate time from when you cross the starting line, rather than from when the gun sounds. Some people even take this to an extreme and wait a few minutes after the race starts before crossing the starting line. That gives them a wide open road to run on. I wouldn’t do it myself, but I guess it works for them.
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