7 Tips to Develop Your Kick
Have you ever been passed right at the end of a race? Not a great feeling. It’s so much more fun to be the one with a fast finish. It feels good to finish strong and run past other runners.
If you struggle to finish strong, here are a few tips to develop your kick.
Don’t Start Too Fast
Even the best runners in the world will fade to the finish if they burn all their energy too early in the race. Proper pacing is essential to finishing strong.
Make a Habit
Aim to finish every single run or workout with your best running. This doesn’t mean you run max effort at the end of every session. You may feel like you could still go much much faster at the end, and you choose not to because it’s an easy day. But you should finish faster than you started, even on easy run days.
Practice Changing Gears
Incorporate interval workouts with pace changes. A workout I often schedule for my athletes is progressive 3 minute intervals where they increase their speed every minute. This feeling of speeding up again and again helps the body learn how it feels to change gears.
Cue Yourself
My go-to suggestion to help runners “find” their kick at the end of a race is to either pump the arms faster (the legs will follow!) or simply take faster steps (increase cadence). Say or think to yourself: “pump the arms faster!” Or “quick steps!” to help you get going.
End Workouts with a Flourish
In workouts, you can occasionally end with a “tag” interval where you run quite fast and hard (sometimes this is an all-out effort). The distance can be anywhere from 200m up, though I don’t recommend anything longer than a mile. The distance of the tag interval should be decided with the goal of running faster than you did during your workout. So in general the tag interval is shorter or about the same as the intervals you did in your workout.
Don’t Chance It
Many runners hope they’ll be able to kick at the end of the race rather than deciding to kick at the end of their race. This is a mistake. As long as you pace yourself properly early on, you will be able to kick. So make the decision ahead of time that you will finish strong, planning exactly at what point in the race you want to change gears and start your kick. Try not to kick too early, or else it will be hard to maintain your top gear all the way to the end of the race. You may decide to have a 2-step kick (similar to the progressive intervals described above) saving your very top gear until just nearing the finish line.
Visualize Your Finish
Once you’ve decided to kick and you’ve determined where you want to change gears in the race, close your eyes and imagine yourself doing just that. Think about how it will feel to finish strong. Imagine watching yourself from the sidelines, witnessing your strong fast finish. Then go make it happen!
Nicole Sifuentes is a full-time Running Coach for adults of all ages and abilities. She is a former professional runner and 2-time Olympian, and Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist. Read more about her services, and schedule your free coaching consultation.