Start Your Kick Sooner: The 3-Minute Trigger

In high school cross country, I learned one of the most valuable race strategies I’ve ever been taught—and it had nothing to do with the start, splits, or even the last 100 meters.

It was all about when to really start your kick.

Most runners finish with a flashy final 50 to 100 meters. You've seen it: the arms pump, the stride opens up, maybe the crowd cheers a little louder. It looks good. But here’s the problem—if that’s when you’re starting to move, you're probably only catching the runners you should have already been ahead of.

My high school coach saw this all the time. She used to say, “If you're waiting until the crowd can see your kick, you've already missed your chance to beat the people who matter.”

So, she taught us a different approach—one I still share with athletes today.

The 3-Minute Trigger

Before every race, during our warm-up, we’d head to the finish line and run the course backward for about three minutes at an easy pace. At that 3-minute mark, we’d look around and find a landmark—a bend in the trail, a fence post, a trash can, anything—and that would become our personal trigger point.

That landmark meant one thing: go time.

When we hit it in the race, no matter how we felt, we committed to moving. Not a wild sprint. Not a full kick. But we turned the intensity up and started closing.

What happened? Our finishes didn’t look as “shiny,” but our placements skyrocketed. We were already in position to kick with the people we needed to beat, instead of flying past people we should’ve dropped earlier.

Tips to Make This Work for You

1. Train for it
   We had a section of trail back home we called The Piece. It was a 3- to 4-minute segment that we ran through almost daily. And the rule was simple: no matter how tired you were, you ran The Piece hard. It trained our minds and bodies to know we could always find a gear for just a few more minutes. You can find or create your own “Piece” in training.

2. Reframe the effort
   Your trigger point is three minutes at an easy jog. At race pace, that stretch is probably closer to 2:30. So we’d tell ourselves, “I can do anything for 2:30.” And it’s true. You can.

3. Commit to it
   I’ve shared this strategy with a lot of runners over the years. Most nod, smile, and never actually try it. But those who do? They start finishing races in the spots they belong. This isn’t just about looking fast—it’s about being smart and finishing where you should be.

Live What You Love,
~ Coach Dusty