There is little an athlete can do to change their inherent determination, but the vitality of an elite kick cannot be understated. It’s something you can’t really quantify, but it definitely exists.” “Sometimes you just see it at the end - it’s a pure determination of somebody to find a way to get there first. “There’s a big determination part of it,” Dolan said. Dolan says it is a matter of “practicing it, and doing workouts that allow you to execute it.” But there is also an intangible quality to the kick that is often what separates the best from the rest. After such intense exertion over a long race, it takes a great degree of fitness to muster speed in the final stages. “People talk about their personal bests but in the end, when it’s championship racing, it all comes down to: Can you win the race? Can you finish as high as possible? Can you outkick the person next to you?”Ī kick is the result of meticulous preparation. “Whether it’s scoring at the Ivy League championships, winning a race, or making it to the next round, all these situations come down to beating the person next to you,” coach Steve Dolan said. In many cases, a good kick is the difference between winners and losers, between champions and spurned runners-up. What Morganti is referring to, and what so many distance runners spend so much time striving to perfect, is the period at the end of a long race in which the athletes give maximum effort to dial up their speed and cross the finish line as fast as possible - better known as the “kick.” Each runner has a different strategy, a different affinity for the technique, but its importance remains the same across the board.

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