Best stories about fraudulent / delusional runners

Larry Mboga

When I was in high school, I went to a track camp at a university near my house. At this point, I still thought I was a 400 meter guy, so I was in the sprint camp. Some kid in my sprint group claimed to have run 10.8 in the 100 and 1:56 in the 800. Neither of these times are too fast to believe on their own, but I don't know a whole lot of sub 11 high school sprinters who are also going sub 2 in the 800. Hell, most guys who can run 10.8 would never even try the 800.

The guy didn't look like a sprinter at all. He really didn't look too much like an athlete of any kind. He was a skinny white kid who didn't have anywhere near the musculature that you'd expect from a good sprinter, but he also didn't really look like a distance runner.

When we actually started doing some workouts, it became completely obvious that this kid was full of shit. He was pretty much middle of the pack in everything. Even once it was obvious to us that he wasn't as fast as he claimed, he stuck by his originally stated PRs. I'd pull away from him in a 60 meter sprint, and 5 minutes later he'd be telling me about the time he won states in the 100.

These threads are always fun. I hope you find this little story amusing. I sure as hell do......

Ok, this was in high school circa 1998-1999. There was a kid on our outdoor track team a few years younger than myself who was pretty squirrely and hopelessly dorky. Even more so than the average runner, if you can believe that. Also, he was a pretty terrible athlete. I doubt he scored a single point all season. As you might have guessed our team didn't make cuts.

One day, after getting his shit ruined for the 15th consecutive time that season, he walks up to me and a buddy of mine and says, "Man I just don't get it. I come out here and get killed at the meets, but in practice I'm always AMAZING." Trying to fight the urge to laugh out loud in his face we just respond with something like, "Yeah what's up with that?". From that point on my buddy and I start calling this kid Amazing Man, as an inside joke. Now here comes the funny part.....

A few years after graduating high school I was home visiting the family. My sister was chatting on Instant Messenger and I noticed that there was a screen name on her buddylist that said AmazingMan(insert some random number). I thought to myself, "No way." I asked her who it was and, sure enough, it was the same kid. My sister said, "Yeah, everyone at school called him that. I'm not sure why." I couldn't believe it. I told my sister the story and we were laughing our asses off. And then it gets better. I told her to instant message this kid and ask him why everyone called him Amazing Man. He says, "It's a nickname I got on the track team back in high school because I was so fast." I. Shit. You. Not.

That is really not that great of a story.

Must have sounded a whole lot funnier in your head.

Good thread, though - keep it going.

So...AMAZING MAN, what are your PR's?

On my juco cross country team there was a guy who claimed to have run a 1:53 800 in high school, and got 7th at the state meet in his class. He also claimed to have run a sub-17 5k after getting stoned the previous night. Well, when the season rolled around, he was running terribly (I was beating him badly and I never even qualified for state). Well, another team member looked up the state meet results, and found out that the guy who claimed to be 7th at state was actually not even in the top 70.

Did Frank Soder ever really run a 4:20 or so mile for KU back in the 50s?

I'm a freshman in college and at the beginning of the year I was meeting new people and I came across this huge tool. I told him I was planning on walking onto the track team at our college (we're a d1 school and have had xc for a while, but just added track. Also, our xc team has .9 of a scholarship and is therefore not that great). His response was straight up, "you're not going to make it." He didn't even hear my PRs or anything.

another time I ran into him at the cafeteria. I was at the table with him and a bunch of other people. The conversation switches to running and he just takes over the entire conversation and says how he was a "sick 4x400 anchor" and would "catch fools" and how he ran a 1:59 in the 800 and couldn't walk for a few days. I'm pretty sure he was saying all this shit because there was a pretty hot chick at the table with us. Some girl asked him about cross and he said he made state but "didn't remember his PRs"

I was pissed at this point and googled results for him. I found the following:

18:09 for an xc 5k as a senior at his league champs

2:08.23 in the 800 as a senior (quite far from 1:59, no?)

4:51 in the 1600

59.5 in the 400 Hurdles (not bad, I guess...)

He also swam, apparently (and sucked at it)... but somehow made state?!

28.17 50 yard free

1:16.84 100 yard free

2:25.12 200 yard free

So basically he's a huge liar. I also talked to the track coach and was on the team... as a redshirt... but all he does is play ultimate frisbee now.

I have seen plenty of people say their best mile time only to find out that is their best 1500 time, same with the 3k/2 mile. If anyone ever mentions anything about a time they split as an anchor I discount it.

this guy who lives in Austin, Texas now claims that cancer is in your head and that he is training toward the world records in every distance from the mile to the marathon. His training regimen is largely based on 100-150 meter sprints at goal race pace, and he is in his upper 40s. At first, you think he's joking, but he is dead serious... dead seriously as delusional as they come.

Many, many years ago, before there was internet...

I was at the local university track, putting on my spikes for an interval session when this guy and his girlfriend saunter before me--the guy giving me the 3rd degree (asking what workout I was doing, what "recov", etc.)

He looked fit but there was something incongruous about him--maybe it was the way he was wearing his shorts, or the athlete-chic sort of wardrobe he had going on.

He tells me he's from the other coast, he's thinking of moving out here, and that he'd been out a few weeks prior to check out the "scene" and did a few workouts with his buddy, me.

Shoes on now and stunned that he said my name, I listen to him proceed to tell me about what training he did out here, which is frighteningly close to what I do and had me thinking if I've somehow blocked this yahoo out of my memmory or something. But as his story continues, he loses whatever kismet energy he was feeling and his story falls heavily from grace; he came on a recruiting trip to my school (wrong school), I showed him around, he didn't like the school, blah, blah, blah; and then he commits the ultimate sin when he begins shortchanging my imaginary splits I ran with him during these imaginary workouts.

So now I began licking my chops thinking of the best way to drop the floor from underneath him in front of his girlfriend, who I'm now looking at. She's all smiles, a cute lass and looked sharp, but there was something incongruous about her as well.

At the first possible break, I casually prod her a bit, find out she's not too knowledgable about running, then learn that these two are in fact, on a date. 11am on a Tuesday, the went to get coffee; now they're on a track.

Well, I couldn't do it. I simply said I needed to get started, he introduced himself and put out his hand. I gave a good effort to think of something really clever to say that might give him a clue as to who I was without his date knowing, but I crapped the bed on that one and only managed a, "you too" as I shook his hand.

By the end of my first interval they were gone.

I always thought it would be funny to run into him again on the track, maybe with a group where someone could introduce him to me and I could tell the group using his details how we go way back.

Of course, I never saw the dude again.

How could you not drop a bomb on him?

My freshman year when I came to college, there was this other freshman on the cross country team who would jog every run at 8-9 minute pace, for about 30-40 miles a week. He would run with his girlfriend, who would also run slowly, or would bike at a really easy pace. He would be the last person to finish every workout, and whine and bitch the entire time-skipping cool downs and whatnot. On our team, there were a few guys on the team including about 4 freshman who had run around 4:15-4:25 and 9:22-9:45 in high school. Not to mention the juniors and seniors who had all run under 26 minutes (most around 24:30-25:30. Anyway, this kid told me and a few other freshman which kids he was going to beat....by name. He would tell everyone that he would be in our top 5 and so on. He literally told us which people he was going to beat and when. Anyways, we all laughed at this jackass because he was running so damn slow on all of his runs. We had no idea how he could think that was even possible.

Anyways, to sum it up, that f***er ran 25:30 that fall, he got as high as our 3rd man, and in our fourth year of college together, I still haven't beaten him once in cross country(track is a different story). I came close once in the first race of the season last year. It came down to the last 20 meters, and we were neck and neck, I led the entire time, until about two steps from the line....

Moral of the story:

Don't EVER underestimate the power of will.

"""""&quo wrote:

On our team, there were a few guys on the team

Sorry, I didn't intend to sound so redundant.

Will Steele

http://www.runningonline.com/zine/People/116.sht

This guy...

www.runningraw.com

His 5K PR is slightly below 16:00.

Yeah, I guess so. I thought it was hilarious. But I guess you had to know the kid to think it was funny. Oh well.

One indoor meet in high school some kid's coach accidentally entered him in the mile with his 1000 meter time. I can't remember what his time was, but it was somewhere in the 3-3:15 range. He was the top seed by well over a minute. It wasn't the kid's fault, but everyone was looking at the heat sheet and saying, "Who is this kid? I've never heard of him. What does that time mean? Is it supposed to be 4:15?" Stuff like that. There was a genuine buzz among the underclassmen that didn't know better.

Anyway, the poor kid got absolutely destroyed in the seeded mile. I don't know why somebody didn't make the change beforehand and put him in the 1000, it was probably some stupid meet rule that you couldn't change events or something. That had to be a nightmare for him...