What is the hardest workout/race you have ever done?

I went skiing for the first time the day before a long run in my marathon training cycle. I was so bruised and beaten that I delayed my long run from Sunday until Wednesday and then tried it. I hoped to get 20 miles and I think I stopped after around 18 excruciating miles. I basically had full-on delayed onset muscle soreness at the start of the run.

'Thon went fine.

1995 DIII Regional in Alma MI. White-out conditions, rivers of knee deep ice water running through the course.

Sometimes I push myself so hard during the WOD that I have to puke.

Doesn't matter. The following day I push just as hard, again.

Workout - running a ladder workout on an ice covered track in the Bronx, in the dark, alone, with 25 mile wind gusts in my face on the back-straight.

Hardest race - my first ever 400m on a track (age 51). I swear the home-straight was at least a mile long. The upside was I found a distance where I have talent relative to my age.

While at PSU '77 to '81 the Mile Mountain repeats on Julian (pronounced Julie Ann) Pike. The worst was one time we ran 3 x 1.5 Miles with a 5 mile warm up and a 4 mile warm down. 16.5 miles total. We missed dinner by a full hour that night.

Others will argue this, but it was certainly my worst workout. Heart rate at the top was invariably significantly higher than anyone's maximum should ever be. I had to lie about it or I would have been hospitalized for tachycardia.

Race something short/fast like an 800m-3200m at 9,000ft+ altitude. If you are ready for it and go for broke, serious hurt.

In HS, our 4x800m team did a 2x600m workout @ 1:32 w/ 15 min rest. Legs were fried afterwards. We had only run 8:44 indoors, and most of us didn't even break 2:15. The next meet we ran 8:15 and qualified for states.

I am a runner. Did track, everything, did some hard workouts.

But the thing that got me trashed was a 2k indoor rowing match.

Rowing is much harder on the body....

THREAD TITLEwrote:

RE: What is the hardest workout/race you have ever done?

skwilli wrote:

The worst was one time we ran 3 x 1.5 Miles with a 5 mile warm up and a 4 mile warm down. 16.5 miles total. We missed dinner by a full hour that night.

Others will argue this, but it was certainly my worst workout. Heart rate at the top was invariably significantly higher than anyone's maximum should ever be. I had to lie about it or I would have been hospitalized for tachycardia.

Idiot.

2x (20x200@30/30). 1 mile slow jog between the sets. My head felt as if it was going to explode.

4x1200@3.02-3.05. 10 minutes rest between each. Was in Oxford at the time, and had 2 orders of the best fish and chips I've ever had afterward.

12x400@ 58-60 with 1 minute rest

1200/1000/8/6/4/2 with equal jog recovery- 2.58/2.25/1.54/1.24/55/25

I've only done one race. She was Portuguese. So I guess it was hardest and easiest.

In before malmo comes on here to b*tch about people working too hard.

jsjaownfidms wrote:

In before malmo comes on here to b*tch about people working too hard.

?????

First marathon on about 5 months of 30 mpw (starting from zero -- 6 months no exercise with injury, over a decade of not running before that).

Ran just under 4 hours. The first 3 hours were hard, the last hour was an absolute death march.

High school, Kitchener Ontario, Octoberfest xc invitational. Race starts up a ski hill. Doesn't get much better.

Cardiac stress test. I'm not a hill runner. They put that thing on steep and didn't say how long it was going to last. I didn't last long and called it quits the first time he mentioned that I should tell him when I got tired. My legs were burning and it was indoors and hot and stuffy.

It wasn't really my hardest workout, but probably my most miserable.

When I went to Florida state decades ago, we used to do a workout of 3x(20x400m with 60 seconds recovery between repeats and 5 minutes between sets. A Cassidy workout where it was near impossible to walk off the track after it.

Hardest race was a summer race we used to do in England every summer between friends, 10k XC steeplechase. One mile laps with 14 jumps per lap done 6 times through long grass and hedgerows.

If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now.

I once heard that intervals into 30 MPH headwinds are speedwork in disguise.