Most embarrassing race stories?

I slipped coming out of the blocks at the start of the 4x1 and ate sh*t in front of everyone. Freshman move.

I was the anchor on a 4x100 at the Armory in NY when it was old school days of unheated track which was a splintery wooden floor with lanes painted on it. When I went to take off my sweats as the race started, I realized I only had a jock on underneath. I barely got the sweats tied up again in time and caught shlt for running a 100 in baggy sweats.

When I was in my mid 20s, I decided to give Triathlon a try. I was never a good swimmer, so I joined a swim club, got some coaching , and made a noble effort to improve. After 6 months of hard work , I felt confident. I entered an Olympic distance Triathlon. As I came out of the water I looked at my watch and I was super pleased with my time. I had dropped 3 minutes off my previous best swim for this distance. Then I glanced over to my right and saw another athlete who finished with the same time. I was still feeling good until I noticed he had only one arm! That pretty much killed my good mood and my hope of ever one day being competitive in this sport.

I was running a 30K that started rather late in the morning and I didn't really know how to eat before such a late race. I got about halfway through the race when I developed a really serious need to use a port-a-potty, and there were none in sight. I was in a position to win some money and wasn't keen to leave the course in search of someplace where I could relieve myself. Finally, well, it just happened on the fly. I was mortified, but what could I do? It was raining and almost everyone's legs were splattered with mud, so maybe no one noticed? I finished the race in a good time, won a bit of money, and found a sympathetic volunteer who dragged out a garden hose and hosed me down prior to the 3-hour drive home.

My junk fell clean out of my short shorts in the 4x100 at the hand-off. Was at a low key end of season meet in a co-ed race and had girls in the lanes next to me.

7th grade, first track meet ever, I was the anchor on my team's 4x4. We thought we were pretty good, being naive 7th graders having only ever competed against ourselves. By the time I got the baton we had been LAPPED by at least 3 teams. Lapped in a mile relay using our fastest four guys. People were walking across the track going home while I was still running. A few realized and jumped out of the way, giving me the pity clap as I went by.

accidentally knocked a fast girl clean down, as I was finishing a race ( about like 500m away, trying to break 18:00 my sophomore year my PR was at the time a 18:31, she had like a two minute on the next chick and was fine but I still turned my head apologized but didnt stop because. I missed barely got 18:01 and the race director said I shoved her out of the way and disqualified me.

Ha ha really?

These are my favorite kinds of threads

I've got two:

In high school I waited till the back stretch of the last lap of the mile to pass a rival runner in front of where my team was camped out. I pulled even with him, waved at him and loudly said bye bye. I was confident because he'd never beaten me...until that day. Doh!

I entered a sprint triathlon soon after finishing my college senior year track season. I was in the best shape of my life. I wasn't much of a swimmer, but could cycle well, and obviously ran well.

So I entered the elite division because surely as a decent college runner this triathlon thing would be simple and if all else failed I could catch them on the run

I realized my mistake in the transition area during the set up time...with my 30 year old bike with strap on pedals next to the all carbon, aero bars, and specialized helmets. The elite wave started the 800 meter swim 5 minutes before everyone else so people could watch the "elites" go at it. I was passed in the water by people that started in the next wave.

To make matters worse, it was part of a triathlon series. I had already registered for another race in the series. They required you to stay within your original classification (elite vs open) for points purposes. So I got to relive the misery a couple of weeks later.

I was at a 5k last summer and I was in the final stretch, about to win the masters division of the race. With about 50 meters to go I was passed by a young Kenyan woman who narrowly beat me. Though I still won the masters division, I was upset to have been beaten by her. I pounded my fists on the awards table and told myself out loud that I would train my brains out to beat her next year. I looked up and some high school kids were laughing at me, and that was pretty embarrassing.

Freshman at UMass, leading off distance medley at Dartmouth Relays. I'm a kid with a 1:59 880 PR, lined up against Providence, Villanova, the NYAC and Philadelphia Pioneers.

I decide the best strategy is to take the lead, of course. On the first bend, I find myself sitting on the track, looking backwards (from race direction). I get up and run 2:08.

Mick O'Shea, Providence four minute miler and XC star, comes over to check on me after the leg. "You allright, mate?" A bit of Irish forearm blocking there, but a good sport afterwords...

My university had/has one of the best mid-distance squads in the country. I was nowhere near fast enough to run for the team, but decided to jump in and run unattached when they hosted a tri meet against a couple of smaller schools from the area. I figured that the other schools would have some people running near my pace (the slowest 5K guy at the meet finished well over 20 minutes, so I figured they'd have someone who could keep a 2:05 800m guy company).

When I stepped to the line, I found that no one from either of the other schools had entered the 800m. It was me, my school's 4X800m squad, and one of their 1500m guys who was using the race as a tuneup before going on to make the finals at NCAAs.

Long story short, running 2:06 when the next slowest guy finished in 1:50 flat is a pretty humbling experience.

I ran my first high school xc meet with compression underwear visible under zero inseam uniform running shorts.

RIP

I sharted pretty hard at the 2 mile mark of a 5k XC race in high school. Imagine the sensation of a couple ounces of shit swaying back and forth in the liner of my nylon shorts for the next 5 minutes.

But it was the first meet of the season and I was about to win my first varsity invitational.

After crossing the finish line first I kept jogging through the chute and headed straight for the restrooms where i stood there in my spikes washing my shorts out in the sink. I didn't want to slow down and give anyone the chance to slap me on the ass in congratulations.

I DNF'd a few varsity high school XC races, including state my sophomore year, probably due to feeling like I'd rather die than hear the starting gun pre-race, out of nervousness. That's embarrassing. At state post-race I was crying to my dad while apologizing for crying, it sucked.

Also, Drake Relays 2010, 4x800, my teammates (friends) run the race of their lives and give me a big lead and I blow it. In the video the Flotrack commentator is almost teasing me when he says "Cedar Rapids Washington's anchor is hungry for the baton, he's clapping his teammate towards him!" I beat my thighs so hard with the baton post-race I left welts!

http://www.flotrack.org/video/329722-b-4x800-f01

I wrote something on my racing shirt, which was misspelled.

I couldn't do anything and had to race like that.

Not many noticed, but a few pointed out very well.

Once in high school I was lining up for the 100m and my dick slipped out of my shorts and the whole tackle was just dingle dangling for everybody to see and it was a cold day so had a propa shrink on

On May 1, 2016 Mike Rossi was pied in the face while running at the Broad Street Run in Philly.