Tell LetsRun about your best race?

My best race was totally unexceptional by Letsrun standards, but was important to me just as all 'good' races are vastly more important to the people who ran them than people who hear about it. My best race was a 5k in which I PR'ed by 11 seconds (a modest 17:33). It was the most painful experience of my life and I could not speak coherent words afterwards. I contemplated whether running, when combined with this pain that I had never felt before, was worth it. It got me to the point where I wrote 3 pages describing the race and after effects just for shits. I've only ever shown 1 person. I'd post it hear but I am sure I will be judged harshly for my writing skills and sub-standard personal best. But I would enjoy hearing other stories as well.

The race was a JV 800m race (dual meet) my senior year of high school. I had started the year with a 2:28 PR for 800m and 12:00 for 3200m. I recently decided to to drop from ~50-55MPW to ~35MPW with slower long runs. I also started measuring my success at shorter distances as I felt I couldn't hang for longer races. The gun went off and I immediately went to the back of the lead pack. The leader was a junior who was a 4:40 miler coming back from illness a few weeks prior. First lap was 68 and our school had a pack of 4 about 20m ahead of the chase group. I was surprised at how relaxed I was and decided this was the race. At 600m I surged to the front and took the lead and only one kid, a freshman, went with me. Coming into the final straight away he charged like Farah and was gone, but I hung on for 2nd. I ended up running 2:20 and him 2:16, but it was my highest placing ever in a race.

I had run a 2:53 marathon in January 1991 and I entered the Buffalo Marathon in May hoping to break 2:50. A friend of mine was accompanying me on the course on a bike (allowed at that time). The gun went off and I took off feeling great. My friend kept telling me to slow down but I couldn't, and I went through 5 miles within a few seconds of the 5-mile RACE I had run a few weeks earlier. My friend told me my pace was suicidal but I just couldn't slow down. By 16-18 miles I was still way ahead of 2:50 pace and my friend started telling me I had a chance to make the Olympic Trials qualifier (2:45). He rode out ahead of me and came back to tell me I was sitting second in the women' race and the leader didn't look good. By 23 miles he told me I was gaining massive amounts of time on the leader but I was starting to fade myself, and the 2:45 wasn't looking so likely.

At the 26 mile banner my friend looked at his watch and told me "you need an 80-second quarter". Which there was no way I could do. I fixed my eyes on the finish-line clock and ran toward it with all my strength, and watched 2:44:xx turn over to 2:45:xx. Only then did I look down and see that there was a huge crowd of people right in front of the finish line blocking my path. I practically had to punch people out of the way to cross the line in 2:45:16. Only then did I see the female winner lying on the ground stretched across the finish line.

The winner had fallen several times in the last quarter mile and finally crawled across the line in 2:44:57. Film clips of her finish were broadcast on several local news programs the following day. No one noticed the second-place finisher (me) who ran across 19 seconds later, missing Trials qualifying by 16 seconds. We both broke the old course record by something like 15 minutes.

I qualified for the Trials five months later. I had never figured to qualify at Buffalo anyway.

Best race, a mile win in a JV triple meet between Longmeadow (my team), Wilbraham, and East Longmeadow MA as a freshman in high school.

I was in a grim state of mind at the start, determined to lead wire to wire. Teammate Mike Smith took the lead at a suicidal pace. I near killed myself to lead after 220 yards.

The rest of the race was a death march, just excruciating. Wanted to trip and fall from 660 yards on, but deep down stuck to the plan.

I won in 5:11.4, a second off my PR. A kid from Wilbraham got second in 5:13. It's the hardest I ever ran in a race.

I ended up running almost a minute faster in the mile, but I never ran tougher.

POTY. (Post of the Year.) Thanks.

Senior year of HS, I had only run the 1600 once. I had run it in my first meet of the season and had run 5:07 with moderate effort, with a PR of 4:56 from indoor. Instead of running the 1600, I had been running 4x8, 4x4, 400, and 800 all season. Based on my 400 and 800 times (54, 2:10) and effort levels, I guessed that I could run about 4:43 or 4:44 for 1600. For the league championships, I convinced my coach to let me run the 1600. The race contained my faster teammate who had run low 4:40s and a kid from another school who had run low 4:30s.

The gun went off and the two faster kids took off, dropping me immediately. I aimed to run an even pace of 70s per lap. This went smoothly, and by the bell, I was on pace to run mid 4:40s and was about 30-50m down on the leaders. At the bell, I kicked, and was amazed at how much I had left. With 300 to go, I realized that I was gaining on the leaders. The low 4:30s kid started pulling away from my teammate. At 250 to go, I realized that I could catch my teammate. With about 160 to go, I pulled even with my teammate, who looked at me in disbelief. This was a kid who had beat me by 1:00-1:30 in xc 5k races, and had been about 13s ahead of me in my only 1600m of the year. I was a bit better than him in the 400, and about even in the 800. He kicked, and pulled away to beat me by about 2-3s. I was too tired to respond. However, I had run 4:43, just as I predicted that I could.

It was my first-ever 10k, I was obviously a bit unsure whether or not I was quite that fit. It helped that I had raced my main rival many times before and regularly beaten him, so I told myself that if he could run a record, I definitely could.

As the race started, I settled in midpack and tried to shut off mentally. I was able to just fall asleep, stay relaxed and cover the moves until about midway, when I picked up a side stitch. I dealt with the cramp for about four laps until it faded. Once it did I began to enter the state of flow. The pace picked up to splits that would normally intimidate me, but in that state I did not even think about it. I was able to respond to every surge because I was focused on doing whatever it took to beat my rival. With just more than a mile to go, I knew I was going to win; in fact, I was literally licking my chops. I decided I was going to make a move around 800 meters to go. I intended to not only make a move, but to make a statement. As I closed in on the finish line, I had no clue how fast I was running or that I was even close to the record minutes until about 150 meters to go.

As I took my spikes off, I discovered a blister on my foot the size of a softball. I did not even realize it was there until then.

2013 Seattle Marathon - Ran my first marathon - 12:19:30 - made all the volunteers stand on the course 4 hours extra after the 3rd to last place finisher was done. Just cracked the coveted 30:00min/mi barrier with 28:14 min/mi.

Hopefully I can come back to this thread in 60 days and say IronMan Arizona was my best race!

Follow my training at

https://ironfatblog.wordpress.com/blog/

FitFatty wrote:

2013 Seattle Marathon - Ran my first marathon - 12:19:30 - made all the volunteers stand on the course 4 hours extra after the 3rd to last place finisher was done. Just cracked the coveted 30:00min/mi barrier with 28:14 min/mi.

Hopefully I can come back to this thread in 60 days and say IronMan Arizona was my best race!

Follow my training at

https://ironfatblog.wordpress.com/blog/

Oh my god, what the heck.

I know I'm very proud.

Smooth Playa wrote:

FitFatty wrote:

2013 Seattle Marathon - Ran my first marathon - 12:19:30 - made all the volunteers stand on the course 4 hours extra after the 3rd to last place finisher was done. Just cracked the coveted 30:00min/mi barrier with 28:14 min/mi.

Hopefully I can come back to this thread in 60 days and say IronMan Arizona was my best race!

Follow my training at

https://ironfatblog.wordpress.com/blog/

Oh my god, what the heck.

XC Championship- jogged 3 miles near front, then toyed with the field during the 4th mile essentially doing an extreme and erratic fartlek style, then laid down the hammer in the final mile to win by 15 seconds. Winning was cool, but the feeling of being in total control and knowing I was going to win was incredible.

That can't be serious can it? Isn't the cut off for a full ironman only 5 hours more than that marathon time?

0/10 - no way that's real nice try

Ran behind the women leaders. Their bun huggers provided inspiration.

Essentially kicked from 1200, took the lead, and then realizing I had to live with my mistake just held on. I remember thinking "that was moronic" but it got a lot of cheers from the stands and the adrenaline kept me going. Got outkicked and had to settle for 2nd place but I still ran a 10 second PR and beat some guys who were far more talented and less injury prone than I was. Afterwards I ate a whole box of triscuits in one sitting.

Going into a dual meet senior year of HS, I knew it was going to be close. I devised a plan with our teams second best runner that I would take off like a bat out of hell in the 1600, pound the other Team's top guy into the ground, and the our guy would go by us in the end and win the race. (Stupid plan, but I'm not very smart).

My PR at the time was 4:46, the other team's top guy was in the high 4:30's. He was clearly better than me, but not astronomically out of my league.

Gun goes off, I'm in lane one, he's in lane two. I take off almost at a dead sprint. That MF'er doesn't give an inch. We're both nearly sprinting for 150 meters when he goes into another gear and gets ahead of me on the back stretch.

We go through 400 in 59 (way too fast for either of us) and he continues to push the pace around the turn. We get to the backstretch and I he lets off the gas a little. I thought, "He expects me to be dead by now, I go by him now he won't know what hit him."

I push the pace down the backstretch and around the turn, hit the home stretch and I think, I have to make him give up now, if he's in striking distance on the last lap, he'll get me.

67 for the second lap, set an 800 PR. Keep pouring it on, I know I'm slowing down, but he has to be too.

Ran scared for the last two laps, pulled away, won by half a straightaway. (59, 67, 82, 87 4:55).

Finish the race collapse on the infield, our top sprinter picks me up and says "That wasn't a race, that was fight, and you won. I never knew the mile could be exciting". Best compliment I have ever received.

Obviously, my plan to have our second best guy win didn't work. The other teams guy destroyed me in the 3200 later in the meet, we lost by a few points, and all went home devastated.

Senior year of high school. I wanted to race one of my good friends who went to another school, because we never had an opportunity to race. He was a sub-2 800 guy and I was like a 2:15 guy coming into track out of shape from XC (where I had run 16:53 for 5k at the end of the season). But I knew that if I was racing him, I'd set a huge PR.

So I asked my coach to put me in the 800 for that meet, which was a few weeks away.

The coach said, "OK, if you run under 2:12 in the next meet." I said, "Pfft. I'll run under 2:10." I then went out and blasted a 2:07.

But the coach never put me in the 800. He put me in the 1500 instead. I was pissed. I asked him why, and he was like, "Who did you want to race? (My friend's name)? He'd have killed ya!"

I was like, well yeah, probably, but I bet I could have shaved another 5 seconds off my PR.

TomBJimmyGJacobyB wrote:

That can't be serious can it? Isn't the cut off for a full ironman only 5 hours more than that marathon time?

Seems like it is legit after all:

WTF!

Conference championship senior year, 1982. Previous year 1600 PR 4:41, but I'd PR'd indoors at 4:31 and won a 'B' group race.

There are 4 people in the race that beat me in the CC conference championship and they've all got better 400 speed. But two of the guys doubled with the two mile so maybe they are tired.

First 400 is a comfortable 65. Coming off the turn onto the home stretch I came up from 5th to take the lead and bring the pack through at 2:14.

I pushed hard down the back stretch and blew up the pack. I have two chasers. One the CC conference champion with a 4:24 PR, and the guy that out kicked me for 4th in that same race. They both passed me back heading into the bell lap. Despite my move to blow up the pack somehow the lap was one second slower; 70.

I recover around the turn and lose ground on 1st and 2nd who are running stride for stride. I dig in resolved to die trying and battle back to pass 2nd by the end of the back stretch and nip at the heels of number 1.

He looks around, realizes his buddy is no longer with him, sees me, and ... blows me off the track. I gave it everything but gave back almost 3 seconds in the last 200, collapsed to the ground and didn't get up for minutes. I was no EPO world record holder smiling and waving. I had ripped out my lungs.

I finished with my all-time PR of 4:27.5.

A week later I finished third at my sectional race in 4.27.7 and missed going to State as a time qualifier by .7 seconds. I somewhat regret not planning on going to prom because it was the night of the state meet that I didn't qualify for.