mine is pretty good wrote:
Who is the fastest runner you have ever actually won over? (Better result in a race.)
I am not talking about someone who is DNS because then you didn’t actually beat them in “the field of play.”
My “PB scalp” is Galen Rupp in the 2018 Boston Marathon.
You put TRULY in all caps, and then your "victory" was Rupp's DNF?
To me, this requires two things:
1) The athlete was in their prime, or you were/are the same age as them when you beat them. So you can't just race Bill Rodgers or JBS (Joan, not Jenny) nowadays and call it a win.
2) You were ACTUALLY better than them on race day. Doesn't count if they were two miles up the road and bombed, even if they finished the race. So the lead pack at Boston when Rupp dropped gets the scalp, but you don't.
The best runners for this type of thing are guys like Leo Manzano or Alan Webb who had crazy inconsistent results, or like Clayton Murphy or Cam Levins, who went from decent runners to world class.