At what age were you the fastest?

I ran in jr-high, quit in 10th grade...

Took 30 years off to rest...

Started up again @ 45...

At 47 set PR's in the Marathon, 10k, 5k, and mile distances.

deadmenswalking wrote:

I mean racing at your peak.

Well...I was off allll runnin' after I celebrated my first year as a 40 yr. old Master by trying that day to run the one mile faster than I could in H.S., not a good decision, I had been racing that winter road race series, not well though. Very uncomfortable & painful injury that was..cycled, pool ran, weight lifted, acupunctured, etc. rest of summer. Was back runnin' Nov. but still having a lot of trouble. Got on to something known as a Kin Kom, a muscle strengthening machine which measured amount of strength I was getting back. Was back running following Winter, Spring but was getting 10 km time more than 2 min. slower than I once could do run that distance. Also even though I was running I was still having quite a lot of pain & discomfort with this. I was also obliged to write off another Summer of running. What happened I had finally raced a great 8 km on a hot day, [had a grrreatttt sprint finish (even tho' I lost :)] but re-injured hamstring in same spot agaain! Maybe not to quite the extent but was having more pain & discomfort than I was prepared to deal with.

You see I had turned 40, there was some bozo I dearly wanted to get back in shape so's I could once again bury him again in any race. I let my ego really control me here didn't I!

Hamstring took until 1992 to really settle down, it was 1988 June when this happened.

Honestly believe this all altered my biomechanics so that I was set up for every other kind of injury under the sun it seemed during majority of the 90's decade.

So I'm happy these days to be batting along at 8 - 9 min. pace with occassional spurts up to 7 min. pace. Run 3x - 4x a week, I am busy every AM from 4:00 AM - 6:30 AM (going to be at it earlier too) delivering the daily morning newspaper...have found this to be really good exercise.

Thanks for letting me ahve the opportunity to tell my story. I DO KNOW others have suffered much, much worse, so I actually feel very fortunate here.

Chris.

You post as 'deadmenswalking' Did you ever see that movie? What did you think?

I thought Susan & Sean were absolutely huge.

So your hamstring doesn't bother you anymore. The reason I ask is that I had a recurrent hamstring problem for about a year. I finally went for some PT. I had inflexible scar tissue that was susceptible to injury. The PT did something called ASTM (Augmentative soft tissue mobilization) to break up the scar tissue. I was shocked it worked so well.

Its good that you are racing again. The hardest part for me being back to racing but running 15K's about 3 minutes slower and 5K's about 40 seconds slower is seeing the people that you used to have fun competing with being ahead of you. But after not racing for a while it feels so damn good just to race again.

I have no idea why I picked that handle. I do change them after a few weeks.

17. Injured and out now. Hurts to run a mile and if it didn't I'm probably in about 6:30 mile shape anyway.

24 to 26. Ran fastest 10 mile road race of life in 53:55 on a fairly hilly course

bump

I started out on burgundy wrote:

25 - I was my best at EVERY distance - was able to train like a nut.

Now I'm 46 and broken down like somebody's old jalopy.

Ditto here, but 5 years younger. I'd love to live that year-Groundhog Day style. That was awesome.

wish I was 25 again wrote:

I started out on burgundy wrote:

25 - I was my best at EVERY distance - was able to train like a nut.

Now I'm 46 and broken down like somebody's old jalopy.

Ditto here, but 5 years younger. I'd love to live that year-Groundhog Day style. That was awesome.

ha- i'm 25 and i feel like a broken down old racehorse now, alhtough i've been running competitively since i was 6. I ran my best at 20-21 - i could train like an idiot and not get hurt. i learned the hard way that it catches up with you though.

I ran PRs over every distance at 17-18. Injured half of college but I feel a return to form coming in the shape of 24high over 8k this fall at age 21. here's to hoping!

Aged 31, best for 1500, 5k and marathon. Now 34, have been running since 14, but it all clicked one year, mainly because I had a short (voluntary) break from work. As soon as I was employed again the rot set in.

29.

4 years of high school running, two years of college - then battled itb injuries and sloth for 5-6 years before having it all come together (in my own insignificant way). I spent a summer in Rome running on unmeasured trails, no workouts, just some strides, a couple of tempos based on feel and a long run of 1.5 hours. Came back and three days later hopped in a 5k xc race at VCP and cut a minute and a half off of my PR which was from high school. I got it down to a 17:09 5k pr but couldn't quite get over that hump before i got injured again.

god that first race felt good -- i felt like i was in good shape and was picking off runners left and right in the woods, but to then hear 17:27 as I crossed the line -- i hadn't even imagined i could drop that much time. Makes me wonder how overrated workouts are.

I'd still like to get my 800 pr under 2 mins, but i don't know if that'll be happening at my age. That might be one high school PR (2:04) which will last.

Well, technically I was "fastest" in HS, with a 52 second 400, and 1:58 800 (17 yrs old). I didn't run very well in XC though (17:20's over 5k...gotta love Franklin Park!)

I didn't run in college.

These days I'm much better at 5k-10k (27:01 8k), but I haven't really worked on the 800 for a long time, so I don't know if I'd be faster now (at age 28).

I was the fastest when I was a sperm racing toward the egg.

I was fat and slow until I started running when I was 15. I was fastest (3k/5k) at 18 or 19, but then got injured and never successfully came back without getting re-injured. Now I'm 21 and am back to being fat and slow, but at least I'm running. I've always thought I'd be better at longer distances like 10k-marathon, so maybe if I ever get back to being fast and healthy, it won't be too late to PR. I feel like I have unfinished business to take care of, but with my bad luck so far who knows.

Ran all my PR's (except marathon) from age 34-36. Never ran a hard marathon in that period. Ran high school was ok, no college running (went into the military) then started running post military, only in four years. Did a lot of moving around and that affected my running. Did really well (for an average Joe) in Marietta GA, then the next few places I lived the running wasn't so great. Then I moved to a moderate sized city where the running group was really strong and that's where I developed the most. Unfortunately I had to move again and am floundering once more, oh well, had some good times at least.

Dist - Age PR

800 - 21

1500 - 21

5K - 29

10K - 26

10M, 1/2M, & Marathon & XC - 36 (had my best time (1:06:00 1/2M) based on the the scoring tables at this age and my best XC race ever)

I recall running 15 miles on new years day in 1970. Ran my fastest 400 in hs. fastest 800 in college, seriously trained for marathons at age 30 and peaked at 80 mpw. More than that and I would break down. Pr'd in the mile-marathon at age 30 and 31. Now barely jog at age 53. I may get serious again but I doubt it.

txRUNNERgirl wrote:

but with my bad luck so far who knows.

Ahhh you can't think that way, you still can be the best ever. At your age you got the whole road of opportunity to do anything!!