Describe the toughest, crasiest, and/or most-badass running workout you have ever attempted...

Oregon's old 30th Avenue Drill.

Those who know it, or have done it, or heard of it will understand.

It wasn't the mileage, it was the intensity with the 3 time trials mixed in.

i went to all sessions for three years - did 6 big days all together - basically did 2 1/2 sessions every year

some of the best times ever

what about you?

Simple workout but such pain.

2X500m We had to hit 55 sec on the 400 and then kick or speed up. My legs that week were already toast.

Coach had the watch on us and also someone timing the 100 finish. First one was 56 and rigged the 100. Next one was 57 and slow motion. 100 meters never felt worse.

Coach by the way was Dellinger. He told me after that that I was out of shape.

Me and two guys had to triple the 800, 1600, 3200 at a dual meet in hs. There was about 5 minutes rest after the 1600 and 10 after the 1600, and these were all out. PR'd in the 16 and 8 and then bombed hardcore in the 3200.

40 x 400 in 70 with 50 secs recovery. Sometimes stick a quick one (65ish) every so often if I'm feeling brave

middle school,

what kind of performance did that produce?

my hardest workouts were pure anaerobic efforts, 4 x 1600m in 4:23, lots of rest, pure muscular effort... one's I can't imagine repeating are 8 x 2 miles on the road in about 10:40's.. just massive volume.

Bump for some new crazy.

I was 15 at the time and had just run 8:50 for 3k and was doing maybe 50 miles per week.

My coach thought this was a good time for me to move up and start training with the older group. These guys had been doing 80+ miles per week for the last few years and they all ran about 14:40 for 5k.

But instead of sending me out on an easy run with them, he throws me right into a 10x400 workout.

Low 60s

200 jog recovery

Way above my level of fitness. I hung in as long as I could but after dropping a 70 on the 8th rep I called it a day. Harder than any race I'd ever done. Took a full week to recover.

5 of us did the workout that day, 2 of the guys now run 13:40 and the other 3 myself included are pretty much retired.

Is ian edwards around?

40x400 in 70? Buuuuuuuuuuuuullllllllllssssshhhhiiiiitttt.

I'm sure I'll get called a liar on this one, but its 100% legit...

My sophomore year in college, our coach wanted us to do an "epic" workout before Christmas break. The idea was for all of our guys to start together and run as many 400s on the track at 66-68 on short rest (45 secs-1 min) as we could. Last man running was the "winner." This was in the south, but we started the workout at 6pm and it was below 40 degrees. Ended up being around 30 or a little below when we finished. No wind.

We started out with 18-20 guys. Started to lose a few around #15, more around 20. I think only our top 5-7 from XC made it past 25. Around 35, my feet started hurting so I pulled off my flats and put on my trainers. Fingers were so cold I couldn't even begin to tie my shoes but someone else did it for me. After 1 in my trainers, it felt even worse so I put my flats back on. (this was honestly the toughest part of the whole thing because I was so rushed trying to get my shoes on and off) At 40, it was only me and our other top guy. We alternated leading them and the rest of team was cheering at this point so it was pretty cool at the time. At 47 or 48, our coach told us it was over and we'd call it a tie. He let us run a 200 together (30ish) to finish it off. After around #20, my legs were just sort of numb and I honestly felt as good as I ever did in my career. I was in great shape obviously at the time, but I honestly probably could have done 10 more if our coach had let us.

Afterward, I sat down for a few minutes and got my trainers on and by the time I started jogging, I could barely move. Finished my cooldown and jumped into an ice tank in the training room. Went home and ate, laid down on the couch and I was asleep in 15 mins and stayed out for 11 hours. Woke up the next morning and felt like I had been run over by a truck. Took the day off obviously. The next day I went for a training run and my IT band was sore. I'd never had ITB issues before, but it ended up knocking me out for the next 3 months. So while it was probably the best workout of my life, I don't view it as a great achievement of any sort because it ruined the rest of my sophomore year. My coach was a good guy and most everyone on the board would know his name, but it wasn't smart to let us do this workout. Fortunately none of the other guys had any lasting effects, but it definitely ended up being one of the nails in the coffin of my running career. I "retired" a year and a half later having never been able to stay healthy long enough to get back into good enough shape to do anything of note.

Downhill 5k time trial that dropped over a thousand feet of elevation at 5k effort.

I once tried to do a workout with Rupp and Farah without the drugs.

Only lasted 1 rep.

in high school (200/400 guy) once a year our sprint coach would make us

100.200.300.400.500.600.600.500.400.300.200.100. (400)

these were all done very fast (set goal times) or we would have to run an extra 400 at the end.

handtimed goals for each distance

100 ~12.5s handtimed

200 sub 26

300 sub 42

400 sub 60

500 sub 80

600 sub 100

and down

` wrote:

Is ian edwards around?

A. 200.2 mile week.

B. 2 miles every hour for 24 hours.

C. 40x200 this past summer with 200 jog rest. Averaged 28.89. All of them were under 30. Last one 27.63 all-out. Got really sick the following few days.

Of course none of these were in the same week.

The ones I did were just stupid but anyway:

Went running in a blizzard, got lost and ran about an hour and a half out, ended up having to run/walk back, started laughing. When I got back I couldn't figure out how to have a shower or get anything out of the fridge.

Hadn't trained properly for ages, turned up at the track and tried to beat people at 16x one lap of sprint the straights, jog the bends. The next day I felt like I was going to die.

50x100m as proper sprints which was pointless as my form went.

400m training session where I did the first one in 63 and the second in 61 then couldn't finish the session. I think these were meant to be 3000m race pace which it obviously wasn't.

It would've been better if I just focused on mileage and steady runs but my training group at the time had a big philosophy on intensity/quality over quantity. I don't think it made me the best runner I could've been at that point. I also tried to switch down to the 400m when I blatantly was a MD/LD runner; all of those sessions were a bit pointless.

hands down the worst was my freshmen year of high school. went to an overcrowded public school, no funding for a second bus for cross country. this meant that varsity and jv boys & girls had to fit on one bus, so not a lot of spots on our xc team.

first day of try outs we had over 100 guys show. something like 70 or 80 girls also. we had a really strong team year to year and obviously too many students, so this wasn't that strange. coach told us the deal, and explained that he was going to run us into the ground all week and anyone who walked was instantly cut, until we were down to 36 (18 guys 18 girls).

by the end of the week, we had thinned out a little, but we still had over 50 guys for sure. i cant remember how many girls, but there were quite a few that needed to be cut also. coach took us out to a nearby river and split us into two groups and assigned cones.

one group jogged on the beach in circles, the other had to run around the "cones" in the river. i was unfortunately put as a cone, which meant i never got to jog on the beach (as long as you were not walking, you were fine, so it was basically recovery). the shallow side was high shin deep, the other side was mid-upper thigh. we alternated on some kind of time rotation, i cant remember what it was. honestly being the cone was worse than the river running, the current from 4 dozen people slogging directly at my 110 pound frame was pretty brutal. i also never got to get out of the water, which also took its toll.

this went on for almost 3 hours. finally we had enough people give in that we got down to our magic number, and we called it a day. a few seniors got cut that day, it was rough.

i have never been so beat up before in my life, and i've done a lot of crazy stuff. even my worst days of rugby can't scratch the feeling of that day, especially after the mile accumulation of that week. funny thing is, we ended up getting a second bus and he called a bunch of people back.

1200m in 3:12

2 min rest

800m in 1:58

2 min rest

600m in 1:24

2 min rest

400m in 53

2 min rest

300m in 39

2 min rest

200m in 23

Not the longest workout from a volume standpoint, but d@mn, it was high quality. Knew I was ready to run sub 1:50 when I could do that.

At the time I was living in a small cabin in the woods really focusing on my training. My coach came by to give me my workout and we jogged over the the field I had been doing my workouts in, it was roughly a 440yard loop. I started the workout 20X440 @ 62-63 in sets of 5 with 110 yard in between and completed the workout pretty easily I started heading over the put my trainers on but my coach said we had to complete another set. I said, "what? another 5 440s?" he said "No another 20X440" I questioned his rational in my mind but I went ahead and complete the second 20 with more difficulty, this was the hardest workout I had done before and was wasted at the end. But my coach told me, "one more set" I thought he was crazy, but he was serious. I honestly don't remember much of the last 20X440 set, but I know I finished it. The feeling was like nothing I felt before, it was a wonderful euphoria combined with intense pain. I was all alone for the last 20, my coach ran the first 40 with me, but I knew after that workout I could take down any miler in the world.