Your claim to fame

I've also run into Gail Devers at Penn Relays -- she was doing drills and almost "A Skipped" right into me while I was crossing the infield . . . been destroyed in a 400m against Trinity Gray . . . ran a 4x400 against Jon Riley in high school . . . and proud to say I ran on "B" 4x400 while at Penn in the Princeton December invite that featured a young kid anchor named Sam Burley . . .

GRod,

Thanks for your kind words. I have definitely been through some experiences since being part of the aussie connection at Ga. State! Glad to see that Runnersworld didn't make it too much of a sob story when they ran the article.

I'm sure Andrew Letherby has some pretty cool stories to tell after finishing 3rd in the recent Commonwealth Games (2:13 marathon) - especially kicking past the 3rd place guy in the stadium. He is a good example of how prolonged, hard training and a stick-to-it attitude can lead to success. As for his training - he has been working with Coach Chris Wardlaw who guided Steve Monneghetti throughout his career.

I'm finding this quite a fun topic:

Let's see ...at a meet in Miami back in the late 80s, I was warming up for the 800, which was scheduled for just after the invitational men's 100 - featuring King Carl Lewis.

I consiously timed my strides to conincide with his along the back stretch around the 200m start line (going in opposite directions, in order not to feel too demoralised!). When walking back, I wished him good luck, and he did the same -- quite genuinely, it seemed, as well. I thought that was pretty cool.

He went on to win the 100 in around 10.10 -- I was trashed in the 800 after Johnny Gray took in out like 52 and jogged in around 1:46 or so .. I flailed in around 1:51 and puked from the heat and the effort on the infield -- about 5 or 6 feet from Gray! Rather embarassing.

Martin

Well mine had to be the 1987 Boston marathon. All the biggies were there, Seko, de Castella, Ikanga. For some reason having to do with the fast guys not wanting to be the pushing the pace too early, the early pace was relaxed. At 2 1/2 miles I am sitting at back end of fast group with a couple of guys 50m ahead leading the race. I decide to go up and be leading at 3 miles so my buddies back in KC know I was there. I lead at 3 and 4 and 5 and even 6 miles. At 10k I hit 30:50 and still leading. Normally leaders would hit 29:30 for 10k. I'm thinking, where are the fast guys? I'm too afraid to look back but actually had maybe 80 yard lead at 10k.

Frank Shorter is doing color commentary for TV and is polite to me, "Well, Charlie is running well and maybe today is his 2:13 breakthrough day?" I am still leading at 7 and 8 and even 9 miles. What is going on? At 15k the freight train comes rolling by. I try to tag onto the group but they are doing 4:45's and I can't match that. By Wellesley Colleg I am toast. When Rosa Mota pulls past me before Heartbreak Hill, I call it a day.

When I get back to Kansas City, I'm asked if Nike paid me to lead the race since I was wearing a Nike Singlet. I say "No, just got caught up in the moment". But it was kind of cool when TV broke for commercial to see the leaders listed on screen as:

1. Gray USA

2. de Castella AUS

3. Ikanga TAN

What's the old saying? "Never up, never in."

Here's another one:

In the summer of 1988 I entered the Rompin' Ron's 10K and hoped to perhaps win at least my division if not the race. My hopes were dashed when the younger yet more talented Bob Kennedy toed the line. I was 21 then and he was 18 maybe? Anyway, he blasted out and a group of about 10 went with him. I didn't want any part of that, so I hung back with the second pack eventually placing third overall but winning the age group (I still have the very nice Division Winner mug - white with blue lettering and a picture of Rompin' Ron himself running on it) - not sure if Kenndy was in a different age group or if I was declared the Division Winner because he was the overall winner. Also, I'm not sure how many road races he has run since then. Not very many I'm sure.

Charlie,

When I first saw your handle -- chgray -- and your PRs on the all-wejo team, I thought, "Hey, I'll bet that's the guy who led the Boston Marathon that year!"

That was the year that the guy holding the rope in front of the runners at the start didn't get out of the way in time. De Castella, the defending champion (and also the recipient of a very large appearance fee) fell down. I didn't realize that he caught up to the lead pack later; he ended up finishing well back. Seko, of course, blew everyone away over the last 10k for the win.

Claim to fame,

Well I guess I have been very lucky because my coach James Li is also the coach of Bernard Lagat, Japhet Kimutai, Benjamin Kipkuri and Seneca Lassister. Well these guys train with us a few times a week Lagat even does training runs with the girls team sometimes so I got to know him pretty well. This training group has gone to a few meets with us where they also competed(Stanford, Mt.Sac, Cardinal Qualifier, etc.) At the Stanford Invitational this year I ran the race of my life, I ended up 9th in the 5k 16:27 not exceptional or anything but I did have had Lagat, and all his friends including Kimani and Stember cheering for me from the stands, it was a great feeling. Those guys are such an inspiration it makes me want to be better, they are great on and off the track.

I also met Joan Benoit when I was 14 years old and she is who inspired me to really give running a shot.

Nobody is going to beat that one!

Great topic.

In high school...at the 1981 Don Bosco Relays in NJ, Jeff Van Wie of Suffern H.S. (a guy who STILL has the NY state 800m record) got himself outkicked in the last 300 yards of the DMR anchor leg by Bergen Ctaholic's little Joey McVeigh.

We both got outkicked by Leon Finney of Eastside though, so expect Leon's post shortly.

Joe,

Based on your relative performances in the marathon and all of the shorter events, I'm surprised that you EVER outkicked ANYONE!

Its January 1986. Mallusk XC International...nowadays known as the Fila XC International, Belfast, N.Ireland. 17 year old reserve for the Sparta A.C. Jr. Mens team gets called into action in the Sr. Men's team when one of their number pulls something during warm up.

This is back in they day when the club race was run in conjunction with the international competition. 17 year old gets in his chute gun goes off and he takes off to take on the 3x2 mile muddy loops.

Somewhere in the middle of the race, he isn't quite last but close to it, a Honda ATC with a cameraman on the back passes him on the inside just as Steve Cram in the white of England passes him on the outside. 17 year old waves at the folks back home and gets a mention from Brendan Foster who was calling the race for the BBC.

Being from the greater Oslo area in Norway I would frequent Bislett stadium at least once a week during the summertime to do my 400m repeats. In Norway everyone leaves the City in the summertime and I was used to having the track almost to myself or only share it with a few casual runners.

I warmed up and I started on my 8x400m repeats (I was doing them at 59-60 pace). I would run 400 hard and then jog 400. If there was anyone at the track with me I would always have it as a goal to pass them. So when I spotted a dark complexioned runner ahead of me I automatically sped up a little trying to catch him. This was towards the end of my workout and to my surprise I barely made up any ground at all?.if any!. After my 8th 400 (last one was about 56 sec.) as I was bent over the fence gasping for air this mysterious runner passed me, and he kept that same pace for about 20 more 400s (he did a similar workout to mine. Just A LOT more 400s). Off course I should have known who this was from the start as he had a Norwegian wife and did a lot of his training at Bislett. It was world XC champ and Olympic 10,000m champ Khalid Skah. So in theory I can claim that I have worked out with Skah :)

My second story is from when I was running in the Norwegian 4x5k XC championship as part of a Jr. team (we were all from age 15-18). All the different age groups and sexes started at the same time, so there was a lot of runners to pass and being passed by. I had the last leg on the team, and as I came sprinting towards the finish I passed a very skinny, light footed woman. Turns out later that I just passed the best women?s team and Grete Waitz (world XC champ and 9 times winner of the NYC marathon). Ran their anchor leg.

So that?s my story and I?m sticking to it. I later ran the same relay legs as both Skah and Waitz in the annual ?holmenkollen Stafetten? through the streets of Oslo. Off course I never saw either one, but we did run the same leg (the longest leg on the relay).

-Clay

yeah...Lagat is a cool cat. I remember this one outdoor NCAA 1500 very vividly. I was running the 1500 at the WSU Invitational in March of 1997. Bernard was "only" a 3:37 guy back then, but still a speed demon. Being a stupid frosh, I set the pace for 700-800 meters of that 1500. It was me, Lagat, and Frank Bruder of Idaho. We came through 800M in a pedestrian 2:09-2:10, but I was already working my ass off. With 700 Meters to go, Lagat quickly jumped into third gear and dropped me like a bad habit. He then proceeded to switch gears again and drop Bruder with 300M to go. What a humbling experience. I shook Lagat's hand after the race and thanked him for the lesson. He's always been one of the coolest athletes on the scene.

- Ryan

Just out of curiosity where did you go to school? Oh and for those of you who don't know Lagat is one of the most humble, honest and truly nice guys I have ever met even if he was a crapy runner he would still be a great guy.

On the Saturday night of the 1999 Drake Relays I was at this party with a few of my friends and Abdi Abdirahman is there in his big ass Arizona letter jacket practically drowning in it. He was pretty tanked and he was grinding with some fat chicks. My friend was trying to get him to chug beers with him but Abdi wasn't very good at it.

Mine is not nearly as cool as these others, but...

I was racing the Philadelphia Distance Run last fall and around mile 6 I caught Catherine Ndereba. I ran the rest of the way unintentionally being her rabbit. I finished 4 seconds ahead of her. Anyway, about one month later I'm watching the race on ESPN and the announcer shows Ndereba and I'm in the picture for about 5 seconds. He says something like: "There is a fine, local runner that Catherine is going to leave in her wake..." So, everyone thinks that I lost to her when in actuality I held her off and didn't even get credit for it! ;-)

DougC

In 1996 I decided to go the the 100th Boston and use it as a long training run for another race later in the summer.

Instead of racing I thought it would be fun to take the opportunity to soak up the moment and give as many kids high-5's as I could. Still glad I did it- I remember it better than any marathon I have cranked.

Anyway, I was cruising along enjoying the atmosphere when I came along Mark Plaatjes sitting on a curb. I took the opportunity to stop for a minute to say hi and tell him how awesome his WC Marathon was.

In retrospect, he was probably bummed, as he had just dropped out of the race and was probably hurting. Anyway, he seemed genuinely pleased and surprised that I recognized him and took the time to stop. Very nice guy indeed. I guess there is no bad time to have a fan.

With 35,000 people in the race, it seemed like the whole world went by while I was standing there.

You must be Doug Cross then. I saw that story before somewhere else. Cool!

This was kind of silly, but in 1989 there was this road race in Atlanta called Run for Life. It's usually a 5k/10k (still, I think), but this year was only a 5k and had a good bit of prize money. It was probably one of the best non-Peachtree races in the state ever.

Anyway, guys were milling about at a fairly chaotic starting line scene just a few minutes before the race and the starter is giving instructions. Only problem is that his megaphone was on the "whisper" setting and almost no one was hearing it. I was one of the very few that was paying attention (he was standing close to me). In these final seconds, I got a nasty and rather stupid notion.

So he ends up giving a "ready, set, go" or something that hardly anyone hears and I sprinted out ahead of everyone. This field included guys like Brantley, John Tuttle, local star Arega Abraha and a bunch of good SE runners, but for several hundred yards I was kicking everyone's butt. I heard later that Branley had his BACK to the starting line when the gun went off.

Fortunately, I reined it in soon enough so my race wasn't totally ruined. I let the pack pass me before the mile (4:37 for me) and wound up 18th in 14:37 (still a PR!), while Tuttle set a state record 13:45 (four at 14:01 or better and many more under 14:10).

No big deal, but it was just a hoot that it happened like that. I probably shoulda said something to the starter, but I got greedy.