Military people and running times

I'm in the Kenyan Air Force

Managed to do about 6.30 1.5 once (on my way to a 26ish 6)

triathletes and military- both willing to cut it short to hit their time...

runners- will fudge the numbers, especially as they get older, but chances of this decrease with the accuracy of courses coupled with the interet to confirm/ deny results....

sorry but i luv it when guys are "breaking 31" for 10k at the end of the tri...give me a break...

I went into the Army right after High School. Never ran before. I enjoyed the running in the Army and discovered a talent.

I once ran 10 minutes flat for 2 miles with boots and an M16. No BS.

Went on to road racing and track once I did my 2yrs in Germany.

PR'd at 9:08 2 mile, 14:36 5k, 23:38 8k, and 29:56 10k.

I 44 now and still enjoying running.

All started in Basic Training.....

RUNINTHESUN, is your name Tim? I used to run for the SCANG team.

Well done Air Force. CISM is no joke- good luck

I think I still hold the British Army Record for our 1.5 miles test at 6:42 in boots in 1981. As I was in a survey unit there was no doubt about the distance. The surveyors measured it to about 1:100th of an inch! I was a sub 4 miler so I should have run that fast. I ran under 6:50 about 5 or 6 times.

I joined one unit with a PT instructor who thought that he was really fit. The course was straight line and he lined up on the road at the start with us all and his stop watch. I suggested that he might consider getting into the landrover and going ahead but he was adamant that all was well. "Dont you worry I will be there before you he said". I ran 2:08 through 800m in boots and he stuck with me. Suddenly he stopped and puked violently at the side of the road. Poor lad. The others never let him forget it. Give him his due he knuckled down to training and became quite a good orienteer.

Second best time was Malcolm Edwards with I think 6:45 or 47 ( a Welsh International and sub 4 miler)

Third was Geoff Wade with 6:49 (Then Army Cross Country champion)

I think we had at least one other under 6:50

When we changed to running shoes in the 90s then Rod Finch ran 6:23. He was a European Indoor Bronze medalist at 3000m.

But even now a run under 7 minutes is rare.

Glen Grant

Rather sprightly times, Glen. I am impressed.

I can bet that most American military units (outside of civil engineering) would determine the distance of their PRT run by using a car, if done on a road. Take the times with the amount of salt desired (grain, shake, entire shaker) to make it palatable, especially when the bee-essing starts over the beer.

Thanks for the compliments, but I do use a wheel. Our base just built a 1/2 mile rubber track & it is dead on the money. Of course it cost about 600 grand to build.

Sam F wrote:

[quote]curioso wrote:

I doubt they "exaggerate" more than the people on this board.

Or in civilian life. I would guess that if a group from an office had to run a 2 miler that there would be a whole lot of fake times braged about. You hear enough of them as it is!

I also don't know why anyone would want to impress others with a fake time. There can't be any satisfaction in it.

Try this if you want to see how fast the navy guys are.

Walk up behind a couple and sing this song to the "Village peoples" In the Navy.

In the Navy you can learn to be a queer.

In the Navy you can take it up the rear.

Then f**k off.

We should be happy military guys even care enough to exaggerate running times. The average guy on the street doesn't care enough or know enough about running to bother making up a time. My guess is most people in the service know the amount of work it takes to be a good runner as opposed to people who tell me I could be in the Olympics if I didn't have a job and could train full time.

Okie, where were you stationed? I might have raced you in Germany. I was a medic stationed in the Nurenberg-Graf area in 1976-78 and ran a lot of track and cross-country. I ran with the Furth 1860 team (I was the only American)and was running 15:28/32:50 and getting smoked by the Germans. A couple of American guys were running fast back then too. A guy named Kim Nutter was the best American there at the time and he was running 29 min 10K's before his ETS back to the states. He ended up running some good marathons (2:20's) with Carl Hatfield and the West Virginia TC. There were a few guys who were pretty fast former HS runners in our company but they smoked too much dope and got lazy. We used to get 2-day passes for winning the quarterly 2-mile PT test runs. I had to run 9:30-9:40's to win the passes. It got real competitive when slacking off was the prize.

Outstanding runners not unheard of, but 3 miles under 18 in USMC, was considered "very good." Many courses are poorly measured. The proof of this was that every unit seemed to have they're own start and finish line for the same distance; big joke at all my duty stations (LeJeune, MCAS Tustin and New River), but usually not intentional.

I was almost always the top finisher in fitness tests running at 5:20 to 5:30 pace. I think a track guy from Annapolis beat me once.

Thanks for the reply. I was in Mannheim from 79 - 81. 3rd/8th Cav.

Most of the running I did was Volksmarches and a few road races.

I was just finding my groove and better running came when I got out of the Army in 81.

I did compete our units Bosalager (?) Cup team. Multi event competition. Swimming, Running, Orientation, ID enemny vehicles, etc. Competed against Germans, Italians, etc.

We got smoked every time but I won the 2 mile XC in full gear.

Germany was a great place for me to start running with all the trails, etc.!

Yep

Great post. Thanks for sharing. Another fine example of how if you sift through the garbage there is some things on here that are amazing.

I started off in the USMC. I could never break 16:00 for the 3 mile. the best I ever did was 16:01. I could do a bunch of pull ups. we spent a lot of time in the feild or deployed so it was hard to get any kind of consistant quality training.

Once I got into college and lost 20 pounds I ended up running a 15:01 5,000 on the track.

I meant Field.

hey South Carolina, are you still running for the Guard?

Volksmarches were great for long training runs with beer and bratwurst at the end.

I never had to do PT in combat boots after BCT. I don't know how anyone could run fast in boots. I wore Onitsuka-Tiger Jayhawks for my PT 2-milers. No M-16 either.

Most of the NATO troops we would race against were stud runners. Back then, the world's best runners all military guys. Jos Hermens and Detlef Uhlemann competed for the Dutch and W. Germany in one USAEUR/NATO meet I ran in Njmegen (sp?) Netherlands. Everyone else in the field were torched by those guys.

I ran AF track and XC back in the late 80's. Not too many people could go under 8:30 for their 1.5 fitness test as I recall. Me and Mike Michno went through OTS around the same time. He was in the 6:40 range, I was around 6:55. Being on the AF track and XC teams was a nice way to get 6 extra weeks of leave though. I got to run with Bret Hyde. Such a super guy but passed away from Lou Gehrigs. Also Alonzo Babers was on the team but was into his pilot career by then. His times were still impressive but he chose an AF career over professional racing.