A teamate of mine tanked pretty bad in a 4Xmile relay. He was in 2nd with a pretty big gap between him and 1st. Clicked off laps of 68,68,68 to catch the guy in 1st and passed him, then the other guy moved past him with 250 to go. My teamate ran 4:47 with a last 200 of 46.
atwell wrote:
In my first 100-miler, I did the first 50 miles in 10 hours. I finished the race in 27 hours. At the mile 90 aid station, I passed out, and laid at the aid station for over an hour, before walking the final 10 miles.
Anybody ever crash harder than that?
You bonked doing 12 minute miles? Your diet doesn't help you at all.
2000 Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon. 2:30s pace through 20 miles. 50+ minute final 10k, walk, jog, crawl to finish 2:49.
Alan
State qualifier meet in the 800 my junior year of high school. At the time my 400m PR was 50.4 open and high 49 4x400 split and my 800m PR was 1:53.8. I didn't realize this until after the season was over, but I was suffering from mono at the time; in recent races I felt dead towards the last 100-200 meters and didn't understand why. Therefore I thought I would go out fast and try to drop everyone so that even if I tanked they would be so far behind they couldn't catch me. I went through the 400 mark to hear the offical yell "50....51!!!" I had basically just matched my 400m PR in the first half of my 800. I still felt pretty good through 600m, but then it started. With about 70-80m to go two guys flew by me and I had nothing left, moving like I had weights tied to my legs for a 3rd place finish in 1:55.7. Therefore my second lap had to be about 65 seconds. I still got to states based on time and placed there, but good lord never ran a race with such uneven splits ever again.
Two nominees:
High School Senior Year Outdoor 4x800 (local public school championships): I'm a basketball player who runs 20-25 mpw for 2-3 months in the spring and runs some 4's and 8's as best I can. I get to anchor the 4x8, last event of the meet, b/c we're up a million points and the good guys are done. I get the stick a few steps ahead in first, proceed to get passed (I still don't know how) on the inside! on the first turn, pass the 400 at 60 (my 400 PR was like 57 low, 800 PR is 2:17), hit the 600 at 1:37 and my entire body just went numb, didn't feel like I could take two more steps, wasn't sure if I lifted my feet off the ground, I ran a 40 second last 200 for a 2:17 and even got edged at the line for 3rd from some douche 1:58 runner who decides to run the relay.
#2 would have to be my first marathon where the last mile took me 40+ minutes to finish. GOd bless the man who let me literally lean on him and stop every 3 minutes to gather myself the rest of the way.
3:51 marathon - 1:31 at the half, then bonked shortly thereafter...should've just packed it in
Similar to others: first 20 miles of a marathon in exactly two hours, last 10k in 53 minutes. A policeman at the 24 mile mark said only two miles to go and that it looked like that would take me until Monday. I would have said something smart back but couldn't speak. Still hate that s.o.b.
A mile in HS...with a PR of about 4:51 I went through the half in 2:21...and didn't break 5:00.
The summer after my sophomore year of high school I decided to do the USATF thing and run for a club. I was the only non-sprinter on the team at that time. In the association championships 800m, I went out in 53 high and came back in a grimacing, painful 68 to run 2:01. I still won, but man was that 2nd lap ugly.
Hardest I have ever tanked was in an 800, surprisingly. I was probably in 1:58 shape at the time, but I got all excited and went out in 54.X. It was on an indoor track and there was so much noise I couldn't hear my splits, so I just kept going and hit 600 in about 1:22 and I was completely toasted. I was basically waddling the last 200m, ran my last 200 in about 40 seconds and got passed by three people in the last 20 meters. Ended up running 2:02, collapsed afterwards, didn't move for a couple of minutes.
I had always thought that could only happen after distance events, but I was wrong.
Dehydration nailed me good at Boston one year. I was running well, was very excited and had a brain lapse and stopped taking fluids. I was 1:57:35 at 22 miles, then the lights went out, and I ended up running 2:32:12....for a nightmarish 34:37 for the last 4 miles.
what u know about that wrote:
You bonked doing 12 minute miles? Your diet doesn't help you at all.
I had that experience on the Standard American Diet. My bonk in that race is one of the reasons why I switched to the raw food diet. I did the same race, one year later, and finished in 18:40 (good enough for 2nd place).
I ran in a 1500m race in Eugene last month. I tanked it so bad that I finished with a time of 3:41.62. Shoot, that is just barely ahead of my mile PR. But that's alright, my toupee is kicking and the chicks dig my smile and large cranium.
I have one that is actually on Flotrack. It doesn't sound "that bad", but I was aiming for 4:20 to 4:23 and I ran very evenly and strongly and just needed one more 32 to run 4:23. Since it was a big meet, everyone had similar fitness and I went from top 3 to DFL in the last 250 or 300 (minus one guy who bonked the whole race). I ran a 35 last 200, and was lying on the ground in agonizing discomfort for 45 minutes.
That's your worst tank ever? You have led a fortunate running career.
Never bonked as bad as you guys.
Lets get this going again.
Allergy-induced asthma problems during the end of a 10 mile race this spring. Went down 10 feet from the finish.
I've collected a nice sequence of 10 photos from the finish, showing me going down and crawling across. Of those, this one's my favorite (actually ended up splurging on one of those overpriced "finisher's photos" for this one):
http://marathonfoto.com/view_watermark.cfm?CustomerNumber=T66G35&NegsNumber=58016100&Orientation=P
I also liked this one, from a few seconds later:
http://marathonfoto.com/view_watermark.cfm?CustomerNumber=T66G35&NegsNumber=58016404&Orientation=P
Similar to one earlier, I was in college in my first steeple race. I came throught 1500 in 4:45, and then clipped a barrier got a little scared, and proceeded to run a 11 minute race. I believe at one point I put both feet on the water jump.
Sophomore in HS. It was a mile race, my best at the time was 5:10 in the mile. I was on the California start, race gets going after 100m I take the lead. Was leading a bunch of sub 5, most sub 4:50 runners. I went through the 1200 in first place at 3:30 on the dot...I finished in 5:20.
70,70,70,100
#1: My 5k PR was 15:54 although I was probably in 15:30 shape and my shorter PRs indicated I should be more like a 15:00 guy. The 15:54 was my first college 5k and I ran it on the double after a decent 1500m. The rest of that year and the next year I ran about 8 or 10 times between 16:00 and 16:10 which was way below my capacity...I wasn't finishing races tired, just feeling like I pussed out every time. The last meet of my second year in college I decide I am going to go for it and go with the leaders in a decent sized regional meet. The better people in the meet were 14:20-14:30 guys. I figured I would probably die but still PR, and maybe get a huge PR, but I was excited about the idea of at least trying to race the leaders rather than just settling in the middle of the pack and going for a time. My training had been picking up and I think my coach was expecting a decent PR for me but I was a lowly walk-on and never got much attention.
We go out running fairly even 70s and I was tucked in there through the mile (4:40) and almost 2000m. At 2000m (6:03) the top 3 got away and everyone started passing me. I went out the back door real fast and fought to hang on for a PR but 80s felt like 60s and I ended up in 16:03, on the last lap my teammate telling me to "kick with the mountain man" (some heavily bearded dude). I think my last lap was 78 and I used to be a great kicker closing races near 60 in high school.
Needless to say, my coach was really pissed.
#2 Parkersburg Half Marathon. I was in decent shape, but had not raced in a year because I'd been injured but I was regularly running 10 to 20 mile runs at 6:00 pace without feeling blown out. I estimated that I could do a half at around 5:40 pace and my longest distance PR at the time was 10 miles at 57:17 which I'd done on the track as a tempo a couple years earlier and I was in at least that shape.
It was very hot and humid that day and I suck in the heat.
I go out "easy" feeling great and surprised when I go through the mile in 5:30. I slow it down a little to keep it under control and the next mile is 5:50-something but it is uphill so I was expecting that. I died hard on mile 3, struggling to hit 6:00 and figure that I'm done so I will just try to hang onto 6:00 pace and make it a good run. Mile 4 is 6:30 and I'm totally falling apart and thinking how am I even going to finish. I slow down to 7:30 pace which feels like a tempo run but is manageable, then catch a couple of guys with elite bibs who died and packed it in. We conspire to find a shortcut to the finish so we can watch the leaders but even with the shortcut making it a 10 mile run, we don't get there before the winners and it felt like a tempo run, but was probably 65 to 67 minutes.
About a year later I vindicated myself in my only other half marathon running exactly 5:40 pace. I was at 55:04 at 10 miles but it was San Diego and the last couple miles are uphill. I was going for sub 55:00 at 10 miles and hang on, so even though it was a pretty good bonk, I was close to my goal there...
