love the question.
my first race of my life was a road race 2 miler. i ran 17:07 and was PUMPED. I was 8 years old.
i ran 11:01 in the 3200 as a freshman in HS and 9:36 as a senior.
in college i ran a 9:23 (equivalent based off a 3k).
i think/hope i'm in shape for, and i'm aiming to run, about a 9:12 2 mile this spring! (post-collegiate)
First 3200 consisted of me being WAY too cautious and overestimating the length of the event. Ran like 11:40 (freshman in HS, was running 5:10 for the mile). Eventually ran 9:50 and 4:30 in high school. Got a lot better in college.
Took me awhile to learn that you can hang on going on 15-20 secs off your mile pace, even if you aren't in great aerobic shape. Don't be afraid of it.
freshman in high school, first 3200 I ran was in a three way meet and I had no clue about anything, just ran, come home in 12:33. Run 9:12 now.
never ran it outdoors ... I was an 800 meter guy.
Indoors ... coach put me in it once sophomore year of HS. Big mistake. Ran 11:54 on a flat 11 laps per mile track. This was an hour after a 1:21 600yds
My first run I ever did was 2 miles in 14:44 in 8th grade, I just wanted to see if I could run 2 miles without stopping at all. The next week, I did the same course in 13:41 and I was hooked. Later ran that same course in 10:59 once I'd been running awhile.
I just ran a 3200m race last night and got 12:06, it was a new PR for me and I'm only a sophomore. I got a new PR for the mile and a PR for the 2-mile. My splits were 5:43, 6:23 it was pretty good considering I'm really sick and couldn't breathe through my nose. My shins started hurting more than they ever have too and I felt like I was gonna poop myself. (haha) I'm still super excited to break 12 in the 3200m because this is my first year doing it in track because I only did the 800m my freshman year.
Okay so I'm technically not done with high school yet, but my first race at 3200m was an 11:54 (that or :56, can't remember). I was feeling great after the race so I was pretty sure I could've gone faster. Turns out I was right; ran 11:05 two or three weeks later and won a JV race.
Last season sucked, but I got my 3200m down to 11:01. Pretty sure I ran faster than that at the 2-mile mark in a couple 5ks this cross country season though. 800 is 2:20 but that's never been my strong suit. Mile is (weirdly) stuck at 5:19, which isn't far off from most of my first miles for the 3200 and I've actually ran a 5:18 first mile in my fastest 5k. 5k is 17:14.
My first 3200 was actually a time trial, a time of 16:23, which I was pretty impressed by, as I was a 12 year old!
Later that year, I still didn't know how to pace correctly, so I race a 12:42
This year(soph) I ran a 12:24 time trial again(same one as last year!), beating my old time by 4 minutes in one year! Hard work pays off!
I am hoping to break 12 in the 2 mile this year!
Freeto Laid wrote:
Describe your first race at this distance. How well did you eventually run at 2-miles, and other distances? Thanks.
My first 2-mile (and it was a 2 mile) was run in 11:33 as a freshman in high school. Ended that season at 10:33. Sophomore year ran 10:19. Junior year 9:51. Senior year, 9:59. Indoor 2 mile in college in 9:21.
11:40 as a sophomore at a dual meet in my first year of running. I had done XC for the first time the semester before, and went from 22:20 to 19:16 that XC season.
The next XC I improved that 2Mile PB during a 5K, during a span of 3 weeks of improving my seasonal and lifetime PBs (19:45 at Boardman, 18:47 at Strongsville, 17:40 at Madison U Wanna Come Back). I went from 11:40 in an individual 2Mile down to 11:18 during that 17:40 5K. Shaved an average of about a minute each week which was insane for me, but sadly it ended at 17:40.
I did track that season and started out at 11:12, and ran 10:35 at the Optimist meet in Austintown-Fitch for my PB.
I unfortunately was ineligible(Failed a class :( ) during the XC season for Senior year, but my coach had me run a time trial in which I raced against my teammates for the first mile(they had an all out mile for training. Week of Conference), and while they rested for 200s, I continued on with another mile and broke my Mile and 2Mile PB in the same race. Mile PB was 4:56, but I ran 4:52 in the first mile, and ended up with 10:19. This was on a loop in the park that we measured out and used for repeats for XC training. This was also a real 2Mile and not a 3200, so I guess if you convert it, it'll be around 10:17.
I'm not the best runner, but I am really happy about the progression, and I'm going after my school's 40 year old record of 9:43!!
I honestly don't remember it that well, but I think I just got thrown into a 3200 to see what would happen in my first track race. I barely broke 11, but I think I kicked to just make it in 10:59, 28 seconds behind our fastest frosh guy overall.
My PR came at a fast nighttime race the day after I had run a paced dual meet 3200, got a 12 second PR and didn't even feel tired, which makes the fact that my season got ended by a chest cold the day after so annoying. I'm shooting for my school's record of 9:35 for the upcoming season and we'll see how that goes! I'm trying to train above 50 mpw for the first time as our coach has stuck my team on low mileage (30-35 mpw max) all the time.
PRs:
9th - 10:38
10th - 10:00
11th - 9:46
12th - TBD
I started running competitively at 14. Now more than 40 years later I still am. Haven't run a race of those distances. Should I?
PS. Also don't have a mile PR. Confessed this to a guy I met at a running shop. He was shocked and that ended the conversation!
Unfinished wrote:
I honestly don't remember it that well, but I think I just got thrown into a 3200 to see what would happen in my first track race. I barely broke 11, but I think I kicked to just make it in 10:59, 28 seconds behind our fastest frosh guy overall.
My PR came at a fast nighttime race the day after I had run a paced dual meet 3200, got a 12 second PR and didn't even feel tired, which makes the fact that my season got ended by a chest cold the day after so annoying. I'm shooting for my school's record of 9:35 for the upcoming season and we'll see how that goes! I'm trying to train above 50 mpw for the first time as our coach has stuck my team on low mileage (30-35 mpw max) all the time.
PRs:
9th - 10:38
10th - 10:00
11th - 9:46
12th - TBD
9:20 coming soon. There I fixed it for you!
We still ran the two mile back then. The year after I graduated they went "metric" with the 1600 and 3200, events that no one else in the world runs but that's a topic for another day. I ran soph XC but didn't run track as a soph because I really wasn't into running that much.
Junior year I ran 9:52 in my first ever two mile in a competitive four team meet. Previously I had just been running the mile.
Senior year I dropped it down to 9:25 after a somewhat successful XC season.
In college I got the two mile down to 8:52 (indoor) so I had a full one minute improvement from my first venture into the two mile. I think I could probably run faster than that as I got my outdoor 5000 down to 14:10.
12:10 as a HS soph, cinder track. Decades later, still distinctly recall getting lapped by the winner of the race.
I had not raced longer than 440y as a freshman and did not run xc as a freshman or soph.
Junior year HS I went out for xc. About the third day of practice, coach decides to have a two mile time trial, on that same cinder track. My legs were so dead from the first two days of practice that I ran 13:15. I remember looking at that time on the handwritten results. Painful effort.
Mostly ran 800m in HS and D3 college. Finally ran sub-10 for 2-mile in my mid-30's at an all-comers meet (9:54) .
Age 45, ran marathon PR of 2:37, a bit faster pace than that first 2-mile, 30 years previous.
It was my first HS track meet in an indoor track and I was racing my teammate in the same heat. I previously lost to him in a time trial by being outkicked the last 100. I got 11:15. I then spanked him and beat his PR in the indoor meet running 10:53. It was a cool moment.