had an 800 to race with what I thought was a cold. First track race of the year. Was leading with 200 to go, although I felt I was done after 400m. My last 200 I was so dead I ran about 43 sec. I could not move, I felt I was in water. Once finished I was so dead tired I couldn't cool down. Had a serious fever and body chills went to the ER because I thought I was going to die. Turned out I had pneumonia.
My worst race happened in 2011 at my local Turkey Trot 10km on Thanksgiving. I got invited to a friend's house for dinner the night before. Thing is, my friend is Indian and the meal was entirely Indian cuisine--totally not a cuisine I normally eat. Nonetheless, the food was very tasty and perfectly spicy. I went to town on the samosas, chicken curry, dahl, etc.
By 10pm, I was in bed tossing and turning with heartburn and sweats and dozing slightly only to snap out of it feeling bloated and horrible. I got up at 1 am to take some zantac, but still woke up feeling burnt out, wasted, and dehydrated. Still, I was optimistic I'd feel better after some oatmeal and a glass of Gatorade.
My warmup felt sluggish. When the race started, I felt ok for the first 2 km. But by 3km, I was beginning to labor in the chase pack. By 4 km I was blown out the back door and slowing with every step. By 7km, my stomach was lurching so hard, I could re-taste dinner. I just had to stop and hurl. With 2 km left to go, my pace had slowed to a shuffle and I got caught by the lead woman and the female chase pack. I finished my death march just to get back to the car and go home. It was a bad decision to overeat on unfamiliar foods the night before. I also went out too fast given my sluggish feeling. Worst race EVER for me.
DON'T EAT CRAZY wrote:
[...] entirely Indian cuisine--totally not a cuisine I normally eat. Nonetheless, the food was very tasty and perfectly spicy. I went to town on the samosas, chicken curry, dahl, etc.
By 10pm, I was in bed tossing and turning with heartburn and sweats and dozing slightly only to snap out of it feeling bloated and horrible. I got up at 1 am to take some zantac, but still [...]
Lol, my sympathies are with you, but in a situation like that Zantac would only prolong the inevitable...
My worst race: league XC champs sophomore year of high school. This was actually about two months ago. The course was one I had really struggled with the year before, the main problem being the incredibly steep downhill sections that would hammer away at my legs until they were on fire.
The first big mistake I made was taking my warmups off about ten minutes before the race. The temps weren't crazy low, but enough to chill you (maybe 45-50). I had misestimated the time I had before the gun, and I left my sweats at my team tent, so I didn't have the option of putting them back on once I was at the line.
About 400m into the race, I was already feeling incredibly tight in the hamstrings and quads, but I kept pushing to stay towards the front of the pack. The first mile, which was fairly flat, felt like a bit more of a struggle than it should have been. At that point, the course got into the steep downhills, and I got absolutely destroyed. I would get dropped by four or five other runners on every hill, and within a half mile I was in last place. Coming through two miles in 11:56, I was just hanging on and trying to finish, knowing that I had blown it.
There was a short and very steep uphill section about a half mile from the finish, and as soon as I scaled it, my legs just couldn't move anymore. They weren't really burning or stinging, they just felt like they were turning to stone. I remember seeing the guy in front of me running away, and then my legs gave out. I fell onto the side of the course and stumbled back to my feet when the Gator that was following the race stopped to pick me up. It was a long ride back to the start/finish line, especially when I passed my two team managers, who had been taking 3-mile splits. One of them was a really hot girl I had a crush on. Lowest point in my running career so far, hands down.
The next two or three days just felt like a haze; I couldn't believe I had fvcked up so badly. Most of my teammates totally blew me off, clearly thinking I was a pvssy and an awful runner. I had let them down as the sixth man on our team, and I still wonder whether or not I could have kept running, and whether or not it would have even mattered.
Outdoor track, and another chance to prove myself to myself and my team, is still on the horizon. The only thing to do now is to learn from that race and move on, even if that means venting to nobody in particular on some internet forum.
Why did you bump a 15 month old thread?
Started out my sophomore season in hs looking to be around a 2-3 runner on my team. Got hurt (IT band) 2 days before our first meet and didn't say anything. Started to run and could barely even move my leg...I ran 29 minutes for a 5k and basically had to walk to the finish. I wanted to die of embarrassment. Unfortunately my season never did get much better (although I never ran close to 29 again) as I kept getting hurt and eventually ended up on crutches...there's always next year 😬
reader of the forums 2.0 wrote:
Why did you bump a 15 month old thread?
Why not?
Same topic. Why start another thread?
Freshman Year of Highschool at my conference meet:
Our team was fresh off a terrible performance, and that kinda reinvigorated us and we were ready to shock some people at the conference meet. I had been running great lately and my coach thought I should take honorable mention for all conference (15-21 place) or maybe second team if I ran the race of my life.
Anyway the day of it completely poured and flooded the course, and it was still pouring when the gun went off for my race, it turned the hills into a river. Now I was 5'1'' and 85 lbs and hadn't hit puberty yet, so when it came to having to run in bad conditions, I just didn't have the strength for it. I got 35th...
Walt Disney Marathon, 10 years ago, before I actually was a runner. Signed up for Team in Training (friend's mom had been diagnosed).
Did the weekday 2-3 miles every other day, never missed a long run. Waited for the wall/bonk and nothing came at mile 20, 21, 22, 23, or even 24. As I hit Mile 25, I pretty much forgot how to function as a human being. Some guy, not a runner or a race volunteer, let me lean on him. Even with that, I was able to go like 2-3 steps before having to stop and put my hands on my knees and get myself together. Took me 45 minutes to complete the last mile.
Somehow got into running later despite that experience. Have never done a marathon again.
agree, great thread. surprised I missed it the first time. thanks HS sophmore kid for bumping.
bhgb wrote:
reader of the forums 2.0 wrote:Why did you bump a 15 month old thread?
Why not?
Same topic. Why start another thread?
Netwerk Errer wrote:
I was 13 and running a road 10k. I was in a group of about 5 adult runners and trying to run the tight tangent at the turn where there was a wooden fence on the border of the pavement. I pushed the pace for the inside line when a pretty stocky and then relative giant to me cut across me and gave me a nudge into the fence. I hit it hard but I managed to stay on my feet and continue on for about 200m before I felt a cold stream of blood running down my shin. We cleaned off the blood and stuck a band-aid on the cut and I dropped out.
Later that night at home, My knee started to feel excruciatingly painful and started to cease up so my parents took me to the doctor the next day. He examined my knee and saw a small pinhead size cut. He said the pain was coming from the blow to my knee and I should rest it for a few days. The pain got worse and worse over the next week and we went back to the doctor. He sent us to the hospital for an x-ray to see if I done any bone damage.
The doctor examined my knee before the x-ray and he started to get really anxious but said nothing. It was when the x-ray was done that the problem became obvious, There was a hole in my kneecap. A four inch nail had gone straight through the bone in my knee. This may sound bad but the worst was yet to come, The wound was infected and showing the early signs of gangrene.
I was told that if the surgeons couldn't return circulation and clean the infection, I would have to have my leg amputated above the knee. I went through countless surgeries and skin grafts before I got the all clear, I could keep my leg. I had to spend a year in rehabilitation. I didn't begin running again until 2 years ago at the age of 23.
Winner
Can't recall the date, either 1982 or 1983, an all comers meet at UCSB early in the CA track season, either December or January. I had only been running seriously for about 3 years (was a collegiate swimmer and dabbled in track my senior year). I decided to "test myself" in a mile I was running in that all comers. 400m - 60 sec, 800m - 2:02, 1200M - 3:03. Mile - no idea. I was in good position till 150m from the finish, and it was like someone jumped on my back. At 100m from the finish I could no longer do a complete stride, at 50m I was shuffling my feet while trying to compensate by flailing my arms. I do recall glancing over at the stands to my right, some people had this horrified look on their faces, others were laughing hysterically. The rest of the field blew by me. I basically crawled over the finish line, and to this day have no idea what my final time was. All Merle, my coach could do was smile and shake his head. For 20 min I lay on my back and hyperventilated. Musta been a riot to watch.
my first thought was the time i set out to fast during a half and had to jog the last 5 miles slow as hell. The run passes my house near the end to so allmy friends and neighbors saw me running so far back in the pack compared to where i had told them i planned to be. That was but but even worse was when i was in elementary and joined my schools relay team for the annual city marathon. I was a pretty small kid, with a pretty young looking face for my age and an overgrown mushroom cut so my hair was kinda long. For the entire run people were yelling things like "atta girl!", or "look at that girl go!". That was a lot to cope with at the tender age of 10
Ran 2:22 in my first marathon. Total fail. Gave up the sport immediately for the shame.
After racing my marathon that I had trained months for, I signed up to pace another marathon about 5 weeks later. The goal pace was about 40 minutes slower than the race that I had just completed.
No idea why it happened: not enough recovery? Hot temps for second marathon? Just plain ole hadn't been on my feet for that DURATION in years? Regardless, at mile 23, I had cramps like I had never felt before. I had to walk for the first time in a race, had to hand my pacing sign off to a fellow runner, and was forced to do the walk of shame for the last 3 miles back home.
It was truly humbling.
Crowd: "Hey! Are you the Four-Hour guy?"
Me: "Um... yeah."
2001 or 2002 New Orleans Marathon (first marathon). Went out all night for two nights prior, getting drunk, eating fried food, and having Cuban cigars. Was sick as a dog on race day (which was ~ 70 degrees and sunny) but gave it a go. Cracked through the half in ~ 1:30 , which was on the fast end, and dropped at 18, having to go to the medical tent. Most humiliating experience of my life.
Lehigh Marathon - 2014.
Didn't run 3:11
It was a very hard week. I had been in the hospital for 3 days. My car had bombed on the way to Beirut. I was to catch a plane that day to Palermo to run in the half marathon world championships. I made it out of the hospital just in time to make it the night before the championships. My leg hurt so bad from the shrapnel still lodged in it. While at dinner that night I overheard an American saying that his training had been bad and that he was going to use the excuse of food poisoning to explain what would be a terrible performance. The next day I limped along the course. Finally over the last 3 kilometers I caught that same American and thought to my self at least I beat that ahbeh. If only I could remember his name.
WEJO just got owned
Omar Latiff wrote:
It was a very hard week. I had been in the hospital for 3 days. My car had bombed on the way to Beirut. I was to catch a plane that day to Palermo to run in the half marathon world championships. I made it out of the hospital just in time to make it the night before the championships. My leg hurt so bad from the shrapnel still lodged in it. While at dinner that night I overheard an American saying that his training had been bad and that he was going to use the excuse of food poisoning to explain what would be a terrible performance. The next day I limped along the course. Finally over the last 3 kilometers I caught that same American and thought to my self at least I beat that ahbeh. If only I could remember his name.
Doesn't come close to a lot of stuff here.
After my HS freshman year of track I signed up for a road 5k 2 weeks after my last race. That year in cross country I wasn't a serious runner and ran 22:28. I had run 10:59 for the 3200 in track, so I had dreams of going out and crushing my 5k PR by 4.5 minutes. I started off the first mile in 5:50 in 3rd place, then slowed to like 6:15 for the second mile. I never lost place during this time, but second and first had long gone out of sight and I made a wrong turn and finished 4th. It added about 20 seconds to my time, and I missed out on an extra prize. I ran about 20:30, and learned that overtraining sucks.