I listed my "PRs" on my resume, and now the chickens have come home to roost.

"It's been said before but there are guys running 16:55 in college."

Look 16:55 is great for the average runner. Fantastic really. It's even pretty darn good for HS. It's pretty piss poor for college.

At least when I went. The slowest of slow guys were around 15:43. I can't remember a single guy on any team I ran for who could not break 16.

Sure, 15:43 runners might blow up and run 16:55, but for a PR? Or they were coming back from injury, or sick, or doubling, or getting an extra workout.

Granted I went to college a long time ago.

Maybe at the smallest of small schools they have these guys. I just don't recall it.

I don't mean to insult the guy. 16:55 is not that slow - just pretty slow to be a college runner.

Corporate 5Ker wrote:

Hi everyone. Thank you for the advice so far. I'll spend the night processing everything and see how I can implement the advice here into my training.

Minor update. Went out for 8 miles tonight, mostly loops around a park. Unfortunately, while I was looping around some softball fields I caught a tough freak break. A batter hit a line drive foul right at me and it dinged me square in my left knee. Very painful and my knee swelled up a bit, but I was still able to finish the run. Icing the knee now and hoping it feels OK tomorrow so my training doesn't take a setback.

Beautiful the way you set this up as a way to get out of a lie to your boss and now you have set us up with an excuse for not going through with the race. Trolling the trolled some more.

I ran on a very good college track program that some pretty bad distance runners that walked on.

There were a few with 16:55 ability that ran XC but were gone by the time track season came around.

The OP never said he was a good runner.

It's not hard to believe he may have given college XC and track a try but couldn't hack it.

So that part is believable to me. There are guys who "try" to run college but just aren't better than 16:55 runners.

Then he said he put that he ran college XC and track on his resume.

I can believe that. Let's say he tried one year so he puts it on his resume as an activity.

Then he was asked what his PRs were. I know I would have asked if worked with him.

Believable.

Then he panics and gives a rime from a short course.

Why not. It's not like it will be investigated.

Then they ask him to run a corporate race.

Crap! They will learn he isn't that good.

Again. Believable.

I can see all of these things happening. So it's pretty funny.

And if it's made up then it is very creative to use a string of events that are all believable.

Good job on the thread.

jacknback wrote:

"It's been said before but there are guys running 16:55 in college."

Look 16:55 is great for the average runner. Fantastic really. It's even pretty darn good for HS. It's pretty piss poor for college.

At least when I went. The slowest of slow guys were around 15:43. I can't remember a single guy on any team I ran for who could not break 16.

Sure, 15:43 runners might blow up and run 16:55, but for a PR? Or they were coming back from injury, or sick, or doubling, or getting an extra workout.

Granted I went to college a long time ago.

Maybe at the smallest of small schools they have these guys. I just don't recall it.

I don't mean to insult the guy. 16:55 is not that slow - just pretty slow to be a college runner.

jacknback, I appreciate seeing your thought process. As a slow former college runner myself (28:15 8k pr, and that was an outlier) I have always assumed that guys who claimed to be unaware of our ilk's existence were either trolling, or had exclusively interacted with D1 runners, or were just ignoring the waves of runners finishing way behind them.

It never occurred to me that the time period they went to college could also have something to do with it, that teams of guys running this slow might be a relatively new phenomenon, much like the 5, 6, 7 hour marathoners are a relatively new phenomenon.

To give you a picture, my college team once won an xc quad meet--the only meet we ever won--with only one guy breaking 28 for 8k, on an easy course in perfect conditions.

I've met a lot of DIII runners who loved to train and compete and push their limits, who followed reasonable training plans and did not lack for good coaching, but who never could have run 15:40 (i.e. could never have been a slow D1 runner). If these kinds of runners couldn't have a team experience in college prior my decade or the decade before, then I'm glad I got to run on a team when I did.

i am sorry for your troubles OP but this is a hillarious situation to not be a part of.

You are in a pickle, my friend. But to be honest, if you ran 18:04 earlier in the spring and have still been running enough to maintain fitness, I don't see why 17:00 would be unattainable. You just need to kick it in gear. Do not increase your mileage to more than 50 per week. You don't need to. For your first two weeks, do mostly easy mileage but do one 20 min tempo each week. Make sure you know what a tempo is and do it correctly. Then you should be ready to implement some speed work. For the next two weeks you will be doing 3 workouts during the week, plus a long run. Do one short track workout that focuses on speed: 6X300 meters for example. Do one track workout that helps build strength: 8X800. Do a 20 minute tempo. That should get your legs ready to do 17:00. Begin the fifth week with a 5K time trial, preferably signing up for a race to get you ready for race environment. Then do a modest workout two days later of 12X400 and a 20 minute tempo 2 days after that. For the final week, you're gonna want a workout that makes you feel fast but doesn't kill the legs: 12X200 perhaps. Then see how you feel seeing as you'll be

Looks like my post was cut off: will try again.

You are in a pickle, my friend. But to be honest, if you ran 18:04 earlier in the spring and have still been running enough to maintain fitness, I don't see why 17:00 would be unattainable. You just need to kick it in gear. Do not increase your mileage to more than 50 per week. You don't need to. For your first two weeks, do mostly easy mileage but do one 20 min tempo each week. Make sure you know what a tempo is and do it correctly. Then you should be ready to implement some speed work. For the next two weeks you will be doing 3 workouts during the week, plus a long run. Do one short track workout that focuses on speed: 6X300 meters for example. Do one track workout that helps build strength: 8X800. Do a 20 minute tempo. That should get your legs ready to do 17:00. Begin the fifth week with a 5K time trial, preferably signing up for a race to get you ready for race environment. Then do a modest workout two days later of 12X400 and a 20 minute tempo 2 days after that. For the final week, you're gonna want a workout that makes you feel fast but doesn't kill the legs: 12X200 perhaps. Then see how you feel seeing as you'll be

Ok I guess I'll just continue it. Very odd. Here is the rest of my post:

Then see how you feel seeing as you'll be

I apologize for spamming. I think I had an HTML tag messing up my post. Very sorry for the triple post. Here is what I wanted to say, in full!

You are in a pickle, my friend. But to be honest, if you ran 18:04 earlier in the spring and have still been running enough to maintain fitness, I don't see why 17:00 would be unattainable. You just need to kick it in gear. Do not increase your mileage to more than 50 per week. You don't need to. For your first two weeks, do mostly easy mileage but do one 20 min tempo each week. Make sure you know what a tempo is and do it correctly. Then you should be ready to implement some speed work. For the next two weeks you will be doing 3 workouts during the week, plus a long run. Do one short track workout that focuses on speed: 6X300 meters for example. Do one track workout that helps build strength: 8X800. Do a 20 minute tempo. That should get your legs ready to do 17:00. Begin the fifth week with a 5K time trial, preferably signing up for a race to get you ready for race environment. Then do a modest workout two days later of 12X400 and a 20 minute tempo 2 days after that. For the final week, you're gonna want a workout that makes you feel fast but doesn't kill the legs: 12X200 perhaps. Then see how you feel seeing as you'll be[/quote]

Ok I guess I'll just continue it. Very odd. Here is the rest of my post:

Then see how you feel seeing as you'll be less than 1 week out from the race and do a 15 min tempo if the legs feel good. If they don't, focus on getting fresh.

You should be doing strides after every regular run. It is important that you do not skip out on the little things. You should be doing active stretching before every run, strides after every run, and core work. If you have any experience with either, I'd suggest implementing yoga and weight training as well. Make sure you are taking plenty of ice baths. You need to go into the race feeling strong and fresh. 17:00 is only a mental barrier. Anyone with a bit of talent can break it on 6 weeks of training if they do the work.

Good luck.

Are you all serious? People get slow. Just run the race and if you get a slow time, who cares? Why do you or your boss care so much if you lose? I look like I"m in great shape, but I'm super slow these days. You don't have to stress out about this.

good idea or bad idea wrote:

Are you all serious? People get slow. Just run the race and if you get a slow time, who cares? Why do you or your boss care so much if you lose? I look like I"m in great shape, but I'm super slow these days. You don't have to stress out about this.

Posted the person who has no clue the meaning these events take on whether we like it or not.

There are even Division I programs boasting numerous people that are this slow and slower, owing to the financial investments their athletic departments though would be a good idea in the 50s and have turned out to not be so great. I run at one such institution, and I am the only person on my team who can run anywhere near the times you're describing (barring a teammate who missed last season, and who hopefully is rehabbing from injury this summer). My name is a not-so-subtle hint as to which fine southern University I attend.

The reality is that there are a huge number of these fringe programs, radically unfunded, in every division, that pick up walk-ons or highschool kids who liked to run and then found out in college a 17:xx was enough to get them a spot on the team.

Also, I'm immensely enjoying this thread. Cheers!

If you get fired, get a job at FoodServiceWarehouse.com.

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=3625248

OP,

Have you identified this "ringer"? If so, see if you can find out more about him, his PRs, recent race results, online running logs. This will go a long way towards determining if you have a shot at the W or if you need to start thinking about excuses.

Also, 18:04 means you are not completely out of shape (relatively speaking), especially since it is not far off from your PR (especially since that was likely run on a track). If you are running about a minute off your college PR on just 35 miles easy running a week, you were probably undertrained in college and maybe have much more potential. My college 5k PR is 30s faster than yours, my current training is the same easy 35 miles, and I can't sniff 18 flat. It seems like you have room to improve a good amount.

I never got to run a race to prove it, but I'm positive the fastest I ever gotten was my junior year when I was kicked off the track team for academic reasons. I just ran with the fastest kid on the team (a D3 All-American) every day for all my runs. I didn't care how hard he was pushing the pace or how far he was going, I just held on for the entire run. (And he pushed the pace...he did not like the idea that I was keeping up). When he did workouts, I would just run hard on my own. Naturally I got injured. But the moral of the story is, if you run hard every day (not necessarily workouts but just hard), and can stave off injury for the time you need, you have a shot. Maybe find a local faster runner. Probably will want to back off in the week or two before the race and focus on getting sharp on the track.

easy say you just got injured on a recent run and cant run it

Malcolm Gladwell will write a book about this.

Expect it to sell 8 copies.

Win or lose, make sure your boss knows that it was just a rust-buster and you haven't even done any speed work.

Jesus God has the thread gone on this long without the obvious answer?

You don't want to fake an injury (looks like a wimp) or trip during the race (looks like a wimp) or even use the baseball to the knee excuse (looks like a wimp).

Take the race out super hard, then get lost on the course. When the ringer guy beats you, you can talk all year about how bad you were going to kick his ass until you went the wrong way.

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the continued advice! Just to let you all know, I'm not looking for excuses. I'm gonna go compete and let the chips fall where they may, so to speak.

Training update: 6 easy miles last night. I felt a little lightheaded/woozy because I only had a salad for lunch and a salad for dinner. I'm trying to be conscious of my calorie intake, but that was a little dumb last night. This morning I got up and ate a couple Poptarts before going out for and easy 3 miles and I finished with some strides. Knee feels better. I think I will prepare to start my serious training on Sunday. I'll double the next couple days to get my legs ready for harder work.