What is the most memorable running moment you've seen in-person?

mookie blalock wrote:

2008 NJ MOC Boys 3200. I've seen a lot of pro races in person but none top this one

Oh yes. I'll never forget that final lap.

Anyone have video?

Heather Dorniden falling in the Big Ten championship 600 with 1 lap left, getting up and still winning. I was in the stands with a good seat near the finish line.

Lynn Jennings outkicking McKiernen and Dias to win the World Cross Country Championships in Boston in 1992. Tough performance on a snowy course.

Saw lots of good races at Stanford meets over the years. Great electricity there during those nights...

I've been lucky to witness many amazing running events;

El G winning 1500 at world champs 2001, Robert Cheryot setting the Boston course record in 2006, John walker and coglan indoor victories but the most memorable for me was 2001 NYC marathon where jifar set the course record. I was at the 5 mile mark and when the lead pack came over the hill with the helicopters and cop cars. It was the first event post 911 and there was a lot of worry etc. the whole experience was stunning.

Very early 1980s, college campus in Florida where I was visiting a friend on school break. Half the city and certainly the whole campus was lit up on cheap beer and in my case Captain Morgan spiced whatever that shit is. I got lost on this unfamiliar campus very late at night trying to find my friend's dorm. I walked in circles so many times I was almost half sober when I heard this mild commotion to my left, across a mostly flat field that I guess was a college green of some kind. The air smelled strangely burnt shit that night, that I remember clearly. This might have been because I and a hold few other hellrakers had gotten hold of someone's fertilizer truck and set it on fire.

Well, this commotion took shape - big ugly shape. It was getting close enough to dawn so that the stars had just begun to fade a bit, and I was beat silly, but I snapped to for a moment when I realized that there was a huge, lumbering naked man headed right my way. Huge as in well over six feet, and fat as shit, with long hair. Years later when I watched the show "Lost" and first saw the Hurley character I was taken right back to that night near Daytona.

Anyway I stood stock still on the cobblestone path, mouth probably hanging agape, as this huge hairy THING bore down on me, surprisingly agile for such a leviathan. There was no one in sight on this part of campus, at this hour; the only sound I could hear was the four-lane highway about a quarter mile off. Oh damn.

As it turns out, this beast of a naked thing was probably high on something psychedelic. I have reported that he was drawing a bead on me, but that was sheer happenstance, as I 't think he ever even saw me. I edged off maybe to the side of the path, well clear of him as he swept by doing 13-14 miles an hour, gut swaying, eyes glazed, crazy hair billowing every which way, arms pumping and the smell of raw sewage trailing after him . He had the smallest penis I have ever seen on adult human being - maybe on any adult male, period. Maybe this is what freaked him out.

Anyway, he was gone within moments, but never forgotten, not by THIS weirded out young gun turned wrinkly middle aged nobody. By far the most fantastic run I have ever seen in person.

I agree.... Watching Ashton (in-person) take down the Dec world record in the pouring rain, for two straight days at the Trials... He competed as though it was a beautiful, sunny California day, nothing was going to hinder or stop him. Such a great guy for the sport.

John O'Donnell wrote:

Well I'll be... I was also at the last day of the 1996 Oly Trials and saw that WR by MJ. I think it was 19.67. It's still the only WR I ever witnessed. I met MJ some years later and told him it might have been one of the more forgotten WRs in recent years, given he lowered it to 19.33 in the Oly finals later that Summer. He laughed. There was another unforgetable moment in the nearly empty stadium that afternoon, but not a happy one: Steve Holman's very unfortunate fade in the last 250 meters of the 1,500. Holman was by far the best 1,500 meter runner in the US at the time. He waltzed through his prelims easily, and looked in perfect position to win the final, at the very least make the team, and nearly the entire field passed him by. It hurt to watch it.

Saw it all.

If I told you where I was, and whom I watched that meet with...you'd wet your pants.

Karma Police wrote:

1. Cathy Freeman's 2000 Olympic Gold. As an Aussie in Sydney, nothing else can come close. The atmosphere was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Cathy looked like an alien coming on in that hooded suit. The same night Grigorieva won silver in the pole vault, right in front of us. The only other sporting event I've been to that comes close to the atmosphere that night was the 2003 Rugby WC semi-final in Sydney between Australia and NZ. The Aussies came to play, and the heavily favoured Kiwis weren't expecting it. A balmy night again, and this incredible buzz in the crowd. Not like the usual stand-offish rugby crowds.

I been in that stadium! Sadly not for that event. And the track is gone. And it was MOTH season.

Love Sydney, love my Aussie friends!

I saw Cram set the mile world record in '85. I was thinking Coe would catch him on the backstretch but Cram instantly gapped him with 200 to go. Here's the SI recap:

"With 360 meters to run, Cram exploded. Coe swiftly matched his pace, and Gonzalez stayed near. That was the way they were when they hit the last turn, the last 200.

Cram, taking his little glances around in the backstretch, had indeed been gauging Coe. "I had this feeling that he wasn't running well, that he was a few meters off. That's when I decided to really give it all I had."

So Cram exploded again. He had seemed like he was running hard. Lord, everyone else sure was. And here was all this power, suddenly, as if he had just joined the race. He moved quickly ahead around the turn. In the stretch he appeared taller than in earlier laps, expanding in the imagination. He raised his arms as he neared the tape, then coasted through it in the time of 3:46.31, 1.02 seconds faster than Coe's record."

There were so, so many in 30 years of competing and coaching--seeing my housemate, Phil Collins, sprint the last 330y to blow away the two-mile field at indoor Heptagonals was surely one--but the very first memory that somehow popped into my head when I saw the thread title was more "ordinary."

In 1980, the Big East cross-country meet was held at Franklin Park. With the addition of Villanova to the conference that year, it wasn't just a super-conference for men's basketball, but for middle-/distance running, as well. Everyone knew the cross-country championship would be a fantastic meet.

I was coaching one of the women's teams (women's BE championships weren't official yet), so was watching the men's race rather dispassionately. Don Bossardet, a runner for Syracuse, responded to the competition--Sydney Maree et al. for Villanova, etc., etc.--by running himself out completely. He was absolutely thrashed.

The race finished on a slight downhill, IIRC, and for all of that last 50m or so Bossardet was windmilling his arms and obviously on the verge of falling on his nose.

But he didn't. Somehow he kept running and stayed upright long enough to get through the finish, before hitting the deck. He wasn't vying for the win or anything--just giving everything and still going when there was nothing left, competing as hard as he possibly could in a great field.

That image has stayed with me.