Title says it all, what is your best race result off of your worst training?
For me it was a 1500 my first year out of college where I had just started an office job, couldn't find an open track for weeks leading up, and was basically just running night mileage after work. I managed to run 4:30 (very solid considering my PR was 4:22) and kept up with some of my old club teammates.
I had a great year of training from July to early April and got injured right before the meat of my season was supposed to begin. The next 6 weeks of training were sporadic, low volume, and it seemed the season was down the tubes.
With 3 weeks left we decided to just go for it and see if I could finish a race without re-injuring.
The season’s goal had been to break 4:00 for 1500. I ran 4:12. Huge disappointment. But the silver lining was I finished the race.
Another week of half-assed training for another1500 race, This time I ran 4:06!
One week left. Just trying to get through the week without re-aggravating anything. One last chance. Race is going perfect, I’m running dead even 64’s when I hit the bell at 2:56 and manage to throw it all on the fire to close in 62 and run 3:58.
Awesome surprise ending to a season that I thought had been lost. Crazy that my fitness persisted those last 2 months of garbage training.
Went from a 34:50 to 33:46 in the 10k after being injured with Achilles issues for about a month.
did 6x400 4 months went from 6:16 to 4:48
Just six weeks after getting out of a knee-to-ankle cast I'd been in for five weeks (I'd torn ankle ligaments while training on a x-country trail), I ran a 25:24 in a 5-mile road race, a PR by 30 seconds from my previous best.
Two weeks prior to that I had run an abysmal (for me) 27:30 in another 5-mile, so I had minimal expectations for my next race. When the cast came off my lower leg had atrophied so badly that it looked like skin stretched taut over a tibia and fibula, and my training over the following weeks was a gradual re-build, with almost no speed work.
I had cross-trained as best I could during my downtime in the cast (rowing machine, long walks on crutches, flipping over a stationary bike and turning the pedals with my hands a la Joan Benoit), but was still obviously limited, as was my training in those initial 6 weeks. That PR came out of nowhere and seemed to make no sense, but it happened.
Had been injured since summer 2018 and tried getting back into things summer of last year. Previous mileage was 60-70, was nearly sedentary for much of 2018.
Bumpy road. Was dealing with re-injury scares, mileage around 15 to start and eventually pushing up to 55 at points but just couldn't stay totally consistent. First go around I got injured seriously and had to take a month and a half off, then started up again. Legs felt like crap all the time and I felt like my bones were made of glass. Workouts struggled to break 6 minute pace on the longer strength work, mile pace stuff was close to 5 min pace.
First race back was a 4:45, 4:29 two weeks later. PR is 4:25 from 2017. Body finally gave out a few weeks later, but luckily I'm a lot stronger physically through PT and biking and I'm excited to give running another go, without forcing myself to do workouts and hit races all the time.
Was injured for 3 months but lifted and biked a lot and ran 53, 1:27 and 2:04 base line 400/600/800 times after a week of running.
The open 400m was a pr. Having big muscles in yer bum makes a difference
I ran a 2:29 marathon off of 40-45 miles/week while working full time and going to night school 3x/week. I basically did a 18-20 mile long run every weekend and one hard workout during the week. I didn’t need to taper before the race. ?
was signed up the day before by my international student supervisor when living abroad for a HM in Xi'an. Was running an hour a day easy before for general health. Managed a 1:43.
Had no means of doing that. Was 110+ with heat index, longest run was 8 miles. Felt like a death march but considering it was weekly miles of 40s no structure. I felt like it was pretty good.
I did a HM years ago on almost no training. I had a friend from out of town who was running it, he knew I ran a little here and there (I was a once a week runner at the time) and asked if I could do a half. I replied that "I could do one in my sleep" and signed up. It was about 8 weeks out, so I decided maybe I should start running a bit more. I averaged maybe 10 miles per week, including a 0 mile week 2 weeks before the race. Longest run was 10 miles 7 days before the race, and I hadn't run at all in 17 days before that. I finished with a 1:43, which is on the slow end of an easy run for me now, but looking back I'm not sure how I pulled it off given how badly out of shape I was.