Dumbest Workout You’ve Ever Done

25x100 all out, walk recovery. Did this after a race.

Was sore for the whole week.

I once had an athlete who joined our team who's previous coach ONLY gave her 200 repeats for workouts, through an entire year of running. I could guess her answer to your question.

Not sure about the dumbest workout I’ve ever done, but there was a legend at my high school about such a workout. The coach told the team to do 200s while he went to get the ice bath ready for after the workout. A standard session of 200s would 16-20, maybe 24 on a big day. However, he never came back to tell them to stop, so they just kept on doing 200s. He waited around for almost an hour before going back out to check on them. They had just completed rep 41. The worst part (for them) was he had a rule to not end on an odd number...so he made them head out for a 42nd rep!

coach had the bright idea of 100s at tempo with 10 second recovery. the garmin splits are a riot

Mile repeats at "tempo pace" on our xc course with the rest being a 15 minute walk back to the start. Practice took more than 3 hours that day and I'm still not really sure what it accomplished.

letsrun geezer wrote:

Mile repeats at "tempo pace" on our xc course with the rest being a 15 minute walk back to the start. Practice took more than 3 hours that day and I'm still not really sure what it accomplished.

OOOOF. That's gotta be in the final four.

not really a workout but just a weird day. This is in high school

ran a two mile warmup to our park for mile repeats. got thru I think 2 of them (at a hard pace too) but during the rest after the second rep our coach saw these kids messing around with a very squirrel on the ground. He was a really environmentally conscious guy.

Made everyone run back to the high school , had a long and passioned talk with everyone about how we shouldnt do that kind of stuff, then we ran BACK to the park, restarted the mile repeats (4 or 5) and then 2 miles back to the high school. He was incredibly pissed that day. Something like 15 miles total that day.

^very confused squirrel.

Tried a new workout with a lot of jumping, sprinting to decrease ground contact time. Well, I got a hip/groin strain that lasted for 3 months. Never get bright ideas and do drastic changes, at least when you are close to 50...

Was going to do 100m reps (sprint workout)I saw that I only had a limited time at the track and tried to jump in without properly warming up, tore my hamstring

Anyone that I went into knowing I needed either a day off or a very easy day because of that nagging ache someplace. I did it anyway & got injured. The craziest workout I ever did was in the 80's in Fitchburg MA. It was the days before leash laws, or at least enforced leash laws. There is Audubon land in Fitchburg. I was running around it. About half way though I ran into a few dogs who were just protecting their territory. I stopped, yelled a few times & slowly got past their yard. I continued on. I soon heard another group of dog barking up the road. They heard the first. Then I saw them running very aggressively down the middle of this country road. I could tell I would have no luck bluffing them. I turned around & realized the first pack was back on the road. No way I would get back past them before the second, meaner pack, caught me. That's when I remembered the trail head I just passed. I turned in & as soon as I was out of sight all the dogs lost interest. The problem was there was about a foot of snow on the ground & Fitchburg is damned hilly. By the time I got back to campus I was exhausted.

idk if this counts but at the time w my limited running knowledge I thought it was. We did 25x200 w 30 second rest. We started off pretty slow like around 40-42. Then our last rep I ran 28 which at the time was a practice pr. It took forever but I wasn’t that tired and the entire team from the college commits to the ones that gave no f**** did it at the same time.

1000-900-800-700-600-500-400-300-200-50

Why not the last one 100?

I have had some not so great coaches in my life but I can't say I ever had a "dumbest" workout. More like how the week and phases or lack of phases in training was the problem. I did once have a workout in high school where my coach asked me to only take a breath every so many steps like swimming does (he used to be a swimmer). It was to many steps whatever it was as I can't remember now but my coach was smart enough not to try it again as I failed to get close to what he was looking for lol.

It took me a while to recall this, but my dumbest workout by far occurred about a month after the end of my senior year of HS' track season.

I was drunk at 10 P.M. when I had decided to ride my bicycle to the track for a workout. I was excited to run some mile repeats with standing rests. I think I ran at what felt like 5k pace, but I didn't have a watch to keep track. I know I vomited after the third repetition, which allowed me to gain enough momentum to complete an additional rep.

I didn't know anything about proper training back then. All I understood was "go hard or go home".

Been thinking about this and while I have had some coaches with debatable training philosophies over the years, I can't think of a single bad workout that really sticks out. However, on a frustration level, I had a coach who would only tell us the actual workout about 5 minutes before the first rep. and these were all out workouts; that was the only speed he spoke in. He would also have us do the workout and then at the 'end' tell us to do one more rep as hard as we could.

That's a kick ass coach!

Yes and no. He was good at coaching the 800/1500 but applied those principles to the longer distances as well.

Five miles directly after Chipotle.