Have You Ever Had the 'Perfect Race'?

My freshman year of college, after being left off the travel team for our spring trip. I ran 4:06.8 in the mile at what was then the Dogwood Relays for an 8 second PR. That was pretty close to perfect for me at the time.

It depends how much you want to pick nits. 99.9% perfect?

I would say I've had the perfect race, and felt like you mention after finishing it.

Surely though, things could always be better, even if by a miniscule amount?

I haven't. All of my pb's I realized right afterwards that I could have gone faster. IN my 1500m pb I let up with about 20 meters left which I always kick myself now. My steeple pb I had to lead the entire race so if I would have had someone up there with me I could have run faster.

You always assume there will be another chance....

tragically chip wrote:

My freshman year of college, after being left off the travel team for our spring trip. I ran 4:06.8 in the mile at what was then the Dogwood Relays for an 8 second PR. That was pretty close to perfect for me at the time.

Are the Dogwood Relays named something else now? That was the name I knew them by.

Dogwood is now known as "The Sea Ray Relays" sponsored by the water sports company. Always be Dogwood to me and the Tennessee guys of my era.

When I was a junior in high school I ran a perfectly paced 8:48 3000m, which was bloody fast for me at the time

I think I have had the perfect race. It was a 20 miler as a build-up to my second marathon, 8 weeks out from the London Marathon. Aiming to run it at marathon race pace of 6:30-6:40 per mile.

Anyway, went through 1 mile in 6:15. Slightly annoyed with myself as this was too fast, so tried to back off a touch for the second mile. Second mile was 6:15. After that I stopped worrying as it was feeling so easy. Went through 10 miles in 62:40. Then in the second half I experienced the runner's high. Went through 13.1 faster than my pb for that distance, and from then on I expected it to get really hard. But it didn't. I was completely in the zone. Got to 17-18 and started to feel it, but not in a painful way, just in that satisfying way where you know you're working, but you know you're equal to it. Then in the last mile raised the intensity a little and did my fastest mile of the race. Just under 6 minutes.

Finishing time was 2:05:14. 6 second negative split. And felt easy. After that race I knew I would break 3 hours in the marathon provided I didn't get injured. The strange thing is that in the marathon itself I went through 20 miles in about 2:07:30 on my way to 2:50 and was hurting much more than I had been in my 20 mile race.

One other thing that's strange is that I trained straight through the 20 mile race. I seem to remember that it came at the end of a 70 mile week and that I had done an 8 miler the previous afternoon.

Years and years ago I was training hard for the 5k. Despite my best efforts, I could not get much faster than 5:45s for mile repeats, 1:15 for 400's, and so on. Very slow, I know--but I was doing them as hard as I possibly could. I was running higher mileage, hoping it would help.

The week before a big race I tapered, felt perfect before the race during the warmup, and ripped a 16:38. About 25 seconds faster per mile than my mile repeats, which always felt like I was doing them all out.

I felt perfectly satisfied, and didn't feel like I could have managed better.

Sure, everyone thinks they could have squeezed more out of themselves. Sometimes you are wasted and collapse when you are second place and set a PR, other times you win, the pace was just right and you run negative splits, also PR and hardly feel very winded.

When I was a senior I had a top ten finish at nationals in CC after 3 poor prior showings. My pace was perfect and I gave nor gained no places the last 2 miles. Even better, all but one team member ran a great race personally and it was the highest ever team finish at nationals for the program. If our normal 4/5 guy had finished around the opposing teams' runners like he usually did, we would have been 3rd as a team. My legs were trashed for a couple days and I figured I could not have gotten much more out of myself.

Champion, either individually or as a team? No. But I was AA, a team-mate was AA, and our TEAM placed much higher than anyone, including us, thought we could. Based on our depth, ability, and collective talent, it could not have gotten much better for us nor could it have been any closer to perfect. 6 out of 7 of us peaked and raced nearly perfectly and it remains my most fond racing memory.

Freshman year, varsity district track meet. Ran a 10:18 (18 seconds below my pr) for second place in the 3200 a couple days before. On the bus to the meet (the day i was running the 1600 final) I kept envisioning myself way back on the last lap. first place way out there, second not to far back, but me, 50-75m back. But i caught up on the final stretch to squeeze out second place. Same vision every time, not that i wanted that scenario neccesarily.

Race went down just like the dream, still remember the splits (66,216[70],330[74],435[65]) years later (im 19 now). last lap i was way behind, like 50+ meters with 300 to go, almost 75m behind first. They were both dying, my teammates screaming from the sidelines, caught 2nd place around the bend, 100m to go i nudged him out and lost to 1st place by like .7) Mom was in the stands screaming (got on video thankfully, she past away 2 years later), freinds going nuts. 4x400 team saying it was awesome and they wanted to kick ass cuz i did, unfortunately did not happen, our district was stacked, but it was awesome to watch.

Envisioning your race how you want it to happen helps apparently. Was my pr, still is my pr after i blew out my knee when i was 17.

When I was 16, I was training for my second marathon with little to no correct training methods or advice, coaching, etc. I was running like 10 - 18 mpw (if that) and alot was on treadmills ontop of it. I figured that if I could run a 6:00 pace on a treadmill for a few miles, I could do it on the road. I ran a 20 mile race prep for my marathon. I went out in like 6:30 and then hit another 6:20something. I was in the top 30 or so, and all of a sudden something hit me and I had to walk. I put my hands in the air and tried to walk off this cramp, and like 100 or so people (at least) passed me, laughing and scoffing at me. After walking for about 1.5 minutes, I started running and didn't walk again. I felt real damn good passing all those people on my way to a 2:40, which I ran with ease. To this day, I don't know how I did that considering my 5k was like 22:xx at best. Also, after the race I litterally could not walk for at least 1/2 hour. One of my first, and one of my slowest, but definately the most fun I've ever had racing.

when I was 16. My PR was 10:01 for 3200. I set that at regionals. Then at states just a week later I ran 9:42. My first time under 10.

My perfect race was at this years Peachtree 10k. I was in the middle of my summer base, and I did not feel prepared at all. I had previously ran 38:07 on a good xc course. I got to the line and just said "F-ck it". I ran my race. Even splits across the board, to a 36:55 10k. I felt so good considering that the second half of this race is 75% up hill.

I've had 3 races where I fell into a "zone" and ran well. First was a two mile at the West Coast Relays as a Junior College freshmen, Had run a 3:53 1500 the night before and ran the two mile the next morning. Got caught up in the lead pack and ran 9:02.00 for third place. Two years later at the 79 Division II cross country nationals at Riverside, went thru the 1st mile at 4:47 and was way back but, never slowed and ran 30:36 for the 10 k course to place 7th overall out of 168 runners. Lastly ran a half marathon at 190 lbs with a gimpy leg. Stayed with a pack of runners and finished at 1:15 at 46 years old.

My senior year of high school, I was running in the last qualifying race to get to the state track meet. It was the 1600.

Top 3 in this race go to state, and there were about 5 guys in the race that had beat me consistantly during the season. My PR at the time was 4:28.

The race went off and I lead from there to roughly the 800 mark(2:11) We(the leaders) went through 1200 in a PR for me (3:18) and I was able to find another gear and hang with the leaders(who went on to go 1-2 at state) for the last qualifying spot at state, and a 4:21 1600..a 7 second PR.

I don't know if it was the endorphines working for me or what, but I felt no pain at all during the race. It was almost like I couldn't run out of gears, I could keep increasing the pace and feel no pain. Really strange. I ran faster in college, but I have never felt that way in a race since that day.

Junior year of HS. I ran a 9:40 3200 for an 11 second pr and felt like that was pretty hot. The next week at the league championships I was only able to run about a 9:47. Then 9:43 at districts the next week. At state I didn't think once about the splits and just hung on and ran a 9:27. It was as close to perfect as I've come.

I remember talking to my coach afterwards and saying I could have gone faster but now I think that I just felt that way because I was euphoric. I don't think I had one more tenth of a second in me.

Good thread

Thanks folks. Great stories thus far. I don't know why I dwell on such things, but I do.

In my racing life, I've never felt I had the perfect race right after finishing a race. I've had several, usually pr's, where I knew immediately afterwards that I had a darn good race. But I've always had thoughts afterwards that I could have done better. Like last year - I set a Master's PR for 5K (17:14). But I was in a dinky race where the second place guy ran 18:20. I was all alone after about 1.2 miles. I cleared the 2 mile mark in 10:56 and faded a little to a 17:14. I was excited about the PR and felt great through the whole race, but I just had this gnawing feeling that I didn't push it as hard as I could because I had no one to run against. I often wonder if I could have gone under 17 that day.

I think many people can only judge a 'perfect race' in hindsight long after the race has been run. When the career is on the downswing, we look back and realize that a certain race was really as good as it gets. Is that perfect? I don't know. It's probably as perfect as we can make it.

In high school, my mile pr was 4:23 and in my region meet I ran 4:17 off of 63-66-67-61. Not perfectly paced, but there was a guy whose PR was 5 sec. up on mine going in. He took it out hard and I was 2-3 sec. behind him after a lap, stayed the same for 2nd lap, then I closed up on him at end of third lap. He was faster kicker and 800 runner than me, so I jumped him with a lap to go and started sprinting like mad. I got a few seconds on him, then he came back on me in the last 150. He got almost even, but couldn't pass me and I won by .1 ... It was perfect or damn close because I don't think I could have won or run that fast any other way.

Yes the 'Perfect Race' exists. I get about one a season. For me they are defined by knowing, without a question of a doubt, that I couldn't have run any faster.