Racing a baseball player

Umm, you ran 50 miles a week and beat a guy that probably doesn't run 5. Congrats.

Fmr,

You dont see the beauty in that story? He wasnt boasting.

On being a dick, congrats.

athletics fan and runner wrote:

I contacted this teammate of mine about a week before a two mile race and told him to be there or be square...

Now that you have read through my borning and long winded story, what are letsrun's thoughts?

My thoughts are on why you, a living grown-up human being in the year 2007, actually said "be there or be square."

Sentiment shared. Serious runner eschews baseball talent and focuses more on running and runs 1045 OR SOMETHING to beat Mo Vaughn. What did you hit 378 something or 226 something. Or was era 14.79 or around 1.99 something

I was expecting a much better time after you declared you had a "fair deal of success as a middle distance runner". Was that 10:45 a typo? Anyone with a "fair deal of success" and currently running 50 miles a week should be able to do better than 10:45 in my opinion.

That you beat the baseball player though is no surprise.

Flagpole Willy wrote:

I was expecting a much better time after you declared you had a "fair deal of success as a middle distance runner". Was that 10:45 a typo? Anyone with a "fair deal of success" and currently running 50 miles a week should be able to do better than 10:45 in my opinion.

That you beat the baseball player though is no surprise.

Eh, I could see him being all-state in high school with a 9:45 2-mile. Fast forward to his mid-20's where he's just running 50 mpw for fitness and 10:45 doesn't seem that bad. Plus he won the race so there obviously wasn't a lot of competition.

The opposite happened to me. A sprinter (200/400) on my university team challenged me to mid distance race. This wasn't a heated thing either, we are good friends and it was just for fun.

It went from a couple of people going to watch to the entire team and some of our classmates. I expected to cream this guy, but he toasted me in the 800 and he had never even ran the distance before.

I licked those wounds for quite some time.

That's surprising. What were your pr's? How fast did the race go?

Im just a saying wrote:

That's surprising. What were your pr's? How fast did the race go?

This was a few years back, so I may be a little off in the numbers but they were something like this...

His times:

100m: 10.7

200m: 21.5

400m: 47

My times:

1500: 3:53

3000: 8:17

5000: 14:40

800m race:

him: 1:51

me: 1:54

Im just a saying wrote:

Flagpole Willy wrote:

I was expecting a much better time after you declared you had a "fair deal of success as a middle distance runner". Was that 10:45 a typo? Anyone with a "fair deal of success" and currently running 50 miles a week should be able to do better than 10:45 in my opinion.

That you beat the baseball player though is no surprise.

Eh, I could see him being all-state in high school with a 9:45 2-mile. Fast forward to his mid-20's where he's just running 50 mpw for fitness and 10:45 doesn't seem that bad. Plus he won the race so there obviously wasn't a lot of competition.

Seems odd to me. I ran 9:48 for 3200 and 15:48 for 5,000 in high school on 15-20 MPW MAX. Those were the days of quality vs. quantity. I shudder to think what I would have run on 70+ MPW like decent high school runners run these days.

Man, all you guys who get "challenged" to races by non-runners are lucky. Just once I would like for a non-runner who thinks he's fast to challenge me to a race over any distance 400m+. That would be so fun. Even if I lost, which is unlikely if I'm in shape. I love shit like that.

i kinda like running wrote:

Man, all you guys who get "challenged" to races by non-runners are lucky. Just once I would like for a non-runner who thinks he's fast to challenge me to a race over any distance 400m+. That would be so fun. Even if I lost, which is unlikely if I'm in shape. I love shit like that.

More fun being challenged by a runner or better yet a runner's girlfriend. In high school I worked at McDonald's with a girl from another school whose boyfriend was the best runner at that school, but I had beaten him every time we raced, and easily at that. She kept going on about how good he was. I told her I was on the track team and that I would be racing him in an upcoming dual meet. I told her I would beat him and she said if I did she would stand naked for me in the walk-in freezer at the McDonald's. Well, she came to that dual meet, and I dusted him of course. She never followed through with her end of the deal though, but I did date her for a while after that. She was hot and all (of course) but she was too big of a dingbat for me to be with for too long.

That year I hit .318. I had no extra basepower which meant little playing time. My teammate was hardly mo vaughn. He was actually much closer to a distance runner in size that I.

And yeah, this race that we were in was not that competitive.

Success is relative.

I love flagpole.

remedial poster wrote:

I love flagpole.

Everyone loves a winner.

Nice. You won the race and took his girl. Kudos.

Well, I have been challenged by other runners once or twice. One time it was by one of my own teammates in high school. It was one of those sprinter vs. middle distance runner races. I was the sprinter. These distance dudes were bragging one day after practice about fast this guy was and how he's probably a better sprinter than any of the 100/200 guys (he could run the 400 in 50-51). I took offense and said "Not a chance. I'll race him right now." They took me up on it and went and found the guy and told him what was up. He looked a little apprehensive because he knew better, but decided to go through with it anyways. We raced 100m and it wasn't even close. All his buddies were bewildered that an all-conference sprinter and an all-state hurdler could actually be faster over 100m than a miler. Go figure.

Anyways, no chicks offered to strip for me, so your story wins.

1) The "everyone loves a winner" retort was just a joke.

2) The story is true.

3) She offered to do that, but then she didn't, so it's really like she didn't offer. Kind of risky to do that at work anyway.

4) I did date her though.

5) She was very good looking, but dumb as a box of rocks. If you've ever seen Alan's onetime girlfriend/wife on Two and a Half Men, that character reminds me of this former girlfriend of mine. Super hot but just plain dumb.

6) I actually would have never even been interested in her because I have always much preferred smart women, but at age 18 when a hot looking girl throws down a challenge and you meet that challenge and then she wants to go out with you because of it, well, even the best intentioned young men would let their ego take advantage of that situation. I could only stand it for a few months though. I actually remember thinking at one point on a date with her that there had to be retarded people who were smarter. Not everyone is proud of everything they've done.

i love these stories, here a couple of mine:

I was the new kid in 8th grade and soon become known as "the track guy" in the small school i attended. Some of the football players made a big point to encourage me to race this football player. I tried to make it a longer race but we ended up doing a 400 before gym class. The whole class and the gym teacher watched the race and i got smoked by a good 10 meters. I felt like a tool but the group seemed to respect me that i had the balls to race this guy.

6 years after college a guy at work who did local 10k road races thought he was a bad ass runner. He really wanted to race kept bugging me, again i tried to get a longer race like a mile but we agreed to a 400. We bet $20. I was afraid I would get hurt cause i was a couple of years out of running but this dude was in his 40s and a late in life newby runner. I totally smoked this guy, he couldn't break 90...I talked to him during the 1st 200 then pulled away and walked across the line. I turned down his $20 but he insisted I keep it. I was a very average college runner and but he had no clue and was shocked by my supposed speed even though i don't think I even broke 70. haha

athletics fan and runner wrote:

(11 laps per mile) and I ended up lapping him several times. I ran something like 10:45 and won and he simply could not believe that my slow ass had whupped him. I think that he ran about 15 or 16 minutes and I do remember he came in last.

This wouldnt be the Arhur Ashe Center by chance, would it?