Biggest Bullshit Lie You've Ever Heard About Running Times or Workouts

My college coach once told me:

In his day nothing was given to you. Everyone had to bust there ass at practice, fighting for a spot on the bus to make the travel squad. Infact, as a freshman he once challenged the team captain giving him a run for his money on a "long run"... As the story goes, at this practice he got right in his shorts and the two ran 12miles in 60minutes--- All this to "fight" and prove he was worthy for a varsity spot at Rensellaer...

I read those claims for Maree in that book by Marc Bloom. Didn't he also say that after he was retired, he still got out for 13 miles every day at 5-minute pace, or something like that? I forget the details exactly. Obviously, the guy was an awesome runner, so he had no need to exaggerate his training with the race results he produced; maybe some miscommunication or mistakes translating notes to print?

In the same book, I remember reading about Doris Heritage Brown, and it said in her training she would do a regular morning 5-miler at paces as fast as 5 minutes per mile (or something along those lines), but it also listed her PR (then a world record) for 2 miles as 10:07. Maybe Bloom got a little mixed up with some of his notes.

this lady i know told me her daughter goes to college, doesn't run for the team, but the cross coach keeps begging her to join because she has a better time than any of the girls on the team. this is a decent d2 school. so of course i had to look up her times online...she runs in the 21:00s for 5k.

my freshman year in college, (I was running for a D1 school) I had a kid I had known from HS who had never even done track come up to me and ask if 4 minutes was a good mile time. I told him it was really fast, he proceded to tell me he had run 4 mins earlier that week at our rec center and his gf timed him. When I told him that there were only 2 guys on our team who were even close to that under 4:06, he said wow I would be the fastest guy on the team. Then I remembered to ask him how many laps he did, turns out he ran 4, on a 200m indoor track. Well at least he tried, and it was amusing I didn't want to be mean cause the guy really thought he ran a 4min mile. But, I had to tell him it was 8 laps to a mile in there.

word of warning for anyone at Azusa Pacific University in California. There's a guy coming to your college in the next few weeks who 'owns' this thread. Seriously, the biggest bullshitter in existence. His name's Chris Page, a Welsh 400m runner. The guy just tells outragrous lies.

All the time.

You have been warned!

I've always like the one about the "gazelle boy" from the early 1900's. It's the type you want to believe, but it's just so hilarious it's about impossible to. 30+mph for a pale skinned teenager that is malnourished, hmmm...

By the way, I dig the "bullshit stories" that end up being true, those are the best. Way to go Linley Lipper.

... exaggerate...

Apparently Seb Coe broke the world record for 10miles the day after his 'loss' in the 800m at Moscow. He was so mad with himself that he went out for a demon run and his dad was driving alongside and couldn't keep up. Something like that.

"Maree relied on a strong, fast base to give him the range to move from the 1500 to the 5000 with ease. At Villanova, Maree ran 10 miles every morning at 6 AM. He says his pace was 4:30 to 4:50, world-record pace for 10 miles on the road. Maree insists he ran that fast, which is why his teammates were loathe to join him...Every morning in Johannesburg, Maree gets up at 4:30 in the morning and runs 13 miles at 5 minutes a mile before work..."

- Marc Bloom "Run with the Champions" pg. 102 (paperback)

"When she did her regular morning 5-milers, however, Heritage paid little mind to sight-seeing. Her pace was as fast as 5 minutes per mile, which, if accurate, would have made her a faster 10K runner than almost any woman today."

- Marc Bloom "Run with the Champions" pg. 158 (paperback)

I had a teammate on my College team that never ran the time he said he did. If he ran 15:30 5k, he told everyone that he ran 15:25. He always shaved seconds off of his time!

I hate to waste 20 min of my day writing this but I couldn't resist. I'm a DII college coach for XC and track and have been so for 8 years now. In my first year of recruiting (trying to build a program) I was in contact with all kinds of different kids from various levels and backgrounds. Anyhow, it was late in the track season and one of my recruits that I'd been in touch with who was an 800m guy at a somewhat local JC had failed to qualify for the state championships. I talked to him on the phone on Thurs. before the JC state meet and he tels me that he's still got more in the tank and that he was going to run an "all comers" meet at Stanford that weekend. His best time that I'd seen from him that season was around 1:58, so I wished him well and was off to our own meet that weekend. Well, Monday comes and I check my voice mail in the am and find a message from my recruit. He'd popped a huge PR at Stanford somehow managing a 1:51!!! I called him back that evening, asked him about the race, congratulated him etc... He gave me a blow by blow account of how it all went down... and a few weeks later verbally comitted to coming to our school. Thankfully we were a non scholarship school at the time and no $ was givin to the athlete for coming.. but I was very excited that our new and growing program was getting a 1:51 guy (of course).

Fast forward to the Fall. The guy is now a part of our XC program and over the first few weeks and months of the season I come to realize that he's both mentally and physically weak. Anyworkout that went above 200m in distance and was with less than 3 min recovery was too much for him. I started to wonder how in the world this guy could have run 1:51. To top this off... He was making statements to his teammates that he'd run 15:30's in hs for XC 5k's and had even run a 1:11 half marathon. I'm now starting to understand that this guy is a heinous liar. I'm now contemplating removing his previous marks from our website next to his Bio.

Fast Forward to Track season. Just as I expected track was pretty mediocre for the guy. He starts the season at 2:00 and has a hard time completing most of the workouts that we're doing. he's complaining to me about the workouts (and to his teammates) saying that he did better workouts in HS and JC. Everything hit the fan when I found that he had talked to a key middle distance recruit about how he wasn't running 1:51 anymore because of our workouts. I immediately called him in my office and called him on all of his times (800m-1/2 marathon). He denied lying and even said he'd provide me w/ the results.

Well, he didn't provide me with the results from the 800m but did admit to lying... But only about running his 800 in an actual 800m race. His story now was that he was scheduled to run the 4x4 at the Stanford Meet, but a guy didn't show for his team. Well, his 2 teammates that did show, ran leg's 1, and 2... and yes... he ran the final 2 legs and split a 1:51!!! I immediately call B.S. on this one and tell him to get lost.

A year or so later I have a great conversation with his old JC coach. I guess that he told his coach there about the 1:51 as well, and even went as far as to fax some microsoft word produced "homemade" results to his coach as if they'd come directly from Stanford's SID office. Only problem was that the page had "Kinkos/Sacramento" as the place faxed from.

I've had many others... But this one stands out as the best/worst in my experience in the sport.

Running with the Buffaloes ...

The Tank Run ... 6 miles out and back for a total of 12.

From the trailhead to the tank is only 5.5 miles, so its only 11.

i TOLD EVERYONE THAT I RAN A 10.2 100M!! AND I DONT RUN

Every time a commentator is talking about how fast some pro football player is and says something like, "he has world-class speed."

[quote]MUXC2K3 wrote:

He said he ran the "Jersey Shore Marathon" in 2:57 in HS. The interesting thing is that there is no Jersy Shore Marathon. /{quote]

while i don't doubt the kid was lying about his time, there actually WAS a Jersey Shore Marathon. its now called the new jersey shore marathon. out to sandy hook and then back along the ocean - if there's no wind its a really fast course (flat). lots of folks use it as a boston qualifier.

I attended an Ivy League school in the late 90s. My senior year, we were incredibly excited to get a recruit from Texas who had run 37-point in the 300 hurdles. In fact, his name appeared in T&F News as a "top recruit" for our school. In December, the kid was losing to our top women in the 60 indoors, and couldn't three-step over the hurdles. He'd left the team by January, a total fraud. Easy admission and nice financial aid package to an Ivy League School, though. Here's to you, Mr. Damon Bailey, wherever you are.

CO-runner -- the Buffs at the time ran past the tank down to the bottom of the trail, about 1100 meters past the tank. The "Tank" is the watertank--the significant landmark of the run which is why the run is named the Tank.

The RT is 12.4 miles, unless you add that little side squiggle at the beginning-end of the run on the Arapahoe side. That adds in about .05 mile each way if you're being anal about distance.

At a recent wedding I got to meet a real champion. He was planning to run Disney and thought he had a chance to win as 2:25 might be competitive. (2:18 last year was kind of an aberration). He had "no problem" with 16 milers at 5:40 pace and "had put in the training" until work and sickness left him with a bad December. But he was still planning to "make a go" at it. It would be his first marathon.

I later found out this tool had barely made it through one x-country season with the local college (and frequently wimped out of workouts), had finished a recent half in 1:27, and was a complete sh*t-talker. Had I known I would have called him on it, but he did "talk the talk."

I think this thread should be re-named.."Biggest Bullshit Lie You've Ever Heard About WHAT SOMEONE WOULD SAY TO SOMEONE ELSE."

Would you have really called him out on it? Doubtful.

not sure i understand what you're saying. i try to keep things clean on this board, and if JEH drops me a line i'll be clean and civil with him as well. but there's no need for me to settle personal issues on the this board.