Dumbest thing you've ever done before a race?

Dumb Runner wrote:

One of my friends dared me to slam a 2 liter bottle of Coca-Cola right after third and final call for my 400. I slammed the entire two liters about 90 seconds before the race. My stomach sloshed around violently during the run and my whole stomach felt like it was being shook like an unopen can about to blow. Some sort of noisy gas came out of me about 50 meters from the finish at full tilt that made the whole crowd go "ohhh! what the hell was that!" I lost it at 10 meters from the finish and puked out all 2 liters, which looked like about 10 gallons. I was sprawled out on the track and everybody was calling for an ambulance. Something went so wrong inside I actually shit my pants. I thoght I was going to die.

i second that its the funniest EVER

I Forgot to stretch before state. I was too nervous and I warmed up too long. I was so wacked out that whole day.

before a high school dual meet on a day off from school, i fished all day wading around in 50 degree water. my legs were cold and stiff plus i was starving, so i ate a half a box of oatmeal cream pies. i don't remember how the race went or where i finished. i just remember crossing the finish line and barfing all over one of my teammate's parent's shoes. my coach was yelling at me to get up because there's no reason to be lying on the ground right after a race.

This one time during a meet my friends and i brought a beer bong into a meet and used gatorade/redbull instead of beers and started taking hits. Well someone from the Hs athletic association was there and DQ'ed us and fined our school. My coach went ape shit on my friend and i.

For the record i won with 14 hits.

I spent the day before my last marathon loading a truck with waterstop supplies (water jugs, tables, etc). Roughly 5 hours of good solid manual labour. Then the morning of, I went out at 6:30 to set up the water stops (ie unloaded that same truck). Got back to the starting area maybe 15 minutes before the buzzer.

Not completely sure if that had an effect on performance, but I suspect perhaps it may have. Then after the race, I spent a couple more hours picking up the waterstops and returning the tables and stuff.

Friggin' (formerly) good buddy was supposed to do this stuff for me, but bailed at the last minute. And I had committed to the race director to look after it.

Oh well, life's a funny thing. Be a damn boring thing if it weren't interrupted by the unexpected like that.

I've got a good one.

My quad was sore, so I took some IcyHot and with my hands rubbed some on my quad. But then I had to go piss. So I ran to the bathroom and pissed, but I forgot there was icy hot on my hands, so it got on my dick. Well needless to say the next 10minutes were filled with strange sensations. Icy one moment then hot the next. It really felt weird having a burning/tingling sensation for a while.

It was my junior year in High School and my first year running cross country; my mom was more into it than I was. She had just read through the recent issue of runner?s world and had picked out a few health food tips from the morass of trash they try and push. The night before the state meet my mom loads me up with a 6 pack of V8, apricots, and sunflower seeds. I particularly enjoyed the V8 and apricots; I finished the bag and 6-pack that day in the van on the way to our hotel. I started to rumble about dinner time, eventually being kicked out of the restaurant we were eating at by our coaches due to excess gas; and by excess I mean I was dropping some bombs that would make nuclear physicists proud. We leave the pizza joint and head towards the local mall for some downtime; however by this time my ass is saying Mount Saint Helens. The options were limited, but I chose pulling over on the side of the highway to trying to contain my fecal explosion to my friend?s mom?s Tupperware container. We pull over, I squat, I erupt. I think it may have been the most explosive and fetid diarrhea ever to come from a human anus. In fact I cleared the van. Unfortunately my teammates and coach chose to run downwind, big mistake. The aroma overwhelmed one of my teammates who promptly puked at the continuous onslaught of my explosive diarrhea. The girls? team, parked directly ahead, could only see from my calves down, they thought I was throwing up. I wiped with Kleenex. We made it to the mall. I made it to the bathroom, barely. If you have ever taken a fog horn and aimed it directly into a porcelain toilet you will have some idea of the sound resonating throughout that bathroom.

I ran like shit the next day, pun intended.

Quality stuff right there.

That sounds like something my mother would recommend. She always stays on top of that stuff. In high school, she always bought me kiwis to eat after dinner because she read they were good for runners. That's one of the reasons why I love my mom!

Anyway, I have two stories that are kind of different from the rest that have been on here so far.

In high school, I had my senior prom before a huge invitational out of state. My coach told me to go home from the prom at 10pm, but I told him that I couldn't, because I had to work at the afterparty at my school. I would have left if it were the state meet or something, but it was just an invite. Anyway, I went to the prom with the girl I had a huge crush on all through high school, and the date went much better than expected. We ended up staying up until 4:30 in the morning with a bunch of my friends playing basketball.

The next day, we were running the 4x800 at 10 AM, and I ran my fastest split ever, and we won by almost 10 seconds. Then, I won the two mile three hours later (although the competition was not as great as we expected it would be). I felt great in both races, probably because I was so excited about the success of my prom date!

Also, freshman year of college, I was our team's 7th-9th guy, but we had a couple of injuries, so I was penciled in to be our 5th for another big invite. I was so nervous I didn't sleep the night before, I took a nap on the busride over. I ran well enough for us to pick up the team win.

I think the key to managing pre-race disasters is to think about how much preparation you have done to get in shape physically and mentally. One bad night of sleep, etc., shouldn't make too much of a difference... unless you shotgun liters of soda right before your race or something.

Keep the stories coming!

There was a constant debate between teamates of my highschool xc team my junior year. Is it better to beat off before a race or hold out? Well, I decided to take it to the the extreme. About 15 minutes before my race, which was at Stanford, I went into a porta-john and knocked one out. The folks outside must have thought I ate horkin fiber chunks for breakfast cuz I'm sure that I was thrashing all about. Had the worst race of my life, absolutely spent.

haha man that is funny shit...many theories abound on the subject of pre-race ejaculation. I personally haven't found conclusive evidence either way--I still need to isolate the variables somehow.

This isnt a stupid thing--well some might think it is--but it worked. Well, I eat bran flakes every day. I was stoked to have qualified for dII xc nats this year, so when i got down to north carolina, i walked across the street to buy some high fiber cereal. I saw my usual "shaws bran flakes" that have been my breakfast/lunch every day for over a year. Then i saw "Kellogs all bran"...and i thought, this is nationals, i want to be TOTALLY cleared out by racetime. Just then my eyes happen upon a shining beacon of light--Kellogs all bran, EXTRA FIBER. "Gee", i thought, "A cereal already consisting of 100% bran, with MORE bran??" So i happily purchased this Colon Blow, and proceeded to eat this shit in the hotel lobby, probably to the chagrin of the western state team who was hangin' around. Ever seen gerbil food? Looks the same. Pellets of condensed, insoluble, completely undigestable wheat and oat fiber. Jesus. I ate it dry out of a styrofoam cup.

Not 5 hours and 78 grams of insoluble fiber later, I was on the pot, producing a vile and putrid stream of pure fiber from my ass. I dont think it even cleared anything out--because nothing else came out with it--just undigested Kellog's All Bran.

Well, here's the first story that involved going to the hospital.

The night before nationals I was going back into the dorms we were staying in, just before going out for supper. At the door, I dropped my keys and with cat like reflexes bent down to pick them up.... In the process I hit my head with extreme force on the corner of a heater. my head proceeded to gush blood. I band-iaded it up and went to supper insisting I was good to go... After awhile it became aparent that I had a concussion and was really wuzzy and the bleeding wouldn't stop... The coach made me go to the hospital (I didn't want to go, even though this I live in Canada and get free health care). Funny enough I met some guy who was an 800 runner and went to jim ryuns school while the two of us were waiting in a lobby. So I got my head glued shut and went back to my room.

the next day I woke up with a nose bleed (yay! more blood loss...) and I ran 40seconds slower than my qualifying time in the 3k steeple, missing out horribly on a shot at making the Jr. Pan ams team.

While a college freshman, ran an indoor meet at Calvin College in Grand Rapids. Went outside to warm up and...got lost. Finally arrived back at the fieldhouse w/about no minutes before the race was supposed to start.

Lucky for me things were a few minutes late. My coach asked the starter for a couple extra minutes for me to get my spikes on and do a couple strides. I showed up at the start line filled w/a mix of anxiety and relief. Not a great combo before a 2 mile. It was the first race I won w/the slowest time I'd run in college: 9:50.

The day before a 5k, I built a new porch for a house. My back was very tired and sore the next morning. Only ran 14:57 but won anyway. Slowest time I have run in 9 years.

Back when I was a junior in H.S. we had this freshman who was a good kid, but was too hard on himself(not that we didn't give him a hard time, his nickname was spic, and he wasn't even mexican). Anyway once after having a bad race in track, he rode the bus home still in his spikes. Drove the 8 miles to his house and then proceeded to do a 15 mile run in his spikes. He could barely walk the next day, needless to say we gave him a ton of crap for that one.

dean moriarty wrote:

Anyway, I went to the prom with the girl I had a huge crush on all through high school, and the date went much better than expected. We ended up staying up until 4:30 in the morning with a bunch of my friends playing basketball.

I felt great in both races, probably because I was so excited about the success of my prom date!

Staying up until 4:30 a.m. playing b-ball with your friends is a successful prom date?

Malmo,

Have to ask. What the hell were you doing with a bowling ball the night before the Olympic Trials? I've been trying to figure out some scenario were holding a bowling ball the night before a race makes sense, but I have yet to come up with one.

Best thread I've seen here - period. I'd kill for video of the coke blow.

not exactly dumb as such...

but I got stung by a wasp just as I was lining up for the start of a 1500m. It was a very warm, sunny evening and I was looking forward to a good run, when suddenly I felt a slight 'itch' on my leg. I looked down and gasped in horror as when I saw the wasp. I have terrible phobia about things that sting, so I of course I started screaming my head off, and jumping about like some drugged-up psycho while flailing my arms around everywhere. All this made the bastard-evil wasp sting me, and made me look llike a complete twat - which of course I was. The race was held up for a few minutes, much to the annoyance of my fellow competitors, till one of the officials said "are you going to stop acting like a baby and run, or do I have to call the nurse?"

So, we all got on our marks, me with grimmaced teeth proving how tough I really was. Bang! Off we went. And do yo know what? I won the race and smashed my PB by four seconds!!!!

er... except I didn't really. I went off way too fast, blew up big time on the 3rd lap and trailed in one from last in about 4:20.

bloody wasps.

"are you going to stop acting like a baby and run", classic! Sage advice we could all use at one point or another.