Another of mine was eat a Wendy's baconator meal with fries and coke a couple hours before a 4×1mile each relay. I probably did not take the relay as seriously but I ran pretty decently. My goal in a relay was always to do my job and not embarrass myself or let down the team.
This thread is a golden oldie, for sure.
3. Senior year of high school I got seriously messed up the night of the homecoming dance and barely made it onto the bus to our XC meet the next morning. I was still a little drunk when the race started and I remember (vaguely) sprinting past a pack of guys I should already have been far ahead of screaming “SNAKES! THERE ARE SNAKES ON THE COURSE!” I remember seeing my beloved coach’s disappointment at the mile markers and by midway I’d begun sobering up and realizing “What the heck? I’ve always cared about this immensely...” I felt pretty ashamed on the bus ride home.
2. A couple years after high school when I was doing all drinking and no running, I spent the 4th of July with my girlfriend at the time. Her family had a tradition of going downtown to spectate the 4th of July road race, easily the biggest event on city’s running calendar and which actually attracted some decent names (Rod Dehaven, Keith Brantly types). Oddly enough I went barefoot, which I was doing a lot at the time, which was all well and good until I decided to hop in the 5k fun run to escape the awkwardness of talking to my girlfriend’s parents and especially family friends. When I finished the race I was tracking blood everywhere and one of the event’s medical staff had to wrap up my feet, which had large bloody sores that gave me trouble for more than a few days. Obviously conversation with the parents and family friends was no less awkward after that poor decision making.
1. When I was in the best shape of my life I got comped hotel stay and entry to one of Iowa’s premier road races, thanks entirely to being buddies with some much faster guys. Instead of showing my gratitude by making it to the start line rearing to go, I stayed up all night two nights before the race (and the night before traveling) hoping to lay this girl who I’d slept with sporadically before, and who had a long term boyfriend at that point. It did happen, but not until about 7 a.m., and I didn’t sleep a wink. I do not recommend going sleepless two nights before a hot and humid, point-to-point 20k. I made it 2 miles at slightly slower than goal pace before I started to tank, and I kept tanking until I was walking off and on behind middle aged women who definitely did not receive a free hotel stay. For the record, I remember the disappointment and embarrassment of my disastrous performance far more clearly and more often than any thrill I derived from my sexual infidelity (which is shameful in its own right). It wasn’t instant karma, but it was pretty close.
Dumbest?
As a soph in HS, the afternoons before a CC meet, I would play pick-up games of tackle football, which included some varsity players on a team that ended up undefeated and state champions. I could carry would be tacklers on my back as I ran with the ball, and could have played tackle football. My coach would show up to the park where we were playing and come out of the car screaming at me (and pulling at his hair). He would drive around every Friday afternoon to local parks to find me. I would run out of there on the way home.
As a junior in HS, a big CC invite that we hosted, we got to the line ready to win. We had only 1 loss, and were expected to win state until I got hurt after the sectional. So we were very focused. We did our strides out of the box, and the 7 of us lined up. Then the timer came by and announced to all "15 minutes to race time." Our coach had completely messed up the routine.
As was our custom, we started swearing at him (using the F word a lot), and got out a football and started passing it around. He was going absolutely nuts trying to get the football back (trying to intercept it), and all the other coaches and runners, and all the parents, were silent (probably dumbfounded). When it got close to start time, we gave the coach the football and then won the meet. I ran my best CC race up to that point in my HS career. For us, this was par for the course, as we had only one "legit" CC runner (thin, 9 flat, 14:10 for 3 miles in crap weather). The rest of us could have played tackle football, soccer, or hockey.
As a senior, because of no sports, I ran in some AAU junior olympic CC meets. The district meet was held on the toughest CC course in the state, and I wore spikes. I got a wood chip in my spike element with 1 mile to go, and I wanted to take my shoe off because with each step the chip was causing my leg to snap shut and I thought my knee would blow out. However, there were wood chips everywhere and I would have cut my foot and been bleeding. The last mile was supposed to be the easy part, after going through steep ups and downs and having to jump wooden hurdles, but I was nervous at ruining my career with each step and floated in the best I could. I still won, and ran a fast time for that course, and had I run in racing flats instead probably would have come close to the course record. I was so nervous the entire last mile, and probably should have just taken off my shoe and walked in.
In '88 I got a courtesy invite to a 5k in a track meet that was held as a prep for the Oly games in South Korea. It wasn't because I was world class, but I was one of the only foreigners invited as the country was prepping for the big games. I was running 100 mpw at under 6 min pace, and was ready to run 14:30 or faster on the track. I ran 15 miles the day before and 10 miles that morning, all under 6 min mile pace so as to maintain my mileage. That evening it was 107 degrees on the track, yet I warmed up several miles fast and kept warming up to race time. I was too tired when the race started to get into a good position, and the shorter and better 5k runners boxed me in and then sped up, then slowed down, over and over. I was so tired that I only ran 15:15.
John Wesley Harding wrote:
Oddly enough I went barefoot, which I was doing a lot at the time
Wait, not that anyone cares, but I wore shoes unsuitable for running which I handed to my girlfriend when I jumped into the race. That makes more sense, though I did go through a weird barefoot phase.
Drank black coffee for the first time in years on the morning of a track meet. Shat by brains out at least 5 times that day.
I misunderstood race time and saw my race run away and tought it was the juniors race. The only good was that it was in my then hometown and not a long travel to the race. It was a much more disaster for one of my then contemporaneous Swedish world class runner Mats Erixon when he travelled from Sweden to Brazil for the annual New Year`s Silvester race and slept at the hotel when the race started.......long travel back home without the goal race done.
Went to a frozen yogurt shop that had all you can eat the night before. Probably ate 5,000 calories of froyo + toppings. Ended up feeling amazing and tons of energy the next morning and PRed.
I was 14, running one of my first invitationals on the varsity team. I thought it was a good idea (even though I was to run a sub-15 minute 3 mile in that race) to sit in the back row, juggling a toad I found in the grass before the start. The gun went off, I threw the toad into the woods, and worked my way through the field from a long way back to finish 3rd, having no idea what I was doing. I don't want to mislead - I was an adequate runner and fortunate enough to be on varsity as a freshman, and ended up running 9:20 for two miles that year, but I wasn't all that great. Now Eric Hulst of my era - that was great.
Miss the bus bc I was pooping
Team mate and I decided to nip to the loo 5 mins before our 3K track race - thought we'd be ok because the men's race hadn't even started yet and it was scheduled before ours.
Came out to see men and women running round the track...they'd started the two races together because not enough women had turned up. Coach unsurprisingly not happy!
Another time I went for a warm up around some woods that I thought I knew before a 1500m. Turned out I didn't know them and got a bit lost - it all looked the same. Ended up legging it round and asking randoms for directions, made it to the start line with minutes to spare, already tired, didn't run my best race!
Was running the 400m at a college indoor meet, some regional championship. Got up in the morning to have bfast with the team. We headed to IHOP. My race wasn't until 7pm, so I decided it would be a great idea to eat a giant bfast so that I wouldn't have to eat all day until after my race. I had 3 full orders: a buckwheat pancake platter with eggs or whatever came with it, a platter of sausages, hash browns, eggs & toast, and a stack of those silver dollar pancakes. Washed it all down with several tall glasses of milk.
12 hours later, I still hadn't digested it. Ran 2 sec slower than what I was supposed to run and the only reason I technically wasn't last is because some guy in the outside lane went flying off the banked track at the top of the curve.
Needless to say, my coach was annoyed because he told me not to eat all that when he saw the plates piled around me that morning. Failed to qualify for the next meet, ended my season.
It wasn't me, but one time at the English Schools T&F a teammate took her spikes off and threw them over a locked gate at the track minutes before the start of the race to piss her dad off, as she didn't want to run.
He managed to get them and she ran.
water from the forest wrote:
It wasn't me, but one time at the English Schools T&F a teammate took her spikes off and threw them over a locked gate at the track minutes before the start of the race to piss her dad off, as she didn't want to run.
He managed to get them and she ran.
My favorite story ever.
In high school our team would routinely play tackle football after team dinners the night before meets.
One evening we split up with underclassmen vs upperclassmen. The upperclassmen had some pretty well built kids who ran to keep in shape for other sports who were flying around in the backfield the whole game sacking the much smaller underclassmen QB and laying out some pretty strong hits trying to strip the ball.
Somehow our team was still made it to state.
who bumps a 16 year old thread?
Sub-8 Mile wrote:
Was running the 400m at a college indoor meet, some regional championship. Got up in the morning to have bfast with the team. We headed to IHOP. My race wasn't until 7pm, so I decided it would be a great idea to eat a giant bfast so that I wouldn't have to eat all day until after my race. I had 3 full orders: a buckwheat pancake platter with eggs or whatever came with it, a platter of sausages, hash browns, eggs & toast, and a stack of those silver dollar pancakes. Washed it all down with several tall glasses of milk.
12 hours later, I still hadn't digested it. Ran 2 sec slower than what I was supposed to run and the only reason I technically wasn't last is because some guy in the outside lane went flying off the banked track at the top of the curve.
Needless to say, my coach was annoyed because he told me not to eat all that when he saw the plates piled around me that morning. Failed to qualify for the next meet, ended my season.
You were only 2 seconds off your goal time? Not much of a disaster.
Before a workout I went to a brewery and annihilated some flights of craft brew with my pals. I got to the track a bit tuned up.
Started a 4 mi threshold workout. Mile 1 was ok. Mile 2 I found myself absolutely hammered drunk. Mile 3 I was hung over and dry heaving. Mile 4 I felt somewhat better. Life in a day.
I did that on my birthday once because my ex convinced me it was a good idea to go to a cocktail bar in the afternoon. I had intended not to drink, but there were some really beautiful drinks there. We then moved on to champagne. A lot of it! I had not been to many nice places like that at that point in my life (I was young!) and I really loved it there. Anyway, I decided that I would go to the track session later that evening as well. Oh dear! I'm not sure if anyone noticed, but I did not complete the session.
I wasn't able to get comfortable when putting my spikes on before the cross country county championships - they were either too tight or too loose. I decided to just do a single knot, do my strides, then re-tie them with a double knot before the race starts...
I do some strides then go over to the starting area as the runners start to congregate (I'm expecting to finish top 20 out of probably 100-150, so I'm standing at on the front row) . I'm standing there, just waiting for the race to start, for a minute or so. Then I suddenly remember that I need to tie my laces tighter. I crouch down to tie my laces, but then an official blows a whistle and tells the runners to walk towards the line. Runners start walking past me, so I stop tying my shoes and walk forward to try to remain near the front. I wasn't able to tie them properly before the gun went and they came undone during the race.
This race happened almost as long ago as this thread was started, so I don't remember the result very well, but it probably cost me a fair amount of time but didn't translate into many lost positions.
I didn’t eat any dinner the night before a marathon and failed to take into account that I hadn’t really done any runs longer than 8 miles. I had run 2:33 the year prior and this was a marathon in my hometown. Hit the half in 1:15 in about 4th place out of maybe 2,000 runners. Totally bonked monumentally at mile 14 and was passed by probably 1,500 runners. Second half took 2:30 - not a very dignified way to run 3:45 in front of the hometown crowd after bragging about what a great marathoner I had become. But, did not DNF