What is the most outrageous high school gym mile exaggeration you have ever heard?

middle school PE miles were always like 40 seconds short. not outrageous, but there were always low-5 / sub-5 claims that obviously weren't true. in high school, it's more annoying though, because the basketball players all have to run the mile for practice (on a course that's short, of course). some of them would ask how i'm doing in track, and then note that they can beat my mile time. my friend and i almost tried out for the basketball team one year just so we could own them up in their "mile."

When I was a freshman, we did a mile on the track in high school and I was in a class full of non fit people. My track coach had told me to take it easy b/c we had a meet the next day. I jogged a 7:00 and finished a good lap in front of the class. The next day the truth had been twisted to say that I had ran a 5:30 mile. My coach was upset at me for it until I had the gym teachers write a note telling him my real slow time.

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i kinda like running wrote:

Damn.

By the way, does anyone else notice that 4:36 is a very frequent claim when people are bragging/embellishing their mile time?

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My junior year of h.s. track, a senior from a rival school approached me at the county championship meet after I had anchored the 3200m Relay. Our county didn't have much distance talent that particular year, so my 2:03-4 leg/ our 8:15 won fairly easily. As we were cooling down, this guy yells toward us "I hope none of you pussies are running the mile. I just ran a 3:55 in gym class yesterday!" One of his teammates standing nearby confirmed his claim. Our relay team couldn't get a word out through the laughter.
As we strip down and step onto the track for the 1600m. He sprints by me and I'll never forget what I witnessed next: a long, luxurious bounty of glorious curls-easily the most awesome mullett I have ever seen! He came to a dead stop @ the first turn, turned and sprinted right back towards me. I was so stunned,confused, and scared that he was going to tackle me, that I hadn't noticed his basketball shorts sagging off his ass, or his velcro cross-trainers that most likely assisted in his world-class gym-class mile. "This mile is mine!", he emhpatically exclaimed to me. After informing him that we would be racing in a 1600m race, we argued across alleys until the gun went off. I'll spare you the details of the race itself, but I had a pretty good day. Trailer-park Rockstar? He may have broken some kind of county record for the first 550-something meters of the 1600. I did not see him again that day. After the 3200m, his coach approached me, visibly embarrassed, and apologized for "Dusty's" actions. The coach also informed that "Dusty" owns the Philladelphia Eagles and has a Lamborghini Countach in "the shop". I hear "Dusty" cooks meth now.

Well this is not a HS story, but I did hear a good one a few weeks ago. This guy found out that I enjoy running and he tried to impress me and said that while in the military he ran just a few seconds under 8 minutes for 2 miles. I looked at him and laughed and said I think you are mistaken as you would be running close to a world record time if not the world record. His response was he ran a lot in the military and just became real fast, but never felt like taking it any further and running professionally. It cracks me up what a man will say to impress a woman. I guess he just thought that I enjoyed a good jog every now and again and did not realize that I ran D2 in College and watch every track race that I can. The best part was he totally kept going with it and never admitted that he had no idea what he was talking about even when I called him out on it.

when I was in high school I was smoking in the bathroom one day and some guy came in and told me that my classmate just broke the world record in the steeplechase.

Turns out it was true. Rory Curry. Last white guy to break the WJR.

I said "so, f*ckin what?" and went back to my conversation about Black Sabbath. Didn't appreciate the implications of this fully until I started running a few years later.

Looking back, its kinda kooky.

I would agree with you - initally i thought all vo2 tests were longer because my first stess test lasted 39 minutes (but i think the researcher was trying to determine my ventilatory threshold as well as my vo2 so he had the progession go very slowly up the scale starting at 100 watts and bumping 50 watts every 3 minutes)...truthfully I am a moron about all of this and should not be calling someone else one as - i have no background in this field - I don't even know the terminology etc. i only know that in my first test i went to the wall and beyond (my peak lactate reading was 10.6 at the end of the test) Again i don't even know what that means - but it sounds high - from reading some past Tinman stuff - he cites 4.0mm at one point as a training level for your high end stuff. I have tried looking up what others hit at the end of their test but haven't found much - so someone else will have to tell me what 10.6 means or how it compares to others. In my 2nd vo2 test - i have no record of my peak lactate (not sure if one was taken), but do know i did not go any where near my max as the test was pre-determined to end at 15:00 (I did not know this until minute 14 when i was told to sprint) - and that is where the problem is in my opinion because

1) I feel you can't set a predetermined limit (time) to the test unless you are really sure you will have taken each subject to their max. and 2) you can't ask subjects to sprint their way to their max in the final minute for several reasons:

a) most test (i am again assuming) are done where the researcher controls the effort = meaning (if you are running) the pace is set by the researcher and you can go no faster than that level - so you cannot techincally sprint...you can make you legs move faster (if running) or spin faster (if biking) but you are not producing any greater power/speed

b) on the bike test - when you spin faster you can actually "cheat". Let me explain:

have you ever been on a stationary bike and noticed that when you spin slower the effort seems tougher - it is because you now have to produce more power per stroke to keep the machine going at that level...conversly if you spin faster you can (what i call) "overspin" the machine so that you make a harder workload easier...so in effect when i was sprinting in the last minute of the test my v02 level actaully went down (here are my v02 readings in the last few minutes of the test)

14:00 = 51.4
14:30 = 44.9
15:00 = 44.3

that was the last minute...now here is the interesting part (in my non-expert opinion - because i realize i may be the one who is misinterpreting the data) my max vo2 during the test (the 15:00 of progressively harder biking) was 51.4 - coming just before the sprint...during the "cooldown" i actually hit a higher level and here is my explanation of why:

When the test ended at 15:00 I am still biking for another 90 seconds but the watt level is not being reduced - but i am no longer sprinting and am spinning slower and slower = which actually means i am having to work harder per pedal stoke to maintain that wattage/power. here are my final 90 seconds:

15:30 = 50.1
16:00 = 49.5
16:30 = 56.1 (this is where my max was achieved)

I don't think that is how it normally happens and I think that this further supports my contention that i was not at or near my max.


I honestly would like to know more about this stuff - and am willing to listen if anyone here can shed light/explain these terms...furthermore i feel i have wrongly outed Dr. H and should have never used his name in my post (unless he wanted me too) and have ask the moderator to delete/edit my post where i did this). In all fairness i have probably unfairly judged Dr. H. and i would go even further to say:

1) while i may not believe he ran as fast as he claims in 7th grade, i will bet he was faster than me. I bet he won most if not all of the CC races he ran before he got injured...and had he not gotten injured, we might have seen how good he really was.

as yes, i am something of a disgruntled test subject since the results did not support my self-inflated belief that i had a max vo2 of 80+. When i completed that test I did not believe it - i even told the researcher that it seemed too high - i have seen chart which show what certain times would indicate on a vo2 scale and mine consistenly comes out around 74-76 max vo2. i believed the reason my readings were so high was because i my have been overspinning on that first stess test; again i will elaborate:

I am not and never was a "good" biker when i did triathlons...i was a runner - who could outrun pretty much anybody on the run, but would get drilled on the bike (except on the climbs) and swim...i did get better at both but not 80+ vo2 good. My fastest bike races put me at 23.1 mph for the 1/2 ironman one year at Buffalo Springs (that ain't bad, but not world class my any means). A 80+ vo2 would equate in my estimation to about a 28:00 or better 10K run (i have never been remotely close to that) and i have no idea on a bike what that would yeild...but on the stationary bike where there is a wattage readout - i train in the 200's and seldom went over 300 watts - in that fist vo2 test i ended at 600 watts = that doesn't seem possible to me - as i cannot and have never been able to hold 25mph on a bike..and 600 watts = ?? something pretty big.

so, appolgies to Dr.H
i vo2 tested twice (80.9 and 56.1) would love to believe the first but realize a 75 vo2 is more realist, and don't belive the second test results were valid because i did not get the chance to go high enough effort-wise.

Some fat guy named Chris told me he broke 27 in the 10k. I doubt he knew how fast that really is.

It wasn't a gym but a ratty-a$$ 5 lap to the mile cinder track in the late 1960's. My HS track coach said one of his HS runners had run a sub 4 minute mile on our cinder track during practice but couldn't duplicate it in a race! One of the Dulong brothers - Art? Dulong

I had a cocky cop that was kind of smart when he lied about his 8th grade mile. He told me he ran a 4:20 mile and I told him he was full of it. Then he procede to tell me he also ran a 4.3 40 that same year. I know his PE teacher and asked if this was true... nope he was a solid 6:45 and 5.2 guy.

I ran high school track and cross with this guy who was a very solid freshman 800 and 1600 runner but never really got better, like 2:02 as a freshman and 1:59 as a senior. He was a really moody guy and was always pissed off after races (probably from never getting any better). So our senior year I beat him in 9 of the 10 cross races we ran and every single time we raced the 1600. And I mean beat him baddd most of the time. I haven't seen him since high school but several times since I've run into mutual aquantinces who've mentioned how much this guy disliked me and the other guys on the team and how much he relished kicking our asses in races. I recently looked this guy up on facebook to ask him what his problem is. Actually the only thing my message said was "Hey Chad, you have no kick...", because this guy was totally obsessed with his crappy kick.

And this guy flipped out, telling me how I wouldnt know because I was always too far behind him in races to even see him. I then proceeded to send him the few results from our senior year that I could find, which he instantly called phonies because he knew I never beat him in high school.

Not exactly a gym class mile story, but still funny.

I just thought of a hilarious phenomenon that myself and several of my runner friends have noticed. As some of you probably know The Woodlands and Kingwood have had the best high school distance teams in Texas for a long time. Actually the Woodlands are still really good but Kingwood has faded a little. And both of these schools have really large cross teams, I'm talking like 100 to 150 people, so running is a well known and respected sport at these schools.

So here is the funny/strange thing that my friends and I have repeatedly encountered. You meet someone at a party or on campus or at your job who graduated from the Woodlands or Kingwood in the last 15 years. When they find out your ran in high school or college they proceed to tell you with the utmost pride that they ran at the Woodlands/Kingwood. You ask them what event or times they ran and this is what they say "... well the Woodlands is just so good, I ran 9:35 as a freshman but couldn't make the team." Or "I never made the travel team in cross but I ran 9:20 in practice." Or "I was on the 4th string JV and ran 1:55, we were that good."

The funny thing is these people honestly believe that their school had 20 guys who could break 9:20, 4:20 and 1:55. And if you try to call them out on it they will call up their state champ friend who is dumb enough to tell you that their 3rd string JV friend really did run 4:14 in practice his sophmore year.

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Jefe in the CO wrote:

Speaking of whacked out Tri-hack-a-letes...back in college I went on an 8 mile run, at a fairly decent pace - maybe 6:15/mile pace, with an area triathlete. He was really talking up his running by saying that, while he never ran in HS, he could have broken 4 minutes for the mile had he stuck with running past Jr High. “Wow, that’s fast,” I remarked,”by the way what was your PR?” “Oh, it’s like a 4:09/4:10” he replied nonchalantly. “Ok, I’m calling BS,” I insisted.

He was not a bad runner by any stretch of the imagination but I felt I had to put my foot down. He was indignant and wanted to prove it by running a mile on the track right now. Opps, I felt kinda bad, in the awkward sort of way when you catch a delusional person in a lie.

So here we are at the track, after our run, ready to verify his claims. I tried to give him numerous outs but he would have none of it. So I'm timing and it should also be known that we started at the "full mile" line on a 400m track. Also, there were all sorts of hobby joggers out there hogging lane one.

So this guy takes off, sometimes running in lane 3 flying by everybody. “Ohhhhh, this is going to be good I thought to myself” as he is out in 62...damn if he didn't run a 4:10 low. It was one of the most amazing runs that I've witnessed.

I was shocked that he could do that with all the joggers, the 8 miler we’d just run, that he supposedly swam that morning and had some kind of hard bike ride the day before. He seemed just as shocked as I was because after he crossed the line and I called out his time he was like, “See! I told you! But you didn’t believe me did you? Blah, blah, blah!”

So know I'm begging this guy to dump the triathlete scene and give his 4 minute mile a shot.

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There is no way you could reasonably justify my post as "trollish" in nature. You could say that I was delusional or maybe even accuse me of misremembering but a Troll?

Unfortunately, the only witnesses were me, the joggers and the tri-geek. So you will have to take my word for it. I will say that this tri-geek went on to win a national championship in triathlon and I'm pretty sure that he broke 32 minutes in an international distance 10k. He was quite possibly the most untapped running talent that I've ever come across.

He eventually flamed out and I'm not sure where he is today. I'll do a little snooping around and see if I can contact him on Facebook or some other such social media forum to corroborate this story. Hang tight...

I've run into a lot of people who think a 4 minute mile means you ran a time starting with a 4. Someone runs 4:59 on an unmeasured course and calls it a 4 minute mile.

Back in high school, I ran 4:36 (really) and my mom was always telling everyone "my son runs a 4 minute mile." It took years for me to persuade her that a 4 minute mile actually meant 4:00. So instead she rounded up and told people I was a 5 minute miler. Once I ran 4:22 in college, now she thought she could round down again, and started saying I was a 4 minute miler again!

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Some nerd wrote:


http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=118073001&highlight=letsrun.com

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My memory is this. Approx June 11, 1966 there was a track meet at Randolph High School and Art Dulong ran a 4:04.5, Jerry Riordan from Providenc College finished second approx 4:11 and John Kinchla of BC High finished third in 4:18. If I recall the high school track was cinder and well used and could have been 5 laps to the mile. Dulong's 4:04.5 mile was astounding. Later that summer, Dulong and Eddie Norris of Brockton competed in the 2 mile at the Golden West Invitational (GWI). Neither Art nor Eddie won at GWI ( though Eddie had won the Eastern States 2 Mile Indoors in NYC that winter of 1966. and I think Art ran an 8:59 also that year). Regardless, Dulong's 4:04.5 in Randolph may have been the best HS mile run in 1966. I would be guessing here but his last 440 had to have been a 56 or less.