My first two years of High School running were plagued with misfortune and I couldn't finish a season healthy, much less run to my potential. However, for 5 weeks during my final track season, the clouds parted and running Gods took pity on my pimply ass. I dropped my 2-mile PR from 10:43 to 10:12 in the weeks leading into the League meet. I was beating runners that previously didn't know that I existed, much less considered me as competition.
With two laps to go in this race, an opposing coach, who for some reason knew my name, as well as the fact that I had never before come close to his guy, yelled at his guy in almost a sneering, demeaning way as I developed a gap: "Stan, that's MonROE!!! For cripes sake are you going to let MonROE drop you??!?!?". The combined anger and adrenaline at that jeer provided the answer as I beat Stan by 11 seconds and I broke 10:00 for the first (and only, as it turned out) time, finishing third in a meet where I had never even qualified before.
After the race Stan came up to me puzzled and asked what year I was. He was relieved to hear I was a senior, as he was a junior. He had PRd as well, but his coach ignored him as I had beaten him. "He can be kind of dick" was Stan's explanation. I asked him about the mid-race comment. "All I could think was 'who the hell is Monroe?'" which did more to confuse him than motivate him. On the other hand, I should have thanked that coach for getting me under 10:00.
A week later I was sick and DNFd at District, and the clouds closed up again for a while....