Do you remember your very first road race? How'd you do?

The Lodi Sweet Corn Festival. I was 12 and ran a 5k in 19:27 in indoor soccer shoes. I went on to a pretty good career after that.

1980 Columbus Citizen Journal 10K - 37:23 age 14.

Danville (Kentucky) Constitution Day 5km. I can't remember my place but it was probably about 20th, 17:44. That was in the first couple of weeks of my Freshman Year of college.

Jason

My first road race was the 1980 Seattle marathon, I had never run further than 6 miles. I was 15 years old and ran 4:02.

Race for the Cure in Phoenix. Having no idea, I figured I'd start in the middle of the pack so as not to embarass myself. Little did I know that most races, and that race in particular, are full of people who can't break 40 minutes for a 5k. I spent the first half of the race staring at waddler's asses wondering how the hell I was going to get around them.

Allentown Youth 5K Run 1979...age 13, 18:06, 1st place in age group.

My first race, I was a bandit. 1982, Allenspark to Estes Park half Ironman Triathlon. This is all between 8,800 and 6,900 ft. They did it in reverse order, with the run from Meaker Park down to Estes via the Twin Sisters trailhead, biked back up to Allenspark on the second leg, and swam last in the Estes city pool. I was 10 years old and my family was acting as the support team for our friend who is partly blind. My dad and I ran the first 10k with him. Took exactly 60 minutes and I threw up 4 times.

i ran a local 5k, and had only been running for 2 mo.

the funny thing is, such early in my running career, i had no idea that how long it took you to run the race was at all important, i was just trying to beat whoever was around me. so, i didn't wear a watch, didn't pay attention to what my time was (never checked out the results)...so i guess i'll never know what i ran for my first real race...

A July 4th 5k in '83 or '84 in my neighborhood called the Ryan Run. I ran the race finishing way back and went home and somebody came by my house later and told me I won my "age group". I didn't even know they had "age groups". Hector Ortiz won the race with a mid 15 and I remember just being amazed that anyone could run 5 minute pace for 3 miles. Two years later I was running mid 15's. Now I'm 40 and will be lucky to ever run mid 15's again.

It was a 15k out & back course in Kenosha, WI. Saw former UW great Glenn Herold & Lucian Rosa duking it out for first as I was going out. I finished 2nd in the 15 & under division in around 56 minutes and got a ribbon. I felt great about that until I saw the winner of my division, carrying the hugh trophy for 1st place, get in his car and drive away.

1987 Run for the Animals - I think it was in Junction City, KS. I was 3 years old and ran the 1 mile without stopping to walk, i've still got my bib number hanging on my wall back at home with probably 200 other ones from the rest of childhood.

I ran the Dead Celebrity 5k in Columbus, Ohio and finished in 28:33 as a 12 year old wearing jeans, hiking boots, and a sweater. Neverthought about trainng at this point in my life and just went and race with a few family member s ho were running it. 2 years later I ran it or the second time and knocked ~11 mins off my time.

Not sure of the year, but it was the New Knoxville(OH)10k road race, 39:55. Probably a sophmore in high school. The memorable part of the race was the fact that someone was wearing spikes. Not the only race I've been to to have that occur though. In a race in Sidney, OH the same thing happened, must be an OH thing.

Diet Pepsi 10K. Local yokels. Couldn't even begin to guess my time, but I'm sure it wasn't stellar.

Ran a 2.5 mile road race in August of 1976 in Port Credit, Mississauga, Ontario (I can't recall the name of the race). As I recall my second place finish won me a beer mug, which was a very handy thing to have as an 11 year old.

Monty

1965,as a HS sophomore, 5.3 mile race along the Hudson River Parkway service road in the Bronx. This is the area where the Metropolitan RRC (which eventually became the NYRRC)ran their winter road races. Finished in an inauspicious 37 something. But all of the old guys, Joe Klienerman, George Sheehan, Nat Cirulnik, Jimmie Borden, were very supportive of a "kid" wanting to run long. There were no age-group awards in those days, just medals to the top 15 men, no women either.

St. Claire's Cardiac Classic 5K, on Thanksgiving morning, way back around 1993 or 1994. I gave it my all, refused to walk even though I was too fat and weak to have any business running that far, and dragged my chubby 12-or-13-year-old ass across the line in 23:37.

Oh man, this is so wierd. Was just reading this thread thinking about posting and BCT writes in about the St Clare's Cardiac Classic. That was my first race too, Thanksgiving Day 1983. My mom was a nurse at St Clare's and she signed me up because it was a fundraiser for the hospital. I was a freshman in college that November, diehard Nordic Skier. I managed 20:09 off 10-15 miles of run training a week (2-3 days), lots of roller skiing and lots of weight work. Took me 2 years to figure out how to break 20:00.

What's the odds of 2 people having this obscure upstate NY race as their first road race and having them post back to back on this board?

Music City Half Marathon in March 1991-- longest training run was 8 miles. Almost killed me to run 2:00. Had just started running to quit smoking on Thanksgiving Day 1990. Was 32 years old. Went on to run 1999 Las Vegas Marathon in 2:55:13. Best 5k at 42 (17:29); best 10k at 41 (35:05).

Enjoying my new titanium hips.