What was the most disappointing moment in your HS XC/track career?

I was expecting my junior year to be a good one as well. One of the coaches even said I was due for a breakout year.

Lo and behold, 2nd meet of the season I contract walking pneumonia and just couldn't push the pace. I think the worst meet of the year was one where it was cold, rainy and overcast and I only ran 5:06 in the mile when I was aiming for 4:45.

It all worked out for me later though. The next year I ran 4:40 and 9:58 and placed respectably in all my meets.

Ran a 10 second PR in the 1600 at state, but lost by a fraction of a second. It's still the closest race that I have ever lost. Fortunately I was able to beat that guy later in the 3200 to win state.

Cross-country league finals my junior year. My teammate and I were number one and two by a large margin over everyone else in the league, but on this day we struggled mightily snd ended up tying for 3rd. Our third man came in second. As a team we still won the league championship but that race was my poorest performance in my high school career relative to expectations.

Hogtown wrote:

Ran a 10 second PR in the 1600 at state, but lost by a fraction of a second. It's still the closest race that I have ever lost. Fortunately I was able to beat that guy later in the 3200 to win state.

Humble brag? Methinks so.

I was aiming for a sub-1:58 800 at my last possible hs race, the meet right before state. I didn't even break 2:00.

I caught mono my senior year the week before the regional meet. I was O U T flat on my tail the entire week, battling a very high fever.

I pulled myself off the carpet and ran the meet, but it was a pathetic run. I doubt I had ever race that slow ever- even back to my first race as a 9th grader.

Hogtown wrote:

Ran a 10 second PR in the 1600 at state, but lost by a fraction of a second. It's still the closest race that I have ever lost. Fortunately I was able to beat that guy later in the 3200 to win state.

I am always curious about such things. Growing up in Ohio where the track and field and CC has always been decently strong, I was at one time led to believe that being a state champion was quite the accomplishment. Later on, I discovered that in some of the smaller states, and then of course in the small divisions of those smaller states that a time for a state champion could be AWFULLY slow.

So, I don't care to know your times (because I'm not trying to open you up for slamming), but I will admit to being curious about which state this was. So, if you'd like to provide, I am interested.

My sophomore year I got 6th at state in the 3k. The next year, Oregon switched from 4A to 6A classifications, which made me the fastest returning guy in 6A. Got really sick with a sinus infection the day of districts and got 4th and did not even qualify for state.

Then in college I qualified for NAIA nationals in the 5k and ended up fracturing my heel after a night of drinking two weeks before Nationals.

I ran 1:57.9 and finished 5th in the 800 at Districts senior year. I ran a stupid race, got boxed in and ran wide on the final turn. Didn't have confidence in my kick to let the race open up. I still check the result from that District each year. I've only seen 2 times in the last 25 years that 1:57.9 didn't qualify for Regionals.

Kept training after my state meet and ran a low-key invitational to try to run a qualifying time for National Scholastic. I think I needed to run like 9:15 or something. I ended up getting burned out bu the time the low-key invitational came around and ran like 9:40. It was my last high school race.

Whole high school career, I'd never qualified thru Sectionals to Districts. Senior year I win league, run a PR (sub 10) in the 3200 to make it to the finals of Sectionals. In the 3200 final, I put myself in good position but fade on the last couple laps get passed by a couple runners and get sixth. Close but no cigar.

Because I was an individual qualifier for states, my teammates (an awesome group of guys) came down to watch. I had an off shot to qualify for the meet of champions so everyone wanted to help by yelling at me to push it along the course. I must have had a virus because I ran a full minute slower than I had ever run on that course. Yes, EVER. I ran faster as a freshman and the last mile was a death march. It's something you can laugh about now but getting smoked by kids who arent even used to seeing you after the first half mile in an xc race in your last hs cross race, in front of all your team mates and friends - It sucked.

My coach after the race - "Well that was rough to watch. what are you gonna do?"

When the hot girl on my team got pregnant before I got to visit her whispering eye. Always seize the earliest of opportunities my friends.

I had the second fastest mile time in the state going into the District meet. But the pervious two weeks to the meet my calves were tight as hell and I couldn't get them loose. I blew up in the District meet and finished fourth and didn't qualify for state. I didn't realize until years later that my coach was using me for a points whore - doubling and tripling me twice a week in dual meets and invitationals. I had a verbal full-ride scholarship to a Pac-10 school before Districts, but after the District meet they pulled the offer. It all worked out for the best though, I walked on to a better academic Pac-10 school, had a decent college career, and got a hell of an education. At the time I thought it was the end of the word - turns out it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Why are all the people replying to the OP State/college level runners? Surely there are many more 20/19/18 min 5kers who have had their share of XC/track disappointments?

For the guys who run 20-18 min 5ks, please dont be afraid to post here. Indeed there are a lot of high-level runners posting but they make up a small minority of the running population.

Finishing 7th as a team at Nike Cross Nationals......seriously. Underperforming on the biggest stage at the biggest meet of the year in your last xc race with the guys you've worked so hard with for 4 years, couldn't have been a bigger let down. Motivated me to do better at big meets in college.

Losing the state championship in the 800m by .09 of a second

My junior year, my XC team was really strong, we went undefeated in dual meets and were poised to win the league. My coach, for some bizarre reason, became obsessed with winning all of the meets (i.e. freshmen, JV and Varsity) and stupidly put a kid who had been our #6 runner all year in the JV race. Long story short, our 5th runner had the worst race of his life, and we ended up losing by a few points. Didn't get the league championship, didn't get a banner up in the gym. It sucked.

I had two disappointments.

1) Sophomore year- I opened up with a 10:54 3200m race. Then nine days later I ran 10:22 which floored my coach. We started talking about breaking 10:00. Then I got a nasty chest cold that took about 3 weeks to clear. I spent the rest of the season getting back to 10:22 shape.

2) Senior year-I ran a 4:26 1600m about three weeks before our league meet. I doubled at league in the 1600m/3200m. I qualified for region in both. I should have dropped the 3200m at region. But I was greedy and stupid so I ran the 3200m in 95 degree heat. I finished 2nd or 3rd I can't remember. In the 1600m (my stronger event) I was toast. I was with he leaders at the bell but died a hard death on the last lap. I limped home in about 4:30ish. The winning time was 4:24.0. I was probably in 4:20-4:21 shape. If I had run the 1600m fresh I finish 2nd at worst. I doubt I could have beaten the winner because two weeks later he runs 4:13 twice at the CA state meet which means he probably had tons left in the tank when he ran 4:24.0. Best case scenario was that I probably could have run 4:18-4:19 if I ran a perfect race.