What is the hardest workout/race you have ever done?

two come to mind

1. my first marathon...felt like I got hit out of nowhere with a baseball bat at 22 miles. Saw stars and almost passed out the last 100meters

2. 25x400 in ice rain in HS my sophomore year

Boston 2012. Had run a 1:09 half 2 months prior, so I new I was in decent shape. Close to 90 and humid on race day. Went out conservatively (2:33-2:35 pace), ended up finishing in 2:40:09. Proceeded to fall asleep on the sidewalk for the next hour. A teammate found me, and proceeded to pour Gatorade down my throat till I puked...still made out with 3 Wellesley college girls, despite me being covered in sweat.

4 Minute Mile in 5 Minutes 4 x 400 @ 60 with :20 rest

I make all my long sprinters do the 60x400 workout from Once a Runner every Tuesday

Boston 2012

Randy Oldman wrote:

Hardest race - my first ever 400m on a track (age 51). I swear the home-straight was at least a mile long. The upside was I found a distance where I have talent relative to my age.

I feel your pain. In my first race for cash, a 3000 in Furth WG, with 200m to go I was full of energy and felt I had the race won. With 100m to go, I doubted my ability to finish the race.

Back when I was a grad assistant, we had these newfangled pace lights that we put around the track. Basically the lights would synchronize to whatever per lap pace you wanted. It was a way to provide a pacing rabbit without one of the runners having to do all the frontrunning work.

There is this workout, said to be impossible to complete, the ultimate negative split time trial. It is a 1600 time trial where the pace starts out excurciatingly slow and increases by 1 second per 100 meters...

1st lap is 94 seconds @ 25-24-23-22 per 100.

2nd lap is 78 seconds @ 21-20-19-18. Easy, right?

3rd lap is 62 seconds @ 17-16-15-14 .... this is where many of the runners would start to lose pace.

By the last lap you were supposed to run 13 - 12 - 11 - 10 ..... a 46 second last lap!! The studs could maybe get up to the start of the penultimate 100 before they'd fall off the pace on that last 200

I really wonder if there is anyone in the world who could complete this time trial workout. Kiprop maybe? Farah?

Shucks, it's only a 4:40 mile!

I was in this race too and agree that this was the hardest race I've ever done. The conditions were horrible with the combination of wind, water, and snow. My coach told me that it was the toughest running conditions he's ever seen in all his years.

I remember it started raining a few days before the race and then it absolutely poured the night before. The morning of the race the temp dropped and the wind really picked up. My coach had us wear the longest spikes we had and then he told us to tape around our arches and over the laces to keep our shoes on. He was afraid we lose them during the race. My memories of this race were running through snow into a really strong headwind and then running in and out of knee deep water. The wind chill was awful. At the end of the race I remember other runners getting angry that the were taking too long in the chute. We were told to rip the bottom part of our numbers off but couldn't because our hands were non-functional from the cold.

I've never forgotten this race. It was the coldest I've ever been in my life.

1995 DIII regionals in Alma, MI

Workout - Sometimes the quickest was not the hardest based on fitness level at the time. These represent the quickest workouts:

First: a 400/600/400/200 at 4:00 mile pace with a 30 second jog between efforts, 5 minute recovery then 3 x 600/400/300/200 at 1:35/63/46/30 with 30 seconds between efforts and 2 minutes between sets.

Second: a continuous 6 x 800 at 2:10 with a 90 second 400 as recovery between.

I raced pretty well the next month!

I would DEFINITELY call this an impossible workout simply because there is not a miler in all of history that I know that has ever run a 10 second 100, and probably not a 21-sec 200. Or is there?

I would DEFINITELY agree the limit is the last 200 of the workout.

I certainly think it would be hard enough just to keep on pace with the lighting system but would love to see something like this in action, especially at a more constant pace.

Any documentation on this system?

30k run in Kenya. I had like 5 miles left. Uphill. At 8000 feet. Was getting down with some stomach problems and fever. It was a horrible experience. I do not wish that for anyone to experience. I knew I was screwed, but there was nothing and no one that could have helped me out there getting back home... Most painful run in my life.

Steens Mountain Running Camp - "The Big Day"

Hardest workout I've ever done: 800, 500, 400, 300m. I went 1:44, 64, 52, 39. Pretty decent, although after that 500 I felt like I kinda had a bear on my back.

The hardest workout that I've ever done was definitely 3 sets of 4x400m @mile pace with 100m jog recovery and a 400m jog in between each set. It was absolutely brutal and my coach had me running a much faster pace than I should have been. Coach had us quit after 10 when we were consistently 5-10 seconds too slow.

thon training for sub 2.55:

5 x 18 miles interval session

3200m without warming up

Or it might be 100x100 yards on a football field at 15-17 seconds a rep with 20 seconds recovery in-between. It was my first year on the X-C team.

Mile repeats @ 8 min intervals. Coach yelled at me what the fvuck are you doing after running first one in 4.34. Ran the next five at least hat fast to show him up.