List your crazy improvements + PR's here.

I have run 5 career marathons (all between 2010 and 2013). In order:

3:21 - 3:00 - 2:48 - 2:44 - 2:39

My big goal was sub-2:40 and I quit running "competitively" after that. Thinking about getting back into it to try and chase 2:30. Maybe more impressively, I ran 1:22 for my first half in 2012 and ran 1:13 eleven months later.

snsnsnsns wrote:

thejeff wrote:

First Marathon: 3:46.

Second Marathon: 3:24.

("Hobby Jogger" by LRC standards, but I much prefer "fast for a big guy")

^ fat

6'4" 275lb All Conference Defensive End in college. Cut.

I was fat for about 5 years AFTER college.

Weighed 196 for my last race. I am a lot of things, but fat ain't one of them (anymore, lol). Although, I would be faster if I could just get rid of some of this dang muscle...

One year ago my marathon Pr was 3:34

Two weeks ago it was 3:09

The difference was

2014 mpw 25-30

2015 mpw 50-55 (peak weeks of 65-70)

Like another runner, went from not serious at all about training to using 18/70.

thejeff wrote:

snsnsnsns wrote:

^ fat

6'4" 275lb All Conference Defensive End in college. Cut.

I was fat for about 5 years AFTER college.

Weighed 196 for my last race. I am a lot of things, but fat ain't one of them (anymore, lol). Although, I would be faster if I could just get rid of some of this dang muscle...

Haha, I would rather not be on the wrong side of thejeff, whether at 275 or 196! Mostly because I am 140.

Not me, but Philibert-Thiboutot...

4:01.8 at 1500m as a junior in 2009 to...

3:34.2 and Olympic standard in 2015.

Everyone can dream...

went from 18:5x to 16:5x this year

i had been running for a quite a while, the only change is that i finally figured out how to stay healthy enough to run 35-40 mpw (having only run mid-high 20s for the past couple seasons), so my endurance kind of just caught up to my speed and i had a breakout year.

I ran 21:43 for 5k my freshman year of XC, and recently ran 18:45 as a sophomore. On paper a nearly 3-minute PR sounds alright, and some of my teammates are impressed, but it was a major disappointment. I was expected to run at least 18:15 but choked on most of my races and dealt with a nagging injury all season. But this spring is a new season, and it's things like this that keep you motivated to get better.

Niceguy542007 wrote:

thejeff wrote:

6'4" 275lb All Conference Defensive End in college. Cut.

I was fat for about 5 years AFTER college.

Weighed 196 for my last race. I am a lot of things, but fat ain't one of them (anymore, lol). Although, I would be faster if I could just get rid of some of this dang muscle...

Haha, I would rather not be on the wrong side of thejeff, whether at 275 or 196! Mostly because I am 140.

Don't worry, I probably couldn't catch you, anyway :-)

my senior year of HS, my best 3200 was 10:20.

5 months later, as a college freshman in my 2nd 10K XC, i went through 2M (not 3200) in 10:20 and kept rolling, finishing in 33:15, with a big pile of fresh PRs.

mileage is king.

HIgh School - Freshman 18:17 5k Sophomore 16:25 5k, 10:48 3200m, 4:52 1600m, 2:05 800m. Junior 15:58 5k, 9:36 3200m, 4:16 1600m, 1:56 800m. Senior 33:50 10k 15:54 5k, 8:52 3k, 4:15 1600m, 3:57 1500m, 1:56 800m, 49 400m. College - Freshman 26:26 8k, 8:52 3k, 4:00 1500m. Sophomore 25:34 8k, 15:34 5k, 3:55 1500m, 1:57 800m, 49 400m. Junior 3:55 1500m, 2:28 1k. Senior 26:02 8k, 3:02 1200m, 1:53 800m, 49 400m. Post College - Took couple years off and put on 30 - 40 pounds of fat... Started comback and lost 20-25 pounds so far. Half Marathon - 1:18:10, 16:54 5k, 9:24 3k.

2 big jumps in my career, freshman year of high school I ran 23:XX for the first invite of the year and was one of the slowest on my team in early September, then I ran 18:48 at my league meet in the JV race and was like 30th. My HS PR in the 5k ended up being 17:48, Freshman year of college at a D3 school, in my first 8k, I split a 17:3X 5k and the next 8k split 16:4X 5k. I would say freshman year of college was more impressive though because I had only done a few road races before high school and ran like 10 miles per week in middle school with hardly any interval training.

1mile

8th 6:05

9th 5:22

10th 5:07

11th 4:41

12th 4:27.5

400/800/mile in HS:

FR: no clue / 2:32 / 6:47

SO: ~62 / 2:12 / 4:55

JR: ~58 / 2:06 / 4:40

SR: 53.5 / 1:57 / 4:33

4:35 marathon PR to 3:16

I was anemic

Went from 17:09 5K XC PR last year to 15:46 this year.

Weird times wrote:

I went from a 4:02 1500m pr to a 3:49 in one race. I also went from 8:00 mile to 4:36 mile in about 8 months my freshman year of high school.

How's that for crazy improvement

Nice.

I was a superfatty at the beginning of 10th grade. Mile: 10:13. As in 1 mile, NOT 2.

End of 10th grade, was allowed to work out with the track team out of pity. Kept it up 11th grade & 12th grade. Mile time by end of senior year: 6:06.

I also did XC beginning of 12th grade. Went from 28:08 in my first 5k to 23:08 in just that season.

Now quite a bit better, but still proud of making it out of the "I'm a fat statistic" category. If I can do it, then all the other fatties out there have no excuse.

I ran a 2:14 880 in Jr high. First week of summer I ran my first 10k in 42:20. I couldn't believe it took 39 minutes to place top 5 in the 14 and under age group.

By the end of the summer I ran 37:14. Went back the following year and ran 34:50. Still didn't come close to top 5 as I moved up to the 15-19 age group.

As an English club runner in the 80's I was desperately keen to break 9:00 for 3000m.

I'd just missed, running 9:01, which was pretty disappointing considering, I'd recently run 1:57.5 for 800m and 4:01 for 1500m.

A couple of weeks after the 9:01, I went to Highgate for an evening all-comers meeting. They were great for fast times, as you could just switch off and get towed around in the pack (or actually a line).

I really didn't have a great idea of what pace I was running, but was feeling pretty good and started to pick it up two laps out. At the bell they were calling times, and I realized I was in really good shape to break 9:00, and went into a kick.

Turned out I'd run the last 800m in 2:06 and the last 400m in 60 flat to get an 8:45 (I must have only been on 8:56 pace at the bell). So I ended up with a 15 second improvement over 3000m (2 seconds a lap) in the space of three weeks. I've no real idea how I did it, other than it was mid-September and we'd eased off a lot in training getting towards the end of the track season. I was always a crazy over-trainer (in intensity, not mileage) so maybe I'd just eased off enough to recover.

I'm 58 now, and I've run the age graded equivalent faster than that 8:45 when placing in a national masters competition, but I've never had the feeling that race gave me, or the shock of that amount of improvement.

My high school PRs were 4:30.7 mile, and 10:04.8 2 mile.

After XC training freshman year of college, we did October time trials on the track. So we'd had 6 weeks of distance training and long intervals.

I did the time trials in 4:21.9 and 9:35.0. I was pleased!