Dumbest workouts you've done

POD !!!

fast runner wrote:

Yasso 800's.

Just kidding. I'm not that stupid.

$praddy wrote:

Well, just west of Davie but yeah. Vista View is a helluva place

I did the ultra a couple years ago. Really impressed with the park. There were quite a few kids doing the hill sprints up the side.

Not a dumb workout, but I wasn't expecting quite as much elevation change for the 1.24 mile loop there and my quads got completely fried after 4.5 hours from the downhill.

Did my last 20-miler in preparation for a marathon, then went and played touch football with the guys. Sprinting for the end zone, I pulled both left and right hamstrings in two successive steps. Idea of running the marathon was over.

My old high school coach, that coached the likes of the three Aragon sisters, was training for a marathon back in the late 1970s. He did 100 by 100 meter sprints in the park. He wanted us to do those in High School only 10 years ago. He bragged about hitting them all in under 16 seconds.

I don't know why I thought this was such a good idea or that I could even complete it, but when I got to the point in high school that sub-5:00 miles weren't a big deal anymore, one summer I decided to do this silly test.

I wanted to see if I could run one (1) sub-5:00 mile per hour (at the top of the hour) and and rest for the remainder hour until the top of the next hour - for 24 hours straight.

All miles were run around the large polo fields across the street from my house which was basically dead flat without a great deal of traffic.

1) longest run until that point was probably 15 miles

2) I started at noon

3) this was in Georgia which meant it would be pretty hot during the afternoon hours but that was when I figured I'd be my strongest to handle them.

I made it 17 miles with sub-5:00 miles (4:50 - 4:58) before I fell asleep at home resting before the next hour and slept for 3 hours before I woke and realized I'd missed the 18th mile attempt.

Needless to say I was more than sore and couldn't really run for a couple days after that.

Not one specific workout, but a series of them between my Junior and Senior year of HS. Coming off a good spring track season I dedicated myself to building a killer summer base and qualify for states. My HS didn’t have much of a running program. Maybe 15 people on the team and the ‘coach’ was a teacher who supervised us while we did a 3 mile run every day. No schedule, no coaching, no direction. We hadn’t sent anyone to states in over a decade so this was a big goal. By July I was up to 45 MPW and feeling good. On Thursday I went out for a 5 mile hard run (I had no idea what a tempo run was, I just ran hard, medium, or easy) but I felt so good I stretched it out to 7.5 miles. The final 3 miles was faster than my previous seasons best 5K pace. On Friday I went out for an easy 5 but, again, felt good so I just kept going. Ended up doing the 5 mile loop 3 times for 15 miles total. That was the longest I had ever run at one time. That night, coincidentally, my buddy who graduated the year before called and asked if I could run the 4 x 800 with him at a summer track meet. Stoked on two killer workouts I agreed. I was the first leg and ran a PR. I was soaring. After the race a (friendly) rival from the neighboring town (who beat me in the 1600 the previous track season) came over to congratulate me and ask if I was running the 5000. I didn’t even know you could do a 5000 on the track but I took it as a challenge and agreed. The first eight laps went great. The next two were a struggle. The final two were brutal. A painful mile or not I still went under 18 and was very pleased.

The next day I went for an easy shake out jog but I couldn’t even make it to the end of the block. My legs just refused to move and continued to refuse to move for weeks. I had to take 8 weeks off with no running and entered the XC season in terrible condition. I still made states but, to this day, I wonder what I could have been….

And that, ladies in gentlemen, is why we have recovery days and training schedules.

In High School I was the top guy in a very weak region (I won Regionals XC by 30+ seconds), and my coach thought it would be a good idea if I did all my workouts with the rest of the varsity team even though I was a much better runner.

So, he had me carry rocks the size of my head during hill repeats, and then while other people were resting I got to do push-ups. That coach knew nothing about running!

Was not a planned workout etc

But last summer I had a few sandwhiches for lunch then drank a 64oz Chocolate Milk shake, ate a bag of chips and went out for a 13 mile run. But decided at mile 7 I was going to make it a half marathon and call it the monster shake challenge

The worst part I am semi lactose intolerant but I finished the 13.1 miles in 1:31:26 let's just I will never do that again. I welcome any one to attempt that. Also was 20 minutes between the eating and drinking before the run occurred.

That workout is nuts. Out of curiosity, what were your PRs roughly at that point in time?

5x400 in 52, 53, 52, 51, 52

Coupled with an 800 two days later. My season was done.m, never the same after that.

Saw our newbie coach give our best 5k runner 24 x 300 2 days before her championship race.

Nike Oregon Track Club Elite posted on Instagram a few days ago about a few of its mid-distance guys doing that workout coincidentally.

Dad?

At the time, in the early 80s we ran the mile and 2 miles. I think my PRs were around 4:25 and 9:30, so nothing blazing but decent.

Ran 10 miles at an unofficial time of 51:31 during a training run.

High school coach had us do 64x50 meter sprints... entire track team did them...

Less workout stuff, more Trump! This is a running website after all and Donald J. Trump is RUNNING for president. This guy is a winner, the other guys are a liar, a choke artist, and some boring guy from Ohio. Let's make America great again! Trump2016!!!

Not the dumbest but weirdest/ most quirky

Our coach has us do this one workout 2x700. The 700 needs to be run at your 800pb. If you don't hit your time on the 2nd you end up running a 3rd. The whole team ends up running the 3rd.

Example if you run 1:56 for 800, you have to run 700m in 1:56. I understand the workout, the efforts needed, but I find it really hard to figure out the pacing on these 700s.

Obviously its the time in total seconds/7 instead of /8 but he lays it on you that day and sometimes thinking of the math on your feet is tough. At least it is for me.

A two hour run w/90 minutes hard. I ran that 90 minutes at the limit, too stubborn to back off. That run screwed me up for 2 months.