What is the most BS running story/claim you have ever heard?

Look up Terry Vercelli

JILL GREATHOUSE

When I was in high school, my ex girlfriend joined the team. She is a notorious liar. She'd always say that she ran 5:15 for the mile in middle school. Before joining, she said she did 4xmile repeats in 6:15 earlier that year. It's not because she didn't know better. She was just a liar. She showed up in jeans and those hipster Converse shoes at practice the first day.... She said she was comfortable in jeans...

So, the day she joins, a bit late, my fellow 4x8 guys and I were talking about her. I said she would quit before the end of the season. Another said a month. Another said a week. Then someone said she wouldn't make it through the practice. It was 6xhilly 600m repeats on a straight road.

We get to the start and I made sure to tell her multiple times that she wasn't turning anywhere. Just run straight down to coach and stop. Just as I thought, she turned off when she was behind a couple of 2:50 800m runners. Eventually came up an alley way and said she lost her way, even though she had the entire team right in front of her and plain directions. Second one, she walked the second half then left. She quit right then.

The next day she said she was mad at herself, so she ran 5 miles at a faster pace than the 600m repeats to punish herself.

This was junior year. Come senior year, she was visiting colleges and was saying how she ran sub 5:00 for the mile. She had teams (mainly the athletes) begging her to join. She did this everywhere she visited and told me about it. Also lied about winning conference in high school...

She's definitely the type that needs to be medicated...

To the college coach, if I had been in your position and a prospective walk-on said he could run 800 meters in 1:23, I'd have invited him to practice the next day and put a watch on him for 800 meters. It would have been good for a laugh.

To the OP's question, I recall a guy named Dean something who did ultra runs like across the U.S. I recall he once said he sometimes fell asleep while running 150 miles a day or whatever he was doing. Look, I've seen a guy on a bar stool put his head down on the bar and start snoring, but that's as far as it goes. If you're running, you can't possibly be sleeping.

"I get laid off LetsRun!"

I had an unintelligent adult acquaintance tell me when I was 17 years old that he had run a 3:60 mile. No lie. I thought I heard him misspeak. I was very kind to him. Glad I was, looking back.

The guy was hit by a car on the highway 13 years later. He was a trucker who stopped one night to help another car that had gotten into an accident prior to police arrival. It was icy and a third car hit him. RIP, buddy.

Almaz Ayana in 30:16.

kmaclam wrote:

Mo claiming he wasnt quite in shape.

Y'all should have ended the thread here, this is gold

Change @ Park wrote:

The most BS running story is the one Kathy Switzer has been weaving for 50 years - a king size whopper with cheese.

No so much a whopper as to some awesome self-aggrandizing marketing. Fortunately BobbiG got some true props for being a true runner and trail blazer. KS should have been a footnote except for the RD's stupidity.

Haaaaa wrote:

Just met a guy from Craigslist to buy a road bike. Running came up, he asked what my 3200m time was back in HS. I told him my measly pr of 9:23.

He responded completely unimpressed with "Yeah, back in my day I ran the 3200m in 8:09. My fastest mile was a 4:03. And for 5k, I went 15:09." I used all of my strength and better to judgement to just nod and say "Oh nice."

.

A 4:03 mile and only a 15 min 5k? Was he climbing Grandfather Mountain with a fanny pack?

O'Donnell wrote:

To the OP's question, I recall a guy named Dean something who did ultra runs like across the U.S. I recall he once said he sometimes fell asleep while running 150 miles a day or whatever he was doing. Look, I've seen a guy on a bar stool put his head down on the bar and start snoring, but that's as far as it goes. If you're running, you can't possibly be sleeping.

The time he went onLetterman and suggested he could run or had run a 2:30 marathon really bothered me

Change @ Park wrote:

From the shadows wrote:

Fat guy at the cafe told me that he ran the 5k sub 13:30. Yeah right. I took his name and checked on the internet.

Guess what? That was true.

Pretty humbling.

You actually met Mike Rossi! What are the odds of that?

When Rossi claimed that he ran VIA in 3:11, that he was cleared (which he wasn't) by the Committee that didn't investigate, that it is common that runners don't have one single photo taken at 5-7 photo checkpoint and that he has 6 or 7 photos that prove he ran VIA but refuses to show them to anyone.

When I was in high school a kid who was a decent runner in middle school claimed that he ran sub 4:30 while locked up in the local juvenile detention center.

During my college years a recruit came for a visit. He told us that he was racing on the "fastest [xc] course in the state" but that it was "low key and nobody has heard of it" at one point in the race he had a huge lead while running along a road so he "raced a horse and buggy... and I won."

Make America Greathouse Again wrote:

JILL GREATHOUSE

Just wait. She's gonna do it.

TheRealCici wrote:

Every time I compete in a big road race, I always have these old slow guys come up to me afterward congratulating me or chatting me up just b/c I'm moderately fast.....Then they get into how they did this race 30 years ago and ran some crazy unbelievable time. Maybe true, maybe BS, but why do I care? All these old guys living in the glory days and coming up to me to humbly brag.

You just might be that old slow guy many years from now.

I always make a point a talk to these guys for a bit after races because they are pretty knowledgeable and you can tell it hurts them that they can't be fast anymore. Give them props for at least participating because it's pretty annoying when a college runner who once ran sub-15 doesn't want to race the local 5K anymore because he can't handle being a tad slower than he once was. THOSE types of guys need to get over it.

As for the really old guys, they just love the sport so much. Be kind to them.

Would have to be some of Gerry Lindgren's whoppers. Don't time to look them up now, but something like 16:08 for 4 miles or sub-2:00 marathon pace through 26 miles.

You'll get there...

Years ago I was on a flight and this very attractive woman is walking down the aisle toward me. The middle seat is open and there is a guy next to window. I am thinking what are the odds this attractive woman has the middle..

(The quotes will not be exact)

She is at my row and says "that's me". I get up to let her in and am thinking this beats the people I usually get next to.

She and I make small talk (I was married at the time plus if I was not what is going to happen?). The guy chimes in something, then we all just go back to what we are doing. After take off I pull out a book on running. She asks if I run and says she is training for her first half-marathon. I tell her how much I like that distance. We talk a few minutes about long runs and such.

There is a pause in our conversation and the window seat guy chimes in with "I have run a few halves". I nod, she nods, she asks where and he says "all over" but names a few cities that likely have half-marathons. She asks me for my PR in the half and I tell her. The guy then drops this one "My last one was the Olympic Trials".

Well keep in mind that I have worked in Olympic sports for pretty much the past 20 years and follow things pretty closely especially in track and field.

Since it was early 2006, I asked if he was talking about the marathon. (I will say the guy looked reasonably fit but a bit more muscular looking than a distance runner). No, he said he ran in the 2004 Olympic Half Marathon Trials. The woman was kind of impressed.

At this I am thinking what do I do. I can just let it go or bust him. I was leaning toward letting it go (we have 90 minutes left in this flight probably). But then he adds in that he would have made the team but he got a muscle cramp.

For some reason that pushed me over the edge, but how was the best way to bust the guy?

I asked where the Trials were because I knew the Marathon Trials were in Birmingham that year. He said the half was in the same place but I could see the look on his face that he was not liking where this might be going.

I asked him who won and made the team. He could not name the people who made the team. (In his defense he could not name people who made a non-existent team). I asked if he knew several people that an elite runner would know at USATF and USOC.

That led me to introduce myself and what I did and that there is no half-marathon in the Olympics. His response was something like "Well they called it the Olympic Trials" and just stopped right there.

The woman looked at me, rolled her eyes and we chatted off and on the rest of the flight.

As we deplaned, she said I really shut him down. I asked if I was too rough. She say no, he was kinda a smarmy dick.

There have been many occasions where people have just told a lie about making the Olympics or nearly making them that it drives me nuts. Non-running, but I took a whitewater rafting trip and the guide said he was training for the Olympic Whitewater Rafting team. I let it go (this guy could have my life in his hands), but when we went around the boat saying what we did and I mentioned I worked in the Olympic movement he never mentioned it again.