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

This claim.

When I was on a college visit I met the head track coach at this university. The cross country coach and assistant track coach was recruiting me. I thought I was really special and knew I'd make an impact right away for cross country and track. I thought a lot of myself back then. The coach started asking me about my times and different races. So I was kind of boasting about all my accomplishments.

After telling him about myself I started asking him about his times and races. He was a pretty humble laid back guy and really wouldn't say how good he was.

I finally asked him if he won any races. He said he won in 56 and 60. I said something like in 56 and 60 what. He said you know the Olympics. It really deflated my ego.

When I get home I was at a book store and there was a book on famous track athletes. The head track coach Lee Calhoun had a whole chapter dedicated to him. Edwin Moses had a chapter too and was quoted saying he tried to copy Lee Calhoun's technique because he was flawless over the hurdles.

Nothing like adding insult to injury. I guess I wasn't so hot.

This is a sort of BS-story, but almost certainly unintentional one and only worth mentioning because it was a part of the Finnish folklore until it was debunked in 2014.

It is said that Olympic champion Lasse Viren's Cooper test result is 4700 meters he covered either in 1967 or 1968 (18-19 years old) on a cinder track when he was serving in the military and had trained only semi-regurarly a few years running around ~20-30 miles/week on average. Even I can recall a lieutenant reciting the story just before my army Cooper test some thirteen years ago. Aside from the impossibility of being a sub 13:00 5k runner, the story is suspicious as the distance varies from source-to-source (4500m-4800m) and in addition I am pretty confident that none of his biographies take no position on the issue at all not even mentioning it.

As it turns out, the Cooper test wasn't developed until 1968 and nobody in the Finnish army can recall running the test until 1970s, so the Finnish privates almost certainly ran the 15-minute Balke test. So in the end, the distance actually could've been correct.

A guy on my HS team claimed to have run 10.2 in 8th grade when i saw him at middle school districts run 13.x, he then proceeded to run 19 something in xc as his PR and talk about the 2020 800 when he was a "10.2" 100m guy. Long story short, he ran 12.0 as his sophomore year PR beforing being expelled for being a scumbag

I was down in Nashville last month, attending a cancer survivor's convention with my wife. A lady I met at breakfast said she was doing an ultra-marathon - 105 miles - Labor Day, in a rural Tennessee town. Realize, this lady is not only a cancer survivor, but she's short, a bit overweight, says she's diabetic, and is 60-something years old.

I'm thinking she has no idea what a 105 mile race is. Probably a back of the pack marathoner, you know what I mean.

So I ask her "What is the longest race you've ever done?"

"100 miles" she answers, in a tone that sounded like she was both confident and legitimate. "Same race that I'm going to do the 105 miles in this year."

I'm thinking this sounds like BS, and frankly, I didn't believe her. I figured she should win the Pinnochio award for the best, boldface lie of the morning. 60 something years old, a cancer survivor with diabetes, and she did 100 miles in a Labor Day ultra-marathon last year? Yeah, right.

That night, I accompanied my wife to a presentation at the Musicians Hall of Fame in Nashville. The presentation was 8 cancer survivors, each of whom rebuilt their lives after their cancer, in 8 totally different ways. 8 outstanding women, with remarkable, real world stories to share.

One of the women on the program was the lady my wife and I had breakfast with. The one I wanted to nominate for the Pinnochio award.

It turns out that everything she shared with us at breakfast was actually TRUE. She really DID do 100 miles last Labor Day at A Race for the Ages in a Tennessee town called Manchester. I got the name of the race from her after the show was over, and checked it out on the internet for myself. And she really IS going back to do 105 miles this year.

Her story was even more remarkable than what she mentioned at breakfast. Apparantly, she was in her late 50s when her cancer was first diagnosed, and weighed like 250 pounds or something like that. She had to loose about 100 pounds before she could finish her first marathon.

So, I guess sometimes far fetched stories really can be true.

I met this really weird guy at a chamber music recital, who was the husband of one of the cellists (my wife plays violin). After the concert, somebody mentioned that I run and he immediately launched into this story about the good old days and how he would regularly run 20 miles in an hour and a half at altitude in Colorado. I didn't say anything in response, but probably looked surprised because he followed that up with, "Oh yeah, I was a sprinter!"

I know a 4:55 PR miler who claims he ran 56 minutes for 10 miles during an easy run that same season.

The moral of this story is not everything people say is BS.

I remember me and my dad where visiting some family in Arizona and I was a Junior in High School. I started talking with the mom of the family and she looked at my track shirt and started asking me about track, and asked what my mile time was. I was not exceptional at track but it was 4:51, she proceeded to tell me how her son (who was a pretty meaty LB for the High school football team where they lived) had run a mile under 4 minutes a month ago. I just said good for him. When me and my dad got in the car we immediately started laughing!