Runners: describe how your best race ever in your life went

I was an alright runner in high school, 15:45 5k but it was completely talent, I never really practiced, never ran on weekends, and partied a lot. My senior year was crazy, and I ended up becoming a 16:30 runner and lost a lot of races.

When I ran at regionals that year a huge snowstorm hit. I ran the next day and the week before I hadn't ran at all, skipped practice, and was serverly hung over on race day...high school breakup things.

Anyways the race started and at 1 mile, I was with the leaders, at 2 miles, I was still hanging around, and I just said f""k it and surged. Ended up winning by 30 seconds in a blizzard.

Got crushed at state. But that regional race was awesome as I crossed the finish line a mile ahead with my purple foot high Mohawk...

A really well run marathon is often a really boring story.

It was a perfect day for marathoning, temperature in the upper 30s at the start and the low 40s by the end, bright sunshine, little wind. Lined up at the start, gun went off, started clicking off 6:13 miles. (Olympic Trials qualifying standard for women that year was just under 6:18 per mile.) Kept clicking off 6:13 miles. By the 20-mile mark I was still on the same pace and starting to feel really good about my chances. Runners in front of me started coming back to me. I passed lots and lots of people in the last 5 miles. Hit 25 miles still feeling good and with a huge time cushion. Crossed the line at 2:42:50, having never varied my pace by more than a couple of seconds per mile. Boring but really effective.

Coming into this past XC season, my meets had went 19:25-18:54-17:54. So already huge improvements. Our team had always been mediocre at best, getting 7th at state last year.

Then came September 22, 2017:

Weather report from the time of the race: 87.8 °F, 58%, 30.00 in, NE 4.6 mph

-I ran 17:27.

-For the first time in our program's history, 4 of our guys went sub-18.

-We won the 24-team meet, several of the teams being in the division above us and past state champions.

I went on to run 17:37-17:54-17:24-17:27-17:08.

Our team ended up being state runner-ups... by 5 points.

Perhaps so, but a collection of them in one thread can be motivating when you read story after story.

My freshman year I was ranked dead last for the 400IH in my conference(ACC) - and I finished dead last at the conference meet in 55.20. Despite my poor race, I managed to convince my coach that the 400IH was MY race, and he reluctantly let me continue training for the race all throughout college. I wanted to prove that his decision was right. I managed to work my way through the ranks and in my final year of college, I was ranked 2nd. 1st place ranked was another senior who had ranked 1st since his freshman year and had been winning every conference meet. Since my freshman year, I followed his results every race, studied his races in person, and even printed out a picture of his face and used it as motivation.

Sophomore year of college, I finished 5th at the final. Junior year, I finished 3rd. Senior year, we were trading wins with each other. At the beginning of the outdoor season, I demolished him in the final stretch winning by half a second. As the season came down, he began to get faster and managed to edge me out on some meets. My times were great, but they were stagnant throughout the season. He was generating momentum in his season, getting faster every race. In the race right before ACCs, it was he that demolished me by half a second. I was torn, but I couldn't let that shake me.

At the conference race, I was so nervous that I threw up a couple of times on the bus ride there. Have to stick to my rhythm. I put my headphones on and let muscle memory takeover. I don't remember my warmup at all, I let my body take control and put my mind at rest. I knew that if I was in my own head too much, I would choke and ruin my race.

We get to the line, I'm in lane 7 and he's in lane 5. That meant he would be able to watch me the entire race, but I knew that I had less of a curve which, while insignificant, meant more straightaway for me. The gun went off, and I went out hard. I could hear everyone's footsteps, but I knew exactly how his footsteps sounded so I knew where he was anyway. Business was usual from 0-200m. At the 2nd curve, I heard him hit the hurdle hard and stumble abit, so I turned up the pace so that he would have to use more energy speeding up. No one else was with me. At the 300m, I was feeling alittle tired than usual - I used a lot more energy than I thought at the start. Locked up the last 50m, but I pulled through for the win in 49.31. Huge PR, and huge win.

Later that night, I heard a knock on my hotel room and opened the door. It was him. I didn't say anything at first. He said, congratulations man, I was trying to win all 4 years of conference but you managed to break that. It was my only goal since my own freshman year. I told him that I had been following him since my freshman year, and that he was my motivation for so long. He closed the door behind him, and began to massage my shoulders. It was so random - I didn't understand what was going on, but for some reason I liked it. I wanted to see where he would go from here. He moved my waist towards him and whispered in my ear that he had been thinking about how sexy I looked in my track shorts. He began to kiss my neck and moved down to my waist. I'll spare the details, but what happened that night was so surreal but something I did not know that I had always wanted. We ended up dating for awhile, but broke up after few years(he had to move out west for another job).

Qualifier for state track meet in the 4x8. Top 3 teams qualify.

I'm the anchor and I recieve the baton in 4th about a second behind 3rd. I knew the guy ahead of me was way faster and my hopes were lost. Kept on his heels for 600m then with 100m to go came off the bend and made the pass. Best feeling ever crossing the finish line knowing I ran my hardest and brought my team to state. Was a 2.5 second pr.

It isn’t my PR, but the first time I broke 14:00 was pretty crazy. I was at the Stanford Invitational my 5th year of college and we had a pacer for the first 1600m. He went a little slow (4:35), but I felt really good and sat in the mid pack. Came through at 9:10, so we were even splitting and I felt like I was floating. My breathing was very controlled and it honestly felt like a threshold workout. The pace didn’t really pick up that much until we hit 800 to go right at 11:55. Everyone just started hammering and I was able to slip by on the inside and get right on the leader’s left shoulder. We ran a 62 lap and separated. I pulled away the last 300m and ran 58 last lap to win in 13:55. That last 800m ramped up in difficulty a lot obviously, but it felt really smoot. Almost like I was running on a slight downhill and my legs were going faster than I could keep up.

That year I broke 14:00 a couple more times and PRed even more, but nothing felt that easy. In fact, the rest of the 5000m races that year were hard as sh*t. I don’t know what happened. I even got crappy sleep due to school that week. Guess the stars aligned.

The race I am most fond of was a mile race.

While I was starting my warm up, about 1 hour before the race, my daughter fell on her face. She was bleeding badly and we rushed to ER where she got a lot of stitches. I was not thinking of the race anymore, when my wife told me to go and see if I could still get in. I run 1.5 miles from ER to the start line, in trainers, and jumped in 1 minute before the gun went off. No strides, stretches, drills or anything of my usual pre-race routine.

I must have been full of adrenaline, because I went out very fast and was in the leading group and feeling relaxed. There were people with mile PR 20 seconds faster than me, that usually I had no business running with. We crossed halfway ~5 seconds slower than my 800m PR. At three-quarters of the race a few guys took off, but I managed to keep my pace and PRd by 10 seconds beating a lot of people I had never beaten before and I would never beat again. Still my PR and never came close to improve it.

Shot out of my father's balls like a rocket. Huge lead pack, millions of us... Lead pack thinned through the cervix and up through the Fallopian tubes...Started a long drive for home and finally pushed through to the finish!

Indoor two mile on an old 160m wooden banked track my senior year of high school. Girl I was interested in and had dated a few times dumped me the morning before the team left to go to meet. Had the "what the f*ck" feeling in my chest entire 2hr drive to meet. Warming up I wasn't even thinking about racing. Just pissed. On start line wasn't thinking about racing. Still pissed. Gun goes off. I don't remember much after the first 800m. I sort of remember having an out of body experience where all the emotional pain and ensuing physical pain just disappeared. It was like I stepped into lane 2 and just went by everyone. I don't remember much except the muted roars of fans and teammates and officials. With about 2 laps to go the announcer comes over the speakers screaming, "------- is destroying the field in the fast section of the men's two mile tonight; let's bring him home." I snapped out of my 'zone' and started slowing because all the pain came back and I realized I didn't want to be there right then. Needless to say it was a 15 second personal best and nearly broke our school outdoor record!

But I finished tenth to last.

Unexpected conclusion

Got jama to hold my stopwatch and murked the field the final 200m, in search of another stopwatch holder, I skipped the next season

10k road race, ran in a pack with guys a minute faster than my PR. It was a cool morning and being in a pack and sharing the drafting made the race go by quickly. We started to separate a bit toward the end, with me holding my own. A guy tried to drop me, but I held on until the final turn, then smoked in in the final 30 meters with a PR of 45 seconds. It was epic!!

Five mile race, sponsored by my employer. A couple hundred participants. At the mile, I was in a chase pack of 10 runners exactly 30 seconds (!) behind the leader. Two miles, chase pack of 7 still 30 seconds behind. At 3 miles, chase pack now 25 seconds behind the leader, 5 runners. We kept chasing, I passed the leader about 50 meters from the finish. My mile splits were exactly even, down to the second.

So far my most impressive performance is a 1200m DMR leg. I had recently run 1:57 for 800m on a 200 flat, and 4:17 for a mile on a 300. I was anticipating a 3:05-3:06 at best, and would be okay with sub-3:10. The race started and my body just took over. I got out fast, in the lead and expected at least a few guys to go around, I learned why they didn't immediately because I was still leading at the quarter in 59.xx. At that point I just decided I would lead the whole thing if I had to, but a few guys went around about 50m later and I sat in 4th-5th for a little while, coming through 800 in 2:01 (but I didn't hear that split at the time). At that point a guy made a hard move and I went around a couple guys to chase him, I was hovering a few meters back all the way to the finish, and actually got passed by another guy in the last few meters. I split 3:02.7. Although I handed off in third, it felt really good to surprise myself with a performance I didn't think was possible. It only happened because I turned off my dome and let my legs tell me how fast I could go, it felt oddly smooth even though I crossed the line with not much left to give. Pretty big confidence booster heading into indoor conference next weekend.

Trained hard in the 6-week break between semesters at college, intervals in the cold & snow down to 11 degrees.

The hard interval runs were about seven miles. One mile warmup, 8 - 10 @ 300 - 600 at faster than mile pace. Equal rest jogs, all measured by phone poles.

I'd do this 3-4 times a week with easy days of five or six miles between.

Went up to Dartmouth Invitational and knew I'd win my heat of 1500 ahead of time. Took off with about 500 to go and ran away for win. Last half lap rigged but held on.

Officials not used to metric meets (this in 1978) and they ran all three heats of the 1500 from the 1000 yard run start line! So, we ran a bit more than 20 extra yards! Ridiculous. What the heck, a win is a win, even when you run the 1522 meter run.

Later that season placed 4th in another meet on the same track in a faster time, happily measured correctly this time.

Oktoberfest 10k back in 2014, first race out of college. about 40°F. was training real hard for club nats in PA, planned on doing it as a long fartlek, but the first mile I turned in a 5:10 and got excited. split about 16:30 i believe, relaxed a bit mile 4, felt effortless striding the last two miles for 33:50.

I was never a 10ker, I just didn't have anything else to race in the area. I was on a massive high from methylphenidate and the weather was great.

I was running 5 mile races in college in about 28 minutes, never finishing in the top 5. I then read a RW article that said (I think) that (1) taking Alka Seltzer was like blood doping, (2) Rolaids would absorb lactic acid, and (3)Vivarin (a caffeine pill) would somehow make you run faster. I took all 3 before a race and I told all of my teammates how much it was going to help. I was pumped. I then ran 5 miles in 27 minutes, finishing 5th on the team!

Later someone told me that the Alka Seltzer fives off CO2 and not O2 like I thought. Also, they explained that Rolaids in my stomach was not going to absorb lactic acid from my muscles. Maybe the caffeine worked. I dunno. Looking back on it, I likely did well, because I believed I was getting an extra boost from that "lucky penny" in my pocket.

So the moral of the story is if you want to do well, believe that you have some sort of advantage.

I haven't had the best race of my life yet, so no story bro.