Many years ago, running the 4x800 relay at the Miami CC North campus when there was a loud crash outside of the stadium, followed by gunshots. The only people standing in the entire stadium were the runners on the track- the entire infield, the stands, all crouched down for safety.
Late 90s I was running a competitive mile at a HS invite on a very hot day. I finished 2nd in the race with a PR. Immediately afterward I'm stumbling through the infield, and our head track coach (not distance coach) had never seen a runner who had just gone that deep in the well. He puts his arm around me to prop me up, and offers me some of his Coke that he's drinking out of a plastic cup.
Middle school meet. 200-200-400-800 medley relay. Last legs - one kid who was a good state championship level swimmer, who never ran again after this meet, caught the hotshot distance runner from the cross-town rival school with about 100 meters to go. Neck and neck down the home straight. 20 meters from the line both... yes both, took a dive to the track simultaneously.
Shock and silence from the entire crowd (which was decent... probably 100 persons). After about 15 seconds one of them staggered across the line. One of the funniest things I ever saw.
Me winning the highly coveted 7th grade pole vault championship at my middle school years ago.
The opening height was set at 3”2”, too low for a stud like me so I passed on this height. Two rounds later I entered when only two remained in the competition, and the bar was set seemingly out-of-reach at 3’6”. Competitor 1 goes and misses, the #2 goes and also misses, now my turn. I run down the straight away and when I tried to plant I miss the box and the awkwardness of it makes me trip and do a face plant in the grass area in front of the pole vault pit. I could hear some snickering in the background so a little embarrassing, but I figured not bad for my first attempt ever at the event.
The second and final round is now up. Competitor number 1 goes misses badly so he is out. Competitor 2 goes and gets incredible speed down the runway, plants the pole perfectly, his pole is bending like professionals I had seen on TV, is propelled to what seems to be an astonishing 4 feet in the air but nips the bar with his elbow on the way down. He is pissed…ever so close to a possible 7th grade title and a new PR to boot.
Now it is my turn. Clear 3’6” and I win, fail and I go home in humiliation with a no-height. So I start down the runway and halfway down I start thinking “what the hell am I doing, I don’t know how to pole vault,” so I tossed the pole aside and kept running towards the pit. At the last second I launched my body into some sort of flip-jump contortion in a desperate attempt to get over the bar. When I landed I had no idea if I succeeded, so I turned around and the bar was wiggling but it stayed up! I did it, the 7th grade “pole vault” champ!
This thread is proof positive that runners are a bunch of geeks. Go get laid.
1) we had a streaker in a loin cloth at the conference meet, he ran across the field then out to the parking lot and then we saw police sirens from the parking lot...
2) in Oregon for HS the rules say that JV 4x400 can provide their own "baton shaped objects" as a baton if they want unless a baton is provided to them by officials. My teammate brought a stuffed orca whale that's about the same size as the baton. Our team's top distance runner and 2nd best 400 runner (53 second 400) decided to run the JV 4x400 because he wanted to be on "Team Orca" for his final dual meet of his HS senior year. He was our anchor and he made a swimming motion with the Orca down the home stretch to make it look like its swimming through the air down the final 100m. He's this super serious Russian dude so it was absolutely hilarious coming from. The other school's coach was furious because the audience stopped watching his varsity 4x400 out kick our varsity 4x400 (to win the meet) and started cheering for Team Orca.
At an indoor meet last year a kid got tripped up in a 4*400 relay exchange, he fell tried to brace himself and broke his arm.
Not a meet but at a long run we decided to go out on a 90 minute run in 30mph winds and torrential rain running by the ocean. My shoes never smelt the same again.
This year, indoor middle school meet, 160m track. In one of the heats of the 400, they miscounted the laps! Instead of 2.5 laps, the girls ran 3.5 laps.
The officials and/or coaches should have pulled the runners off after 2.5 but they didn't, and the crowd was saying "You've got 1 more lap" and the rigor mortis was grotesque!
Best thread ever!
State champs 10k, guy in the lead pack abuses a slower runner for not moving out of the way. Slow dude is pissed and stops and stands on the inside of the track. As the lead pack passes him where he is standing, he steps back on the track and king hits his abuser. Mayhem ensures.
At a high school meet I saw a kid fall over a hurdle during the 300m hurdles and his leg snapped the wrong way. It's a good thing he was wearing tights because that hid the compound fracture but to this day it's the grossest thing I've seen.
So this kid was clearly in major pain. What you wont know by simply watching the video mainly because she was only in track warmups on a rainy day and because of the angle but his young female coach was the coach everyone on the team had a huge crush on (including adults). I can confirm she was indeed very attractive. So she is asking if he is okay and where he is in pain but he doesnt want to talk to her because he is embarrassed to tell her on top of being in that excruciating pain.
Where does it hurt? ?
The school should never have run this event considering the weather conditions.
My son managed to break his arm doing 100m reps. Classic 13 year old, didn't want to slow down gently, just slammed on the brakes after crossing the 100m line, fell forwards, put out his arms and broke a bone in his elbow. Oddest running injury every in my book.
notyourdad wrote:
Oddest running injury every in my book.
Although there was that guy who got hit by a plane while running on the beach.
High School:
At an invitational, kid on my team cheated in the mile by running the first 250m and then hiding behind a small set of bleachers on the infield (behind the end zone of the football field). During the last lap he came out after the lead group of 4 passed but couldn't outkick any of them. Took surprisingly long for him to get DQed.
College:
At a midweek "invitational" with 3 schools, most events were not filled. For the men's 400m hurdles, the hurdle crew diligently set up all 10 hurdles for all 8 lanes. Unfortunately, everyone scratched except one guy. The race starts and he clips the first hurdle but recovers. He gets to the second hurdle and slams into even harder, causing him to tumble and fall to the ground on the other side. Everyone else at the meet is dead quiet, just watching the guy. After about 20 seconds of him not moving, the starter walks over and resets the clock. The hurdle crew snaps into action and starts removing all the hurdles, and the meet continues.
The best part is, this meet was the first meet on a brand-new track, so for a while afterwards, the facility record in the men's 400m hurdles was "2 Hurdles"
6.2k views wrote:
So this kid was clearly in major pain. What you wont know by simply watching the video mainly because she was only in track warmups on a rainy day and because of the angle but his young female coach was the coach everyone on the team had a huge crush on (including adults). I can confirm she was indeed very attractive. So she is asking if he is okay and where he is in pain but he doesnt want to talk to her because he is embarrassed to tell her on top of being in that excruciating pain.
Where does it hurt? ?
The school should never have run this event considering the weather conditions.
WTF? That's the most ridiculous steeple set up I've ever seen (and I've seen dirt tracks with hand-dug steeple pits in Kenya)! How did they not expect someone to get hurt in any weather conditions? The grass will always be slippery because of the water. And there are people literally holding down the barrier so it doesn't move when the runners step on it!
George, the second leg in the 4x400 relay team, was pissed that they finished third and tried to sell his medal. A guy (let's call him Alan) buys it from him for $5 and says that he can get some sucker to buy it for $20.
Alan soon walks up to me and says he has a "bright shiny medal you can brag to your friends about. It can be yours for the ultra low price of $20." I told him I wasn't interested, and he says "come on, man! You'll never get this opportunity again! I'll even give you a $5 discount!" He keeps trying to sell me that medal until I pull out something from my pocket.
Guess what, George and I were on the same team.
At the State Finals we had a huge swarm of hundreds of bees come out of the woods and fly thru the bleachers from one end all the way to the other. It freaked out all the parents and spectators. Everyone was ducking for cover.
After that they then proceeded to go down to the track and stop at the end of the first curve where they were about to start the boys 300m hurdles race. The whole swarm hovered over some dudes gym bag on the infield right next to the track while the meet was delayed for 10+ minutes. Finally some of the stadium workers covered the whole swarm of bees with a big blue tarp. I don't know if that kid ever got his bag back.
Our team has had two separate incidents by two different people who took out an 800 race in 62s and ran a nearly 2-minute second lap
R.I.P toeshoes
2017 Michael Johnson invitational at Baylor (maybe).
Miscount of the laps in the women's steeple.
No DQs handed out.