Best athlete you ever actually competed against?

*faster*

I beat Jim Plunkett in a Turkey trot at our Oak Creek apartment complex when I was a HS sophomore and he was the Raiders' quarterback.

I won the turkey, my dad got second, and Plunkett was third.

Chris Paul when he was a young lad at West Forsyth High School. He was pretty good at basketball...and a really nice, humble dude despite his growing fame (which was modest at the time compared to now). He had fast hands, but I’m pretty sure my feet could have outrun him in the mile. #Blessed

I once competed in figure skating against Olympian Johnny Weir.

Weir was not the kindest of famous figure skaters.

After my free skate, he walked by me, took a glance at my teenage skin and said, "Nice Zit spin, loser."

Carlos Lopes and Frank Shorter. Lopes was at his peak (2nd peak) shorter past. I was just a decent cit racer and they both were ahead. Also at about the same time Grete Waitz. Steve Cram used to do the Cherry Creek Sneak 5 mile race every year.

Flashback to a Vets League 5 mile champs. on Wimbledon Common, November 1997, finished 3rd, close to Grenville Tuck, former international for G.B. over 10,000, 28.20.

I also beat Keith Penney that day, and he was a former G.B. international, with a 13.30ish 5000 and many 10 mile road races in the 48 mins range.

April 22, 1978, Finchley 20 miles road race, inc. Inter Counties. Finished in 1hr50mins49secs, beating most of the Surrey County runners, although I had not been selected by Derek Crookes, the Belgrave Surrey selector.

November 1978 -won the South London Harriers Gibb Cup 5 mile cross country championships, in hilly farthing down, Coulsdon, beating John Roberts, former Surrey c.c. champion.

In the grand scheme of things, my best times did not compare well with those guys, in their prime. The paradox is that top runners don't usually age well, and their times really go downhill.

Henry Rono

HHH Runner wrote:

I beat Dave Clarke in a XC League Match back in January.

His accolades in crude 3 x National XC Champion (England), PBs of 3:39/13:22/27:55/62:11/2:13.

Of course, he is well into his 60s now....

I went past Ron Hill in the National back in the mid 80s, he had his naff Union Jack shorts on so you couldn't miss him.

John Tuttle and Pete Pfitzinger in high school.

Tuttle and I were 1st and 5th in a 1000 indoors once.

Dick Beurkle (when he held the American Indoor Mile record was in Buffalo and stopped at Cornell to run in an FLRC all comers meet. He and a couple friends and I were in the fast heat.

That was a cool surprise.

Was that Rompin Ron's 10K in Newark? If not, he must have run at least 2.

Ritz and Maurice clarett

Being from Rhode Island, opportunities are few and far between to compete against legit talent, particularly in soccer. That said, the best player I ever played against was this kid Isaac "Nana" Addai who played for the Liberian U23 national team. One year he was in a refugee camp in Ghana and the next year he's schooling suburban d-boys in New England. He recently was on loan at a top flight Brazilian team. He's a little on the small side but his physical/spatial awareness was surreal, dude had eyes in the back of his head.

Noureddine Morceli in California JUCO meets.

Me, nuff said.

Adam Goucher at the 1997 Big 12 Championships he won in about 23:25, I was 75th in 27:39 for Iowa State, I somehow still beat 20 people, I went out in under 5:10 for the 1st mile, 2-3 of Colorado guys didn't pass me until maybe just past 1/2 mile in, they all ended up in the top 30;

Steve Plascencia when he said a US indoor masters 5000 record winning a meet at Iowa State in 14:00 something, I went out in about 2:20/4:50 on my way to running somewhere around 15:50-16:00

Marius Bakken when he ran for York High School in Elmhurst, IL, he won the DuPage County meet in 1996 in 4:14, I was 7th in 4:35 after going out in 31/64/2:10, 6th place was around 4:28, if I had gotten 6th we (Wheaton Warrenville South) would have tied York for 1st instead of having our undefeated season ruined

ck3237 wrote:

Henry Rono

George Malmo.

I ran against Juri Borsakowski when I was 14 years old! The race should be my breaking 2' for the 800 (which actually happend)

Juri was chasing early season Q standars for Worlds and came to the race last minute with 2 pacers and they made out of an 8 people race who should run 1:55-2:00 a sub 1:46 race so it was 2 races in one

Fun fact Juri stopped running after 630m however he jogged to the 750m in lane 5ish but I still wasn't able to catch him

Peter Sagan- beat him

I ran in a non-competitive XC race last year vs. Amby Burfoot. He's still fast and a helluva nice guy...