What's the most embarrassing thing that's happened to you in a race?

I asked complete strangers for a ride to the finish line when competing in a road/trail 10K race. They had just parked and were about to get horses out of their trailer, so it a particularly nonsensical request.

Apparently, I was suffering from heat exhaustion. I had been hallucinating, and at one point became convinced the race crossed a small lake. I had waded out into the reeds, waist deep in the water, feet sinking into the mud. I'm not a strong swimmer, so fortunately turned back.

In hindsight, the cool water may have saved my life. This was at age 18, but 10 years later, I suffered full-blown heat stroke at another 10K, similarly hallucinating before collapsing unconscious. With my internal temperature spiralling out of control, I would have died without quick medical treatment.

That incident put me in the hospital for a week, and left permanent liver damage.

Gotta wonder, though, what the folks with the horses thought when a near-naked mud-covered kid pleaded for a ride. They asked me to sit for a while, and my mind cleared. I jogged to the finish in my own. Dead last. But alive!

A dog ran onto the track during a steeplechase I was running. As I was about to go over a barrier, right in front of stands with a fair few spectators, it ran between my feet. I chopped my stride just as I took off but lost forward momentum so when my foot got onto the barrier I could not carry over. I tottered on the barrier for a second or two then tumbled backward to the ground.

A few years back on a 4 lap, 4 mile cross country course. I kicked hard for the win at the end of the 3rd lap, not realising that there was another lap to go. You can imagine my surprise as I was blocked from entering the finishing funnel....

Fair to say that the last mile saw me lose both my lead and my dignity.

A 5k had a volunteer set up to wave cars to make a turn at an intersection so they wouldn't go on a closed part of the course. But he didn't understand that the runners were supposed to go straight. So, he waved me to make the turn. I ended up cutting the course by about 400m and finished first. I had no clue until I saw that my time was fast by over a minute. I went to tell the race director who was also the owner of the timing company that a volunteer was waving people off course and my time needed to be taken off the results. Before I could say anything, he yelled at me in front of a bunch of runners and the director of a big cancer charity for cutting the course. Almost in a chorus, three other runners piped up and said they were behind me and got waved off course by the same clueless volunteer. They all wanted their money back. That race director did not get hired back the next year.

Precious Roy wrote:

A 5k had a volunteer set up to wave cars to make a turn at an intersection so they wouldn't go on a closed part of the course. But he didn't understand that the runners were supposed to go straight. So, he waved me to make the turn.

Sort of similar volunteer issue in a local fairly competitive 10k. I was running with the lead pack of women (yeah, I'm an old and slow male hobbyjogger -- but that's not the embarrassing part). A volunteer waved us the wrong way, and we went half a mile off track before we realized what had happened. We get to the end and of course some secondary group of women had already come in and "won" the race.

The RD is standing there at the finish line and there are a bunch of other people -- especially including a lot of kids. The alpha woman in our group, who almost certainly would have won, just completely melts down and gives the RD a very loud, long, and expletive-laced lashing about how badly run the race is, how she deserves the purse, how the rest of us all deserve refunds, etc.

I'm looking around during this explosion and can only notice that as the kids are learning some wonderfully choice new phrases, their parents are giving us all the most withering of stares -- and I know many of these people from the local running club. After the fact I was approached by a few people and basically blamed due to association. And through some "operator" style logic some people who weren't there thought that I'd made the speech myself. Took several months to mostly wipe that one out of memory. I've never gone back to the race in question.

I grew up in Des Moines and went to the smallest HS there. Every year at the Drake Relays they have a 4x100 for the local freshman HS teams. I think we only had 4 freshman on the team and only one was a sprinter the rest of us were middle distance. Coach enters us anyway. I am probably the fastest of us three at the 100, which isn't saying much.

Time to pick the relay legs. Sprinter takes lead off. The other two guys chime in that they don't want to anchor. I settle it by saying f it, I will take anchor. There are some absolutely blazing fast kids. I am waiting for the baton and waiting and waiting. All the other anchors are long gone. I finally get the baton while all other teams have already finished the race. Me "sprinting" solo down the front stretch in front of a packed house.

Ok, it wasn't embarrassing, because I actually enjoyed it and like telling the story. But maybe it should have been embarrassing, does that count?

Lynsey Sharp chicked me.

When I first started, I was horribly out of shape. There was a guy in the race who had to stop every so often to use his inhaler. When he would start running again, he would pass me.

BTW - Found this article that everyone might find interesting:

http://www.runnersblueprint.com/embarrassing-running-problems/

Actually kind of mild compared to the rest of you but when I was in 7th grade I competed in my first 2 mile at an away meet and with the help of some good instructions from a fast friend’s dad ran a 12:02. Way faster than I thought I could go given I’d only recently broken 6 in the mile. Fast forward to a week later and my school hosted a meet with tons of classmates and people I knew there. It was a hot day and the 2 mile was the last event. I didn’t know any better and spent the whole day in the sun, cheering, socializing, etc. When it came time to run instead of breaking 12 I ran a 13 high while holding a stitch in my side the whole last mile gasping for air. In hindsight I doubt people were really paying close attention to me but at that age it was a bit mortifying to go from a chance to impress to being seen as weak & slow by those whose opinions I cared about and who hadn’t seen me run.

Crapped myself in the same half marathon two seperate years. Both times really messy with the same consistency as humus and the volume of a mason jar. Filled my shorts liner, all around my genitals, slopping out down my legs for the last 3 miles of the race. Leached through both front and back of my blue short-shorts, turning them melted milk-chocolate brown. Disgusting, everyone was horrified.

Natural Lubrication wrote:

Crapped myself in the same half marathon two seperate years. Both times really messy with the same consistency as humus and the volume of a mason jar. Filled my shorts liner, all around my genitals, slopping out down my legs for the last 3 miles of the race. Leached through both front and back of my blue short-shorts, turning them melted milk-chocolate brown. Disgusting, everyone was horrified.

Luckily, my issues were of the #1 variety, so not quite this bad, but:

Mid-marathon, I started to feel the need to pee. Decided to push through, but I was absolutely throbbing by mile 20. I didn't want to stop because I was making good time despite the discomfort. I thought that if I just squirted a little bit of pee into my shorts, it would take the pressure off my bladder enough to finish, and the piss would just mix in with my sweat and not be noticeable.

Well, I let out a little squirt...then I just couldn't get the stream stopped. I slowed to a walk, then to a full stop and just stood there wetting myself like a toddler with urine torrenting from my shorts and streaming down my lets and into my shoes and leaving a puddle on the ground under me. I don't know if people could tell what had happened by the time I got to the finish, but I distinctly remember looking over at the aid station on the side of the street and seeing all the volunteers staring at me aghast and then suddenly look away and pretend not to even notice me as soon as I made eye contact.

I won a marathon. I am not nearly an elite, but it was a small race. It was a bit of a weird course entirely on the beach, where you do a short out-and-back one way, then a very long out-and-back the other way. Some other race distances were mixed in with the marathoners, and I forget whether they had different start times as this was probably 8 years ago, but long story short, there was a jumble of people passing each other head-on for quite a while after the first out-and-back. One woman had started out faster than me and slowed down, and I kept a steady pace and passed her during this jumble. I guess she didn't notice me passing her in the traffic. 20+ miles later, she finished and approached the race director and said that she was in the lead, she never saw me pass her, and I must have cheated by not running all the way to the first turnaround point. (I most certainly did run the right course and cross the mat. I am 100% certain of this.) I learned of all of this when a race official came to find me as I was eating the post-race buffet. They checked the timing mats, and my chip did not register crossing that first mat. It was my word against hers, and the missed chip reading was making my argument look pretty thin. I still had my garmin on and showed the race director that it showed 26.2 miles (actually just slightly more) with my exact finishing time and pace. The director accepted this and grudgingly kept me in the results. But the female runner-up, everyone in earshot, and I think even the race director, probably believed I was a cheater. To this day, when I think back on what should have been a happy memory, I cringe and want to crawl into a hole. She took all the fun out of it.

This just reminded me of another cringe-worthy memory that I'll share while I'm in storytelling mode. I was probably about 30 years old, traveled to my hometown to visit family, and on a whim, I entered the local 5 mile road race. I won that also! I was in the shape of my life and ran around a 6:35 pace, outrunning a couple of high school cross-country girls who I was sure would beat me. It was by far the best race I'd ever run and probably ever will run, given that lately I'm in more like 9:30 shape after having twins and approaching age 40....haha. My former high school coach was watching the race, my former high school prom date was playing in the finish area band, some of my former teammates ran, and I got this sudden burst of pride that as an "old person" I was fitter and stronger than I used to be in high school. I waited at the awards ceremony to accept my first place trophy, and the women's winner was announced as "Dana so-and-so." I don't remember their actual last name. I was thinking, "Wait, I'm sure I didn't miss someone in front of me...but I guess I did!?" I tried to play cool and left quietly, going home feeling stupid and embarrassed with myself for feeling so much pride in something that never happened. I told the story later that night to some old teammates, and they figured it out. Dana was a male who had a faster time than me. The race directors saw the name and assumed he was a female so listed him in first place in the results. Dana had to leave right after the race, so he wasn't there to hear his name announced and correct things. So that's how the other best race of my life also turned into an awkward memory.

freestylesail wrote:

I tried to play cool and left quietly, going home feeling stupid and embarrassed with myself for feeling so much pride in something that never happened. I told the story later that night to some old teammates, and they figured it out. Dana was a male who had a faster time than me. The race directors saw the name and assumed he was a female so listed him in first place in the results. Dana had to leave right after the race, so he wasn't there to hear his name announced and correct things. So that's how the other best race of my life also turned into an awkward memory.

I don't know if that's embarrassing per se, but definitely the best story posted in the thread so far. That's gotta hurt.

I was coming back from pregnancy, and I noticed that a local 5K had a 2.5K option. I ran the mile in high school, and it just seemed like an awesome option given that I was still trying to get back in shape. They kind of looked at me weird when I signed up, and then at the start, they announced the 2.5K was the kid's race! I hadn't paid for the 5K, so I went ahead and ran the 2.5K. There were actually some other adults who'd made the same mistake, but they were very slow, like 12+ mpm. I thundered across the line at 7 mpm with a bunch of kids in hot pursuit. So embarrassing. I grabbed my clothes and went home before anyone could get a good look at me. However, the race photographer got his awesome photo of me neck and neck with a 10-year-old boy on the way out.

Did you drink a barrel of moonshine you stumbled across?

1) Had my jock break during a steeplechase in college. Fortunately it was 25 years ago so there weren’t people snapping pics every time I went over a barrier and there weren’t many spectators.

2) Like another poster here, had a confusing road race result. Mine was a road mile which zig zagged through a small town. Maybe only 100 entrants, very small time, I was only doing it as a workout because I was there visiting relatives. Course was unmarked but they said there would be course marshalls directing us.

Boom off goes the gun and me and another guy go blasting out and a few hundred yards in, the course marshall points left so we go left. The marshall had effed up. Soon enough the locals in the pack, who had followed us, are yelling and giving us directions to weave our way back to Main St and the finish line. So me and this other guy drag race for the finish and I outlean him for the win. The distance was clearly long but I was in 4:15 shape at the time. Only come to find that some local 40 year old guy who knew the course hadn’t made the wrong turn and had already finished in 4:50 and is strutting around celebrating his “win”. The guy I had outleaned starts going ballistic with the race director, saying it was his marshalls who made the mistake and we were just following directions, and that clearly we would have beaten the other guy. I didn’t really care, but to the screaming chagrin of the older guy, the race director gave me the win based on the fact the entire field except for the older guy had also run the wrong course.

embarrassment wrote:

I thundered across the line at 7 mpm with a bunch of kids in hot pursuit.

7 meters per minute?? No wonder you only wanted to do the 2.5k.

Natural Lubrication wrote:

Crapped myself...

I was sitting 3rd or 4th overall female about halfway through a 30K race and in a position to win a little money, so I really didn't want to leave the course looking for a place to relieve myself. Then I suddenly lost control and let it go on the fly. I was mortified but didn't know what to do but keep running. I was wearing dark colored shorts, it had been raining and everyone's legs were mud-spattered, and maybe it wasn't all that obvious. I finished the race running well, took third I think, and then faced the problem of having to drive three hours home. I finally found a sympathetic volunteer who got out a garden hose and sprayed me down. Soaking wet but clean, I got in the car and drove home reasonably happy with my day.