Old Runners Exaggerating Their Times

Good job with your 18:40 5K there, son.

Dude, people were harder, tougher, stronger, leaner, faster and trained more in the 60s and 70s. Yes, their times were faster.

The father of one of daughter's friends told me he ran "1:46 or 47" for the 880 in HS. I googled his name and checked state meet results and could not find him anywhere. It was kind of stupid as I would have been impressed if he had claimed he ran something like 1:56, which would have been impossible to disprove.

Yes it happens. I've seen friends do this and I know what their times were (because I had a good memory when I was young) as opposed to what they say they were. The older they get the faster they were.

yes, imagine that, some human beings, old and young, exaggerate things to make themselves look better to others. Shocking really!

news flash......... wrote:

yes, imagine that, some human beings, old and young, exaggerate things to make themselves look better to others. Shocking really!

My friend that has done it the most, well, let's just say things haven't turned out the best for him. He tells stories like this about other things as well, eg about a local band he was in and how good they were (when in fact he hung around with those guys but wasn't actually IN the band). Other friends of our era who have actual accomplishments don't talk about ANYTHING they've done very much.

Certainty is an emotion.

I think it’s a mix. I know I was sure of a past race time only to be proven wrong by my Athlinks profile. (for me it’s gone both ways - slower and faster)

Def depends on the person and the context.

SDSU Aztec wrote:

The father of one of daughter's friends told me he ran "1:46 or 47" for the 880 in HS. I googled his name and checked state meet results and could not find him anywhere. It was kind of stupid as I would have been impressed if he had claimed he ran something like 1:56, which would have been impossible to disprove.

How long ago was this? I met a guy last month who said he ran 4:02 mile in college. I actually do believe him but he is in his mid 40s so I don't think there is much record out there online of track meets. I am a little older than him and there is no results from my track days in college either. I wasn't nowhere even close to running that fast though.

Believe or not there was a time when our parents were wild, rebellious, carefree, badasses. Grandmothers were once upon a time the hottest chicks in their high schools. We just can't believe that from our perspective of the present because of how we have morphed the way we know them today. But it's true. Time has it's way with all of us. And your times will seem unimaginable to a younger generation.

Not what you think wrote:

Do old runners exaggerate their best times from when they were younger because they simply do not remember them? Or they lie once about them, and nobody is informed enough to call them out, so it becomes easier and easier to say faster and faster times until it becomes such an unrealistic situation. The lie is now true for them, because they start to believe their own B.S.

Back in HS, I identified as a football player and wannabe sprinter. Running distance was the 1 mile run I did maybe 3-4 times a year. So anything distance related, I didn't really understand it all.

There was a picture of my ex gf's Dad running a race sometime in the 80's in their home, he looked pretty ripped, and he joked one time, "yeah before that race I smoked a few cigs, funny to think back to those days," he was a pretty avid runner too throughout the years.

Out of nowhere, maybe too much caffeine, had me look up his name and I saw a few results and the one was a 1:20 HM in the early 80s. Pretty damn impressive for a guy that just worked at a local plant, and smoked half a pack a day. He has to be in his early 70s now I am guessing.

SDSU Aztec wrote:

The father of one of daughter's friends told me he ran "1:46 or 47" for the 880 in HS. I googled his name and checked state meet results and could not find him anywhere. It was kind of stupid as I would have been impressed if he had claimed he ran something like 1:56, which would have been impossible to disprove.

Maybe he ran club while he was in HS and not in HS results. A lot of athletes ran club instead of HS back in the day.

Not what you think wrote:

Do old runners exaggerate their best times from when they were younger because they simply do not remember them? Or they lie once about them, and nobody is informed enough to call them out, so it becomes easier and easier to say faster and faster times until it becomes such an unrealistic situation. The lie is now true for them, because they start to believe their own B.S.

My teammate in college was a few years ahead of me, one of the greatest guys I ever met, and he held our school records in the 1500 and 5000. A few years after he graduated I broke his records by significant amounts.

Thirty years later I pulled him up on Facebook and was surprised to see him list college PBs faster than the school records I set back in the day! Haha, I think that's how he remembers it. It makes me wonder if the PBs he listed are what he thought he should have run. Sorry buddy, you didn't actually run those times.

In the 1990s I lifted weights with a guy who told me he ran a 4:07 mile in college. I noticed when doing the

military press he would only go about half-way down on his reps. There are a lot of people out there like this.

I have another friend who is an extremely smart computer expert, he claimed to do over 100 consecutive push ups.

The guy was like 5-10 125. I'm betting they were halfsies.

Plus there are people who use their Metric Mile (1500) time and call that there "mile time."

Bench Presses, pullups, etc., are often exaggerated.

Courses are short. Times are forgotten.

Moo Goo wrote:

SDSU Aztec wrote:

The father of one of daughter's friends told me he ran "1:46 or 47" for the 880 in HS. I googled his name and checked state meet results and could not find him anywhere. It was kind of stupid as I would have been impressed if he had claimed he ran something like 1:56, which would have been impossible to disprove.

How long ago was this? I met a guy last month who said he ran 4:02 mile in college. I actually do believe him but he is in his mid 40s so I don't think there is much record out there online of track meets. I am a little older than him and there is no results from my track days in college either. I wasn't nowhere even close to running that fast though.

The guy I was talking about is in his late 60's. You could check your friend's claims by looking at the all-time lists for his college. There aren't too many colleges where 4:02 wouldn't make the top ten.

Not what you think wrote:

Do old runners exaggerate their best times from when they were younger because they simply do not remember them? Or they lie once about them, and nobody is informed enough to call them out, so it becomes easier and easier to say faster and faster times until it becomes such an unrealistic situation. The lie is now true for them, because they start to believe their own B.S.

I don't know about other older runners, but I've never even considered exaggerating my best times from when I was younger. I'm proud of those numbers. I've got a photo of 25-year old me about two seconds from crossing the finish line of the 1983 Jersey Shore Marathon with the big clock over my head reading 2:53:28. Why would I want to lie about the fastest marathon I ever ran? I like the photo.

I can tell you every one of my PRs, and most of them came 25 years ago. The ones that are more recent are actually a bit tougher to remember with as much precision as the earlier ones because they come at longer distances and the exact number of seconds matters less than the first few number (2:30:4x is close enough for me for a marathon time).

The older I get, the better I used to be.

Please be nice to these liars. Do not call them out. We don't want them to end up in the LA River.

To be perfectly honest, I don't know my 5K PR. Sometime in the 15 year hiatus I took from running I forgot.

It's 16:1x. I know the x is an even number, I don't remember which one.

If it comes up, I tell people 16:18, that's more than fast enough to impress the hobby joggers I hang around with. If my PR was considerably slower, I don't think I would lie about it, but maybe I would.