In college cross country I remember I crossed the finish line I thought of a 4K race. Found out 5 seconds later as I was decelerating, that nope the line I’d stopped at was the 8k line and my teammate pipped me. Oops. Mediocre race anyhow.
In college cross country I remember I crossed the finish line I thought of a 4K race. Found out 5 seconds later as I was decelerating, that nope the line I’d stopped at was the 8k line and my teammate pipped me. Oops. Mediocre race anyhow.
I learned very early that you can't tell if someone is fast by looking at them. Back in college I was a 1:50 800 and 4:10 miler.
Every summer I'd hop in some local 5ks to test my endurance while working on my base mileage. I was a consistent 17 min guy (never truly been a strong distance runner) which was good enough for a top 5 finish most times. But every now and then I'd get beat by women, overweight guys with beer guts, you name it. I always felt embarrassed, but I gotta give it to them because they were running low 17 sometimes 16.
What was hard to cope with was that I knew none of these people could get close to me in an 800 or a mile. Moral of the story is that some people are born to be better distance runners
Yes, Matt Carpenter (http://skyrunner.com/bio.htm) passed me when I was doing a workout with his Incline Club. I was in good shape and just a year out of college (30 min 10k PR). I was having a good workout near the front of the pack and he passed me going up a steep hill like I was standing still. Most incredible uphill pace I have ever seen.
One year at hood-to-coast, my decently competitive coed team had an early lead, and I got the baton for the famously hilly leg 5. I was in pretty awesome shape for a total amateur, basically a 15:30 5k guy who prided himself on crushing hills.
The back half of the six mile leg is one big hill, and I hit it going full tilt. All of a sudden I hear footsteps and then this dude just flys past me like I wasn't moving. It was one of those moments where you're like: "oh, that's how you run fast"
Turns out it was Tom Brooks, running on a Nike connected team. For the young folks out there, Tom ran for the US at the 2007 World Champs for steeple (PR in the 8:20s?) and was a sub 4 miler. His team ended up beating us, but not by that much!
2012 OKC marathon. I’m a male, I was slightly ahead of the lead F for the first 15M, so I heard repeated cheering for her as first F and a local. The second half was headwind and rain, but she ran even splits and put 5 min on my poor pacing.
She had such an impossibly ugly stride, I couldn’t believe she could keep up 2:45 pace for 26M. And certainly not any farther.
So as for being passed by someone and thought “what the hell?” ... It’s been almost 8 years, and look at what Camille Herron has done since then! With that stride! (although maybe it was more pronounced back then?)
My last real race a few years , a half marathon, i hit the 2 mile mark in 10:4x and got passed by 2 women just before the 2 mile mark. I was in 15:xx 5k shape. That shook me up quite a bit to say the least.
A-Run wrote:
Near the 3 mile mark of a local 5k, I noticed a lot of cheering near me, which I thought was weird, given that I wasn't winning the race, but maybe they were cheering because someone was gaining ground on me. The other runner gets even to me and I realize he is juggling. Ashe he gets half a step in front of me, I realize that if he beats me I would have to quit running forever. I then throw down probably one of my top 10 all time finishing kicks to defeat him.
Were you in Boise at the time?
Another race I ran 26:02 road 8k after burning out after the 5k mark, males, it required sub 25:20 8k time to be entered, which I had then, and we all lined up to try our hand at $1000. It was a crit race with 8 laps around a 1km city block. I got rocked and came in 24th of 27. I remember getting lapped by 2 dudes and 1 that now runs for the US Army Team. The top 3 were all sub 23 8k. This dude ran 22:30 8k and broke our state road record. Since then I put on 30 pounds and now get passed by JV girls. Im officially a hobby jogger.
saw this wrote:
A-Run wrote:
Near the 3 mile mark of a local 5k, I noticed a lot of cheering near me, which I thought was weird, given that I wasn't winning the race, but maybe they were cheering because someone was gaining ground on me. The other runner gets even to me and I realize he is juggling. Ashe he gets half a step in front of me, I realize that if he beats me I would have to quit running forever. I then throw down probably one of my top 10 all time finishing kicks to defeat him.
Were you in Boise at the time?
No, this wasn't in Boise. Although it terrifies me that there are more running/jugglers out there.
Not from my personal experience, but many guys must've been surprised having lost to this giant at marathon, because the 6"5 c:a 230-240 lbs guy had a marathon record of 2:47:
The guy was also a talented orienteerer and a famed cross-country skier with perhaps even today the Vo2Max world record (7.4 l/min) in absolute terms.
At one point I was a 13:4x 28:xx performer but now at 63 I’ve reached the point where I not only get chicked, I get grandma’d.
Aragon wrote:
Not from my personal experience, but many guys must've been surprised having lost to this giant at marathon, because the 6"5 c:a 230-240 lbs guy had a marathon record of 2:47:
The guy was also a talented orienteerer and a famed cross-country skier with perhaps even today the Vo2Max world record (7.4 l/min) in absolute terms.
Think he was 220. Wasn’t this at the pinnacle of Finnish blood doping?
His INseason weight was roughly 220 (100 kg, possibly only 94 in 1973), but otherwise his weight was closer to 110-120 kg (up to 250 lbs), but I don't believe he was on the heavy side breaking his own marathon PR.
Interesting that you brought up that blood doping thing and Finland, I should take further a look into that stuff.
Back in maybe 2003 I was running the Cary, IL March Madness half marathon and about 2-3 miles into the race, a group of about 6-8 of us are cruising along at 5:40-5:43 pace. Probably the second group back and up comes a guy in sweats catching up to us. He asks us, "how's everybody doing?" For which he gets a few sideways looks and grunts as we are all on our redline.
After about two miles of running with us and chatting up a couple of the runners he says, "Well good luck, I'm gonna go and catch up with a couple of my friends." and takes off from our group like we're standing still.
Finally, one of the guys in the group asks, "do you know who that was?" Yeah, that was Tim Weigel (sp?), he just won the division III 10,000 meters yesterday. A North Central dude.
Very nice guy too as I talked to him after the race. I ran 1:16 and never saw him again.
Fix previous post:
John Weigel (looked him up)
And 10,000 meter champ but not the day before...
Am I the only person that dislikes people using "go" instead of "thought".
i was a bit in a shock when i got passed by a lady (ellen wessinhage) in a 10 mile race (long ago).
and i was not able to follow her and lost almost 30 seconds in the end.
annoying.
Aragon wrote:
Interesting that you brought up that blood doping thing and Finland, I should take further a look into that stuff.
If you’re interested in blood doping, and it really is interesting, especially historically, read the three part series called “Limiting Factors - A Genesis of Blood Doping”. It’s online, google will find it. A lot of it began somewhat innocently with scientists looking to find out what things will effect human performance (like cardiac output) with some honest research into things we know today but wasn’t known then.
Great thread!
I can't say that I was really surprised, but at the AAU national marathon in the early 70s I dressed in the locker room next to Ted Corbitt. His face was *very* weathered but he had the body of a muscular 20-something.
I got to stand next to him at the start, too. (Naturally I was too awed to say anything to him at any point.) After the gun, he took off and within ten minutes was completely out of sight. I ran my lifetime best that day and by the time I finished he'd finished, showered, changed, and left.
I was 20. He was 50-something. And one of the loudest breathers ever--you'd think he couldn't last a mile.
Just this morning during a 9 miler at about 7:50 pace I was passed by a "double Allie" and all I could think of was "what the heck?"
