Ever been passed by a runner and go "what the hell, how is that possible?"

She hasn't raced for almost 5 years and her easy "talking pace" is 6 minute miles? I don't know man, maybe your tempo pace was slower than you thought!

My friend told me about a trail 25k with crazy hills, so I signed up for it and did a bunch of hard uphill running in preparation. I got into really good uphill shape, but I was not prepared for this race. It started with a 1.5-mile hill with 2000' of gain. There were a lot of places where I had to use my hands, which I was not used to, but I was still doing pretty well. At the top, I was in first by about a minute, and a few minutes quicker than the leaders had come through the same point the previous year.

On the back side, volunteers had ropes set up for people to use to safely descend. I started carefully making my way down, sometimes backwards as I used the rope to kind of rappel, sometimes slowly climbing down mini cliffs (4-5' dropoffs).

As I was sliding myself over the edge of one of these dropoffs, a guy literally jumped over me and continued down the hill at seemingly sub-5 pace. That was my "What the hell, how is that possible?" moment.

The guy wasn't an elite or anything, he just knew what I hadn't learned yet: to win crazy trail races, you have to be okay at running uphill, and really good at running downhill.

He ended up running ~2:18 to my ~2:31. For comparison, Max King ran ~2:12 there a few years later.

I've worked on my technical downhill running a bit, but can only go fast down crazy stuff when my legs are feeling really good. I still don't know how some guys do it at the end of an ultra or something.

Absolutely hilarious!

It's a pity Larry David doesn't run, imagine the comedic sketches he could do on running.

Imagine 6' you being passed by 5' runner, then seconds later 4' runner passes both of you.

Around 1999/2000, I was running a super low key club track race early in the season (April or May) at Univ of Wisconsin. The race was all men (myself included) and 1 woman in this 800. I hit the 200 mark in about 29-30 and was right in the middle of the pack in lane 1. Then I felt a tap on my left shoulder. I thought it was just accidental contact, so I ignored it. Then I felt it again and heard "Excuse me. Can I take the inside lane?". I looked to my left and then had to look down (I'm 5'10" . Not that tall) and saw the woman running next to me. Without really thinking about it I said "sure" and just moved to the outside of lane one and she quickly moved ahead of me and I went back to the inside.

Turned out to be Suzy Favor Hamilton. She ran a low 1:58. I heard some people saying after the race that it was world leading that year, but because the race was so low-key, no times were official. Just a workout for her.

You don't know ignominy until you've been passed by a joggler.

Hilarious thread! I actually read it a few days ago and this is what happened today. I am running in a neighborhood park at my kind of easy pace, 7:30 minute mile. I am catching up to this slow guy who is shuffling, no back kick, looking horrible. Usually I would subconsciously pick up the pace a bit and pass him quickly but it was getting dark and I forgot about him because I was thinking about something else. It was not until several minutes later that I finally overtook him and then for quite some time I could hear his footsteps. Being taller than him and barely faster, I must have looked as aan outright shuffler too. This realization hurt eventhough I once watched a video of me running at 6:30 pace and I, at 6-foot-2, looked very much like jogging. To make matters worse, a few minutes later, I hear footsteps behind me and in no time I am being passed by another runner, this time a really short and stout looking guy with minimal back kick, toes pointing out but very high cadence. He was moving considerably faster and soon he was out of sight.