DUMBEST workout you’ve done

an all-out tempo on a hilly road where we didn't know when we turn around. The first mile was around 4:50 and the rest of the was a fair bit slower

When I was in 17 minute 5k shape, a coach assigned me a continuous 20 minute tempo "at 5k pace."

Middle of April - coach assigned 5x400. I asked how fast and how much rest. Coach responded “fast and as much as you need”

53-52-53-52-52 with 8 minutes rest. I was a 3:53/1:54 guy and fried the rest of the season.

Well I was a sophomore in college and training for the 10k. I was coached by a former 800 runner. He didn’t believe in high or even moderate mileage.

a couple good ones in hs.

before the last state meet of the cross season, going to the biggest hill near the school 2 days before the meet and ripping 12 reps up it. (about a 2 min climb)

deciding with a teammate during track season to run the cross country course, do a lap, then come back. was 21 miles total. we had to walk in the last 5 miles. longest run prior was probably 8 miles

This one is particularly bad, given that I should have very obviously known better... but taking serious shot at running sub 4 at UW. Hammered a hilly run on Sunday for 15 miles (real hills... not small climbing. Like 3000 ft of vertical climbing hills) instead of running with training partners on flat, soft trails, hammered my easy run on Monday, had a track workout and double on Tuesday, ran way too hard on that workout, ran too hard again on Wednesday, traveled Thursday and actually ran easy, ran easy Friday because I felt sluggish. Ran 4:02 in the mile, felt crappy the entire race. I went home, tore my hip flexor the following Tuesday and never recovered from it fully, which ended up creating more injuries that ended running competitively. So stupidest workout was all of the way too hard stuff, but the hill run especially.

I've got a few...

In my freshman high school year of high school, the state qualifying track meet was postponed by rain, so the coach took us to the local university indoor track to have a workout. It wasn't a crazy workout, but since we were running in "open hours" we had to run clockwise around the track (public walking/jogging alternated direction every day). Long story short, about a third of the team couldn't race three days later, as their shins were so tight from the workout. I felt it in my shins, but was able to race pretty close to expectations - though I missed qualifying for state by 4 seconds in the 3200.

In my senior year of college, I was getting ready for my last chance track meet aiming for some big PRs - I had season's bests of 1:58 and 4:03 for the 800/1500. Three days before the meet, I ran 8x100 HARD - 13.5 down to 12.5. At the meet, my legs were dead. I ran the 1500 first - running 4 flat pace for the first 800 before fading to 4:17. Then I ran the 800 in 2:05. After that meet, I took a week off completely, then ran an 800 for fun with some teammates in 2 flat (we were trying to beat some of the women running a 2x400).

After college, I ran some crazy steep hill repeats when my quads were already sore. To avoid more pounding on my quads, I walked down the hill backwards... HORRIBLE idea. My calves were crushed - I couldn't run for a few days, and didn't feel normal for at least 3 weeks.

Well, lets see.

I've run 4 miles at night with no lights (probably at least 3 times).

Deciding that I didn't want to run the same old routes, especially in the snow, so I ran 7 miles on the track in the snow (I hoped I'd wear it down).

Running 3 miles in my room: it was a triangle probably about a fourth the size of a basketball course.

Mixing some lovely sprints in with my premeet run the day before the only Varsity race I ran my freshman year.

Planning to run 7 miles as a LT/steady state type effort, not running that fast at all, then jumping into a 10x400 track workout after I was done.

My coach was having us do a set of 3 consecutive workout days, the third which would be a tempo run. His son’s soccer team ended up making regional playoffs, so he said it was too hot (80*) for the tempo and had us do 20m sprints in the grass for 20 minutes then go home, no WU or CD. 5 runners hurt themselves for virtually no benefit. I sandbagged it.

My HS freshman team track team (remember, this is a million years ago) had a coach who read just enough of Igloi's workouts to be dangerous.

We weren't running all that well as a team in early May, so he came up with the idea we all needed a killer "breakthrough" workout to make everyone better. Our coach had the entire team - distance runners, sprinters, jumpers, all of us - run 16 x 660, with sets of 8 x 110 after every 4 of the 660's. There were only 3 of us (dumb enough) to be left standing at the end. There was no pace advice other than "fast". I was 14 years old, and I'll never forget how bad It felt at the end.

The next week I literally ran 15 seconds slower in the 880, and didn't run faster for almost 2 years.

When I was 14-15 yo or so my parents would send us to speed skating camp (like band camp) except it is all workouts for a week straight. 4 workouts a day. Needless to say you'd be so sore you could barely stand by day two but by Thursday things came around and you felt better and better.

So the running group I used to coach I decided I would pull one of my old speed skating circuits out for them. So a few miles warm up jog to the track/football field and we did 10 stations of 1-minute on and :15 seconds to change stations. we did burpees, box jumps, the stadium stairs, planking, some skating exercises where you were down in the skating position with hands on the back jumping side to side, etc.

I thought I was sore back in the skating camp days...not even close. None of us could run for about 4-5 days. The side-to-side stuff is what really killed us. Muscles that had grown so weak were taxed beyond belief. Dumb!!!

Done plenty of stupid workouts, dumbest given to me was in hs

3 days before last meet to qualify for state our coach gives us a "motivation" workout. He gives repeat 600s at 4:40 mile pace to qualify for 1600 (this is at altitude btw).

Not a single guy on the team could run under 5:00 for the mile at the time

sbeefyk2 wrote:

Any lactic threshold run. Stupid and pointless.

wat

I had some really bad coaches... Let me list a few good ones:

3 x 1600m all out. Rest is to jog to the weight room, do squat reps to failure at body weight, jog back to the track and start immediately on the next all out 1600m.

Dumb Week: (High School)

Mon - Tempo run

Tues - Dual meet with 4 events (max allowed)

Wed - 12x200m all out with 1:30 rest

Thurs - Dual meet with 4 events

Fri - 4x(4x400) with 10s rest, 3 mins between sets

I remember peeing blood this week, even before the Thursday dual meet. I told my coach and he told me to still compete. The next week was similar, ending with a 5km time trial on the XC course, and they wanted us to PR in practice. Half the team quit that day, halfway through the time trial, including myself. It was a matter of survival at that point. Took 3 weeks off and still felt like garbage whenever I tried to run.

My college "coach" had us do a bunch of really dumb "warm ups" everyday before practice. It included "wrist curls" and so many other useless time wasters. LOL. It was "to bring you into this environment from the one you were just in (classes)." He would even make us do them before meets in front of all the other teams. We were a laughing stock.

There is no shortage of dumbness in this sport.

I once helped a kid do a workout at the end of december during indoor season. I was about two weeks into base mileage and not working out (not planning on doing any until after new years, first race was 3 weeks into january) . The kid talked me into 16x400 with 30 sec jog rest at 70 second 400 pace. I barely made it 8 in before calling it quits. The kid ended up completing it but then was burnt out a month later.

Moral of the story, do not go all out few weeks into training.

my high school coach...i don't think he knew what he was doing

we did 400 intervals in early October.

Then the following year we would do 200 intervals in september.

we played ultimate frisbee before a race, instead of running a pre race run.

sigh.

PR at the time was a 2:16 800m

Conference championships on thursday/friday doubling 1500/800 (both had prelims)

Coach told me on Tuesday we're doing 9x400 at 64 with 3.5 recovery

Needless to say, I didn't make either of those finals, or most of the workout splits.

Still have no idea how the eff he came up with that one

This is a great thread. I'm surprised any of you kept running after HS.

My senior year I had a football coach as the distance coach. He would post the workouts at the beginning of the week and on Monday I come out and looked at the Tuesday workout and it is 10 x 400 starting in 62 and ending at about 58 (I can run about 58 with a circular tailwind). That evening I was reading my trusty Runner's World magazine and came across Jim Ryan's workout and it was the exact same thing! He copied the workout and gave it to us! Keep in mind we were about 4:30 milers. I called him on it the following day and he said "it worked for Jim Ryan, so if you want to be fast you have to train like Jim Ryan".

Also, a couple days before our regional meet he had us do 4-5 x 50 meters to practice our leans at the tape! I finished 13th in the mile and 5th in the 2-mile; however, I did have the best lean at the finish!

When the marathon trials standard was 2:22 this was at the absolute limit of what I could physically achieve so I was really stretching over several years to get there. To the point I pushed myself into iron deficiency anemia for a couple years...figured that out, got on liquid iron, and subsequently improved exponentially over 6 months culminating in a massive 10K PR 6 weeks out from my goal marathon which put me in solid position to hit the qualifier.

Problem was a) I ran that 10K in spikes and wasn't really used to running into them, causing a hamstring injury I wasn't immediately aware of, and b) I was still insecure about my abilities and wanted "one more big workout" to convince me. So 8 days out from that 10K I executed a 15 mile workout at 5:20 pace, including hesitation to cross a road every 1.5 miles and a stop and turn every 1.5 miles. I nailed to workout, got in a car with minimal cooldown, and drove 600 miles to finish a trip to a wedding. When I got there I could barely get out of the car, my hamstring was completely locked up. I struggled to get any meaningful training to my goal marathon. Ended up running the first half on pace, then fading to just PR in the mid-2:2X for the sake of doing so.