Anyone ever thought you sucked and then you killed them on a run?

Somewhere around 1977 I was in the eight grade and was running in our area school track championships 800 metres. There was one other guy from my school in the race, who was a tough little fellow who always wore satan boxing shorts in gym class. As we lined up for the start he turns to me and says "If you beat me you're dead". I was a bit stunned and a little frightened (being as I was smaller than him and rather timid). I'd been training for this race and wasn't going to just give in. I ended up winning and breaking 2:20 for the first time. He limped in in about 3 minutes. He never did beat me up, not yet anyway.

Monty

Somewhere around 1977 I was in the eight grade and was running in our area school track championships 800 metres. There was one other guy from my school in the race, who was a tough little fellow who always wore satin boxing shorts in gym class. As we lined up for the start he turns to me and says, "If you beat me you're dead". I was a bit stunned and a little frightened (being as I was smaller than him and rather timid). I'd been training for this race and wasn't going to just give in. I ended up winning (my first win ever) and breaking 2:20 for the first time. My foe limped in 40 seconds later. He never did beat me up, not yet anyway.

Monty

I was warming up at the Myriad Gardens Arena in Oklahoma City for the 1000m and minding my own business, I had my Oklahoma State baseball cap on and a group of OU runners also warming up, came up from behind and one of them flipped the brim of the cap and asked me what the hell was I doing running the 1000m, and what the f@#k I was doing in the fast heat, didn't I know I was the odds on favorite to get my ass kicked??!!?? I laughed and told them I was just getting in some turn over work, they laughed and went on their way... inside I was fired up, and I asked God that if he was up listening to please let this guy be in my heat and if I only beat one person in that heat it would definately be him, even if I had to level him with a bow on the home stretch. Well my lil prayer was answered and he lined up right next to me, I told myself just get out and then when he makes his move go with. I hung around 3rd-4th place and he made a move for the lead and I went with and swept around him with about 450 to go and just pulled away from him and the rest of the field, I waited for him at the finish he was second. The Sweetest thing was someone snapped a photo when I made my move and you can see this fella fading in the photo and it made the front sports page of the Daily Oklahoman(Oklahoma Cities Newspaper) Hope I didn't bore ya, but was kinda relevant to the thread....

Dude if girls are gonna get the same prize money as guys when their fields are not even nearly as deep, then they shouldn't have any problem having to deal with a few guys runnin with em. The only race i have ever had women around was the peechtree. Did a tempo for the first 5 and raced the last mile... It was interesting but it seems like a lot of girls go out way to hard (cause i kept the same pace for the first 5 miles) and then die. Its crazy cause when you pass them they look like they're gonna die but they have like 2 miles left... Anyways, if you looked at the girls lead pack and the guys its rediculous. The girls were basically strung out all along peachtree street while the guys were for the most part, packed up in front racing, with plenty of legitimate contenders for the top spot. Seems like that race should be worth more... but since its not, don't whine about some dudes runnin with ya. They are probably pushing you to run faster anyways, i mean i know if i was running next to a car with some hot chicks or somethin in a race, i think i would dig a little deeper to hang on, ha ha!

It can be quite irksome sometimes how the women's field is not as deep as the men's. This disparity is evident even in the elite's field, you hear many instances of females running away with the race after 3 miles in the thon but you'll always see a large pack of male runners with the usual contenders like kk, tergat, etc at the 20 mile mark (and further) together.

This is sort of similar: Over the years when I was in HS, there were 3-4 times when I was in a situation with one or more kids who didn't really know me and somehow we wound up racing without them knowing I was good. I always made sure it was at least 440-880 yards, so I didn't get beat sprinting. The kid or kids would always be ahead of me and die ... and give up about halfway through. It was great.

On the downside, when I was in my 30s, some 20-year-old who had never done any competitive running challenged me to a 200 race. Even though I was out of shape, I thought 30-32 seconds would still beat him. I was wrong, he whipped me and I was really embarrassed.

Wttbb,

One response to you and then that's it.

1) I am not one to race a training run.

2) These guys said from the get go that they were racing it and that they wouldn't necessarily be together for the duration of the run, so I wasn't just showing up a bunch of training buddies while they stuck to their training run pace.

3) These guys said flat out that they would all beat me and that they would wait for me - they weren't kidding either - they all were pretty sure of themselves that they would beat me, and with NO evidence to back that up.

4) Even though my training schedule didn't call for a race-like run that day, I hadn't had a really hard run like that in a while, so it really wasn't necessarily a bad thing. People do schedule races in the midst of training.

5) The point that I made clearly (and that you just didn't get) is not that I beat some slow pokes. I already have said I'm no world beater. It doesn't matter how slow these guys were. It matters only that they were so sure of themselves that they would pound me into the ground when they had NO DATA to support that and then then they could not do it. This has nothing to do with my feeling good about beating slower runners, but only about getting a kick out of whipping some runners who talked some smack and couldn't back it up. I would find this as funny if they averaged 9 minute miles than the 7 minute miles they averaged.

6) Holy crap that silver backed glass bit of yours is the most over played unwitty thing I have ever seen.

7) Try as you will to get me to entertain you more on this subject, but I won't.

Good topic for a thread, Flagpole. However, since you are a competitive runners, you probably realize that hammering someone in a training run doesn't mean much (although I understand you're feeling when they were talking trash). Running the next 9 miles by yourself at 6:00 pace isn't the best way to show them up. I've been crushed in plenty of training runs by guys who couldn't come close to beating me in a race. It would have been a better story had you whipped their sorry a$$es in a 5 mile road race.

You replied to wttb. Therefore you lose.

Dr. Blackjack,

You are right of course, but I didn't beat them in a 5-mile road race, and they were racing that 10 miler (see my response above to Wttbb - for my detailed explanation of myself).

Believe me, I won't make a habit of doing that on a training run. The situation and the stars all just line up for me to do it - at least well enough for me to rationalize my doing it.

In the late 80s/early 90s I used to do some intervals on the Stanford track with a large group, and many of them would race those intervals as hard as they could each time so that they weren't even coming close to those times at the end of the session. Many of them wore racing spikes for those sessions. I was there primarily to develop some speed, and my intervals stayed pretty even or started on the slower side and got faster as we progressed through them. Many of them would talk about how "you beat me on that one" or "I just beat you on that one". I always thought this was silly. These were guys I would see in local races (road and track), and I never lost to any of them when it counted.

You're still racing,

Perhaps you are right.

Who cares where you used to do your repeats. All that matters is how fast you raced on race day. You clearly fail to appreciate what practice and training is about--As for the silver-backed glass, the truth only sheds reality and it is reality that you fear.

Flagpole Willy wrote:

You're still racing,

Perhaps you are right.

why the 500 word paragraphs? lets stick with the one line laughs, eh?

ever notice that on your run when you gotta shit, you hold back the loaf till you get home, but once home, you do nothing about it until you accidentaly squirt your sport hills 45 minutes later on the computer typing letsrun.com bullshit

Oh crap guys, no matter how disciplined we all like to think we are, I can't imagine that there is anyone on here who has never "over hammered" a training run. I've done it with friends on 15 milers, I've done it with rivals on a cool down run, and we've all done it the first day of cc practice in the fall after being apart all summer. I wouldn't count it as a character flaw to have let your competitive nature "run away" with you from time to time....

Heck I've even done it while being pissed about the meet the day before and looked down at the watch and uttered "whoa boy, save it for next Saturday"....

DIII Coach wrote:

Oh crap guys, no matter how disciplined we all like to think we are, I can't imagine that there is anyone on here who has never "over hammered" a training run. I've done it with friends on 15 milers, I've done it with rivals on a cool down run, and we've all done it the first day of cc practice in the fall after being apart all summer. I wouldn't count it as a character flaw to have let your competitive nature "run away" with you from time to time....

Heck I've even done it while being pissed about the meet the day before and looked down at the watch and uttered "whoa boy, save it for next Saturday"....

I couldn't agree more. Why doesn't everyone just lighten up a bit. Some of my most memorable runs have been when I have been out running with a group of friends, and all of a sudden we all felt great and it turned into a race of sorts, and we all had a blast and ran some of our fastest times ever, whatever the distance. Sometimes you "win." Sometimes you "lose." Who cares. Once I went out with two of my best buddies for what was going to be a 7:00 to 7:30 minute pace for 12.4 miles. After a pretty quick first mile, one of us got crazy and started pushing the pace, and we wound up running 6:00 miles from then on and covered the course in 1:15:04, when I had never run that course in less than 1:19:00 before, and had never run more than 10 miles at a 6:00 pace before, even in a race. That day we happened to finish together. But, until the last half-mile, we were definitely racing. And it was one of the most enjoyable runs of my life. We just looked at each other with smiles afterwards and asked "how the hell did we do that?"

Of course you shouldn't race every training run. And it you have a "real" race in the next couple of weeks, you need to be especially careful. But to say that you should never race a training run under any circumstance is absurd. Let's face it. Running fast is fun. And so is competing, so long as no one takes it too seriously or personally. We talk a lot of trash in my running groups, and that's half the fun of it. And I say that as one who is often on the receiving end (as we all are).

I had the opposite happen to me once. (Sort of.) I was doing the timed mile-and-a-half run in gym class in college, and it was run on an indoor, 10-lap-to-the-mile track. Of course, I lapped everyone else at least 2 or 3 times, not running all that hard. But nonetheless two guys "finished" before I did. The fact that they cheated in gym class irritated me, but that they had the audacity to claim a time faster than mine greatly angered me. In fact, to think about that incident still makes me mad. Dang that runner's pride!

The only time I ever show anybody up is in basketball. I'm rather small compared to most and not heavily muscled at all. But when people run into me, they are the ones that get hurt. Very funny--and I can't exxplain it. Also, if I have to guard someone way bigger than me--guess who starts the pushing? Intimidation is half the game--well--more than half. Just when people try to intimidate me--it always backfires.

Flagpole, how many times have you run this year? Please email me immediately. Its no biggie, just some missing runners, thats all.

I am back at work next wednesday, so email me then.

whoop de doo...I agree with thos who say training runs should be for training. Leave the racing for the races.

I once belonged to a fairly small but competitive club, whose runners ranged from oh, 36-37 10k to 28s (just one guy had gone that fast). I'd join them about once a week (many ran every day together). Several of the 34-36 min guys would push the pace on these runs down to 6:00 or so, as you described. I'd plod along at 7:15-7:30 pace with the girls and slowest guys. We'd saunter in a good 5-10 minutes behind these guys, and they'd sneer a little.

Although I wasn't as good as our top guys, I'd finish respectable and sometimes right on their tail. And on race day I'd beat the the snooty pace-pushers by 20-30 seconds/mile, which would only make 'em sneer some more. They hated me, and it was good.