Race day disasters

Top bombing GFB, why haven't I seen this elsewhere? Makes my flame out and collapse on the run at Outlaw last year look tame.

Once you've had bleeding nipples, you never make that mistake again.

I did a run at Tatton park over Christmas and my Grandad was really keen to support me as he used to be in to running himself. He is so organised we got there really early so after checking I didn't need to register anywhere, we wandered back to the car, only for my grandad to trip over a curb and go all dizzy so he couldn't get up, my nana went to get a nearby paramedic but by the time she came back I only had 5 mins to go until the race started! Everyone convinced me to go and do the race & that he'd be OK so I started to make my way over.

I needed the toilet before starting, but I was told this was a 10 min journey in the opposite direction to the start line. I sprinted there, sprinted to the start line, started 5/10 mins after everyone else & was absolutely knackered before even starting the race! It was a trail run so I knew I had to over take all the slower ones at the back before the paths became too narrow, but didn't manage it...needless to say it wasn't a PB!

My old club - once I turned up to a track club away league fixture and found that only something like 3 others from ours had made the trip. We were all used to chipping in with 1 extra event due to non-arrivals, but in this case we all ended up doing several extras each, in many cases things we'd never tried before.

With the throws, fine - let the projectile leave your hand/s once and get a point.But in my case, one of the events was the 400m hurdles. And as it happened, I'd done some solo training the week before and put a few out purely to see if I could get over them. And I enjoyed it. So, buoyed by my vast experience over hurdles, I put myself down for both that and the 110m version.

Oh god.

There were only 4 in my race, and one lad belted round 2 hurdles ahead of the rest of us. Not a problem, I left him to it. I climbed over the first two safely enough, and was hanging in there for 3rd, but then at 200m I absolutely clattered a hurdle and went a-rolling. Purely on adrenaline I got up and caught him back up for the next obstacle, but I had no kind of pattern going, and pulled up ahead of it for fear of running straight through it. At this point I realised my knee was in bits, but - still - I paced back 10 strides and gave myself a run-up at it. Just about got over.

And now, into the straight, dead last and purely playing for 1 league point for finishing, I fell over twice more. Right in front of a packed stadium.

3 falls in a one-lap hurdles race. Beat that.

The senior judge informed me on crossing the line that there's absolutely no way I'm allowed to run the 100mh.

A later event I was permitted to join in with though was the 100m. However, after showering off chunks of track, my knees were scorched almost to the bone. I'd stiffened up horrendously, and couldn't physically get down into the starting position. So, I had to do a very creaky standing start, to the amusement of more or less every under 16 in attendance. Of which there were dozens. "Look, it's him again," pointed most of the crowd.

Haven't touched the hurdles since. One day I might actually give it a proper, coached go. Would be nice to get through a full lap of them without being deemed a hazard to myself and others.

Failing to be aware of Sunday rail work gave me a race day disaster a few years ago.

You think you have loads of time. Then you discover there aren't any trains, you have to take the bus part of the way. Then back on a train. The minutes tick by. Finally you have to accept you aren't going to make it to the start on time, so you turn and go home. Annoyed.

Then, two weeks later, when you've forgotten about it all and parked your anger, the race results race arrive through the letterbox.

The biggest disaster for me was to enter a road duathlon and attempt it on a mountain bike. Big mistake there and still ashamed to think about it. I never finished it.

acdcgirl wrote (see)

The biggest disaster for me was to enter a road duathlon and attempt it on a mountain bike. Big mistake there and still ashamed to think about it. I never finished it.

I have seen people ride road events on mtb's, not everyone has a 'stable' of bikes to choose from. There is no shame in it as far as I am concerned. I have even seen people do mtb events on a road(ish) bike (cyclo-cross) if it has got two wheels and goes... I seem to remember a pro cyclist borrowed a bike from a spectator at a race once, it may have even been a child's bike!

Annie RW, any danger of getting the PM, quote facility and mail writing back to how they were about a month ago?

Various people have asked countless times now!

I had a bad experience with "runners tummy", embarrasing and annoying.

It was my first marathon, and after the scond half, I needed to use the toilets........quite often.

Ah, and i had taken two  Loperamide capsules, to prevent going to the toilet,

if that wasn't enough, on two occasions i had to hide in the bushes (good thing it was a forest).........

It made me loose minutes from my time, which is annoying,

I think it was those energy gels, I am not used to them and i think i took too many as i was scared of running low on energy. Now looking back i see i should not have taken that many,

But fortunately I took precautions to deal with the practicalities of it: I had packed a little runners backpack with things like baby wipes and hand desinfectant wipes, so  furtunately I was still clean and hygenic................

I learned two things from this experience:1. don't take many gels if you don't need them, and 2. take the precaution to pack a little bag (backpack) with baby wipes and cleaning wipes...............

Forgot my Garmin once, felt like I was running into a labyrinth.

Shanko wrote (see)

Forgot my Garmin once, felt like I was running into a labyrinth.

I've done that; I was at a race, went off for a warm up only to come back and find that Mrs SideBurn had locked the car up and, "gone for a walk". I could see the bloody thing.. Felt totally lost, started too fast etc. Amazing that loosing a bit of tech can leave you so lost! Time was not too bad in the end though....

Mine (so far) was the 10K at the Seaford Triathlon weekend event last August. The Sunday event consists of a 5K, 10K and a HM, which I'd done previously, and the course itself is a fairly flat 5K loop. Training had gone well and I had real hopes of knocking at least a couple of minutes off of my best time.

However that day saw the morning temperature go up to 75F and there was high humidity. These things don't tend to go too well when you have a chest infection, as I found out. The first 5K wasn't too bad however turning for the second loop I suddenly felt like I was wading through treacle. Shortly afterwards I found myself having a real problem breathing and even dropping to walking pace didn't help. I received encouragement from those around me to keep going and it was sheer bloody mindedness that forced me to carry on, eventually finishing some 7 minutes slower than I'd expected.

Had an awful affect on my running for quite some time after that. I realise now the chest infection was worse than I'd been willing to admit at the time, however it did knock my confidence for a while as I struggled to run either the distances or times I'd been doing before.

All happily cleared up now and back on top of things. Looking to lay that particular nightmare to rest this Auguest in preparation for the Great North Run.

I ran my second marathon of the year realising I was desperately undertrained.  I'd done a few tris in September and various events had conspired to mean I'd only run 12 miles come race day.

I set off with a very nice man who I remained with for the entire race.  I was ok until half way and although we were overtaken by a banana I realised it was going to be a long 26 miles.  After the loop of the half way point we saw the Pink Panther and I lived in fear of him over taking me. I was trashed by mile 18 and the final 3 miles were absolute torture.  I wanted to cry. I went over the line thanked Gary for his support and drove home, gutted.  My lesson has been learnt.  Don't think you can comfortably run a marathon on 12 miles, you can't. You are an idiot to think you can...

Unfinished marathon business for me!

i did the spen 20 last month a race which i do every year    but this year   got to mile 15  and had to walk  and run to finish   finishing  3h14   over half an hour slower then last year   which gutted me   but will get back to my best

Guess not yet. TOTP not ideal either TBH