Craziest Workout Stories

haha nice stories!

The craziest thing I have done was a 5k race at 7am, in -7degree weather, 40km/h winds, enough snow to call it a blizzard, on my birthday, annnd it was my first race of my life.

I figured it can only get better from there :D 

3 hour trail run in a sleet storm

1.5 hours Stair running in a hotel in the arctic (40 below outside)

aggiecatcher - 2007-07-19 12:49 PM I love it...we have the opposite problem here. I bricked a couple of weeks ago to punish myself for missing workouts to play golf -- it was 109. Hey at least its a dry heat.

Judging from this, I'm guessing that your in Rocklin, CA.  My family is in Sacramento, so I know the area--Rocklin is beautiful!  But, compared to CO, that's no dry heat!

Fom my June 4, 2006 Training Log..3 weeks prior to IMCDA:

Holy snodgrass....you could not have scripted this ride for a movie. I have gone through every emotion in the book today, but the bottom line is, I almost got cheated out of my first century, and I improvised in a pretty funny way. If you have a minute, details of the ride are below.

Left the house at 6:30 a.m., excited about the last long training day, and my opportunity to finally knock out my first century ride.

The first 15 miles were uneventful, then as I was taking a sip of my perpetuem, I dropped the bottle and it skidded across the road. I've NEVER dropped a bottle before. Luckily, this one stayed shut so no problems.

Fast forward to mile 30....psssssst. Flat tire. Pulled over, flipped the bike...hmmm, bike won't stay upright when flipped now that I have aerobars. Found a tree to lean the bike against and got the tire changed. Onward and upward. (Although I'm now wondering what I'll do if I flat at IMCDA and there isn't a tree handy.)

Mile 40ish....psssssssst. Second flat...are you kidding me?? Found another tree, flipped the bike, checked the tire and rim VERY carefully for debris and changed the flat. No more tubes on the bike, so hoping this is the last flat. As I'm ready to take off again, a cute little dog walks up so I pet it and head on my way...with the dog chasing me for 1/2 mile. Ugh.

Mile 55ish, I am taking a sip of my perpetuem, and you guessed it...dropped the stupid bottle AGAIN. Never done it before, and today, I drop it twice.

This time the bottle slowly rolled into traffic. The car that was behind me stopped so I could get my bottle (thank you, sir) and the other cars behind him start honking at me. Jerks. Got my bottle and headed on my way.

Somewhere between mile 65 and 70 a snake shoots out of the grass to my right and into the bike lane...I am in the aerobars and almost eat concrete trying to avoid the snake...I ran over him. Sorry, snake.

Mile 72....pssssst. Flat number 3. By now, I'm ready to kill someone. No more tubes with me, so I call the wife at home and ask her if she can look where I keep my bike gear and see if by dumb luck, I've got an extra tube...lo and behold I DO!! I'm 3 miles from the house, so she says she'll bring the tube to me. FORTY FIVE MINUTES LATER, my wife drives up.

In my most polite voice possible at this moment, I ask her "honey, why did it take you 45 minutes to go three miles?" Her response "Oh! I wanted to get the kids cleaned up and dressed so we could go shopping after bringing your tube to you. I though you wouldn't mind the extra rest time." **sigh** I won't even tell you what went through my mind at this point.

As I'm changing the 3rd flat, with my wife and kids watching, I hear...pssssssss, then BOOM! Blew up the tube. So now I'm out of tubes so I put the bike in the car and we head to a local sporting goods store to see if they have a tube (bike shop is closed on Sunday). No tubes, so we head home. At this point I'm pretty bummed because I want to finish my ride and know I can't.

As I'm taking off my helmet and gloves at home, I remember that my tri bike (which I recently sold) had a saddle bag on it, and the bag was in my closet. Is it possible I left an extra tube in the bag? HALLELUJAH!! One more tube. I carefully change the tire again, refill the water bottles, and head back out. Completely uneventful ride for 20 more miles (except I'm hot, tired, and a little grumpy).

Then, at mile 95 my bike suddenly fish-tails? What the....? Flat number 4, only this time there is a big cut in the tire as well. Tire is shot, so that will be an added expense tomorrow (along with 4 new spare tubes).

I'm obviously done at this point, but I'm still 5 miles from home. Call the wife again so she can pick me up...she's at the grocery store, but "she'll come get me as soon as she can." So I lay down in the grass and call my coach. I get his voice mail, and leave a message asking him if he is willing to come to Brownsville and shoot me...I've just been cheated out of my first century ride by FIVE freaking miles.

Wife shows up reasonably quickly, and we head home...I am so mad that I actually just started laughing. What else can you do? Then, the little hamster in my brain started spinning his little wheel...I had an idea.

We got home, I unloaded the crippled bike, quickly filled my Camelbak, changed out of my bike shorts and into casual shorts and a T-shirt, took the bike shoes off and put tennis shoes on, and put the Camelbak and my Garmin on as my wife said "What are you doing?" I told her "I'm not getting cheated out of my first century ride...I'm taking the Electra out for the last 5 miles." In disbelief, she gave me a kiss and told me to be careful.

I rode the Electra "Straight Eight" 3-speed cruiser, with 4 inch wide tires, for 6.25 miles. It took 26 minutes. I can't even imagine how silly I looked hammering away on an Electra, but I was determined to get my century ride in and maintain a decent average MPH...and I did.

Today taught me how to deal with all kinds of crazy stuff on the bike. If all of this happens in Coeur d'Alene, I will miss the bike cut-off, because I'm not taking the Electra with me!

I can't imagine anyone in the world having this kind of luck twice in one month, so I'm glad I got it out of my system today.

Bottom line...101.4 miles (in 10 hours total clock time, although only 6:20 in the saddle), and......

I MADE IT THROUGH IRONMAN TRAINING! 
 

Since is craziest training, and not Craziest Tri Training, mine would be back in my days of heavy lifting in a ‘clean’ attempt to hit bodybuilder size.  I was a leg training freak.  Loved it.  I don’t recall the exact workout but it was probably along the lines of a 20 rep leg press, 20 rep leg extension, 20 rep squat with no rest between sets and all sets to the intensity point where the 20^th rep of each was the last possible.  Anyway, after that superset I got light headed and queasy so I went into the locker room to lie down on a bench.  Pulled a garbage can close and eventually did a series of dry heaves as people are walking in and out.  After that, had people asking if I was okay.  “Yup, just an intense leg training day.”  Then I got up, put my shirt back on, looked at then and said, “Now it’s time to go finish the workout.”  They looked at me like I had a third eye.  LOVE IT.

So far no weird, wild, or wacky tri training stories.

Mine would have to be when I went out for a 2 hour ride in the winter when it was freezing and starting to snow.  This would have been OK but I had only had the bike for a couple of months and had only bought the bare minimum of clothing - a short sleeved jersey, shorts and fingerless gloves.  Anyway after about an hour and a half my fingers had gone completely numb so each time I wanted to change gear I had to actually look down at my hand to see if my finger was on the shifter.  Breaking was not the easies thing to do either!  This wasn't too bad I suppose - but my hands hurt like hell when I took a warm shower once I'd got back.

We had weekly double moon 8K tempo runs (aka moonlight naked runs...nothing but shoes boys)  my last year in college on the local backroads in IA.  It started as a dare between the men's and women's teams during the second week of the season.  At the weekend's XC meet, the women won and the men placed 3rd.  Highest finishes for both teams.  It became a ritual every Thursday night after that.  The women's team success continued.  We never finished lower than 3rd that year in XC.  However, it got a little chilly towards the end of XC season into the indoor track season.

That century-of-the-century story had me in tears. Way to persevere! I almost thought you would have to finish it on one of your kid's trikes, probably the kind with sparkly streamers from the handlebars .

I signed up for a half-mary as a long training run. Had flu the week before, but figured it was a good taper (I'm an idiot. I know). All's well on the day and I feel okay, nice and easy with fellow BOPers since for training and tiredness I need to go slow. We spread out a great deal. There is a nagging light rain.

All of a sudden I am nearly trampled by a horde of elfin runners ... ah yes, the 10K course overlaps the half-mary. I trot along slowly on the edges, although unfortunately I picked the side that the 10K markers were on, not the half-mary, so I was a little fuzzy on distance.

Roundabout I guess mile 10 for me, as I'm looking forward to a cool-down finish soon, I am nearly back at the stadium where all the runs end ... but wait! That's way too soon! I have another three miles to go--in the hills, on trails!

I am looking around confusedly for yellow bibs (marking half-mary runners) and every single person has baby blue ... I start getting this sinking feeling, realizing that I've followed the 10Kers on their course. Right then I spot two yellow bibs toddling along and I rush up to them, incredibly grateful.

The two senior ladies were a little taken aback at this rather wide apparition charging at them the wrong way on a race course, but took it in stride. They were very sweet and I asked them how far they had gone. "Oh, we just passed the four-mile mark!" said one. "We're walkers, you know!"

It dawned on me that I had literally taken a six-mile loop off course and wound up nearly right back where I had gone off it with the 10Kers at mile four.

Right then a course photographer popped out into the middle of the path, "SMILE, EVERYONE!!!" So I have this great photo of me with WTF?!?! written all over my face and two sweet beaming old ladies on either side.

So I figure, what the hell. I'll walk with the geriettes and finish this damn race. I want my medal and by golly I will have more than earned it!

I waddle along, looking like Daffy Duck, fuming and sputtering. They chattered the next six miles away and it was a nice diversion from my resentments.

And then we hit the hills.

As I said, it had been raining all day ... and a few hundred half-maryers had trodden the trails down into a slick, muddy mess. I don't know what lit a fire under those old ladies' butts, or whether they were just the right size to glide over the mud surface tension, but they left me in the mud--literally. There were only two ways for me to progress over the hills: either Speedy-Gonzales it up so that as I slipped, at least the turnover was fast enough to slip forward, or, do horse-stomping moves where I stick one hoof into the mud, suck the other back up out of the mud with great effort, repeat. I do a combo of both as energy permits--ZOOOM plonk plonk plonk plonk ZOOOOOOM plonk plonk.

And then there was downhill. Slide down on the butt or surf with the feet? I opted for surfing, since I at best I might stay a bit cleaner and warmer, and worst case I'd just land on my butt anyway.

I wish I had video of that day.

So I finally make it through the hills, and back onto surface streets for less than half a mile to the finish. Problem is ... by now, all the race signs are gone, and I have no idea where I am. Also, on country roads ... not a lot of town signs either. So I head in the vague direction I think the stadium is until I come upon a house, and I just knock on the door. I can only imagine what they thought of this stinky, muddy vagrant (except please DO NOT come in!) ... they were so nice and gave me a drink of juice (thank you! no aid stations! dying of thirst by then!) and hesitantly offered me a ride, but no thanks, I have come this far and I am going to crawl into that stadium if I have to ... but they gave me good directions. So I amble, heavyfooted with caked mud, off to the stadium.

At a crossroads I come upon a slight girl, crying, and talking into a cell phone. She's wearing a yellow bib. "I can't tell you where I am, I'm LOST I TOLD YOU!" she sobbed into the phone. I pointed to my bib and hers, and she nodded and spoke to the receiver: "Well someone's here now, maybe she can help." She hung up and we started walking and talking. She had had terrible leg cramps and had gotten lost, and though her friend had offered to pick her up, she would rather just finish.

So we bopped along (BO-BOPped, to be exact ... or so I thought) when we came along two boys, one limping and the other helping him along. Here we were, the merry bunch of gimped DFLs, up a yellow brick road. The girl I had found called her friend back and told her to reserve four medals.

As we straggled into the stadium, I still had it in me to run the lap to the finish. The others dragged themselves across the line ... and there was the friend, beaming, holding out our lovely medals, very, very well-earned.

I may have been near DFL, but I ran farther than anyone else that day ... and got a medal, some new friends, and a nice 19-miler PR to boot.

That's a great race report - perhaps one of my favorite ever!

Barlo-style at it's best.

That's a great story.  That's the kind of perserverance that makes a great endurance athlete.

Or psycho - either one works.

2003 -  I'm headed to China...16 hours. Spent the first 4 hours of the flight plowed, the next 12 doing work. Arrive at hotel in China at 11:45PM.  Brain is tired, body is not....

So in the dead of night, in China, no idea where I'm going, no map, not knowing whether if you violate curfew you'll be arrested, no clue as to the good / bad neighborhoods, no phone, no money, not speaking a word of the language, I head out for a 10-miler in Shanghai. I had the most fantastic run down back alleys, along riverbanks, and on 10-lane wide grand boulevards that had ZERO, and I mean ZERO cars, bicycles, or people on them.

Certainly the riskiest, most surreal, and coolest one I've done.  Every once in a while it's good to take a risk. Helps you remember you're alive.