Either in an actual race or not. Me: When I was a kid, my friends and I used to like to sneak into construction sites and things like that. One time, we snuck into a site and were goofing around, looked up and saw the cops arriving. We took off… I remember being struck, at the time, by the fact that I seemed to be essentially flying through the air, with my feet hitting the ground only occasionally… that’s the only time I’ve ever experienced that sensation.
College/ two years post college:
800-2:07
1500-4:10
mile-4:32
5K(track)-15:51
10K(track)-32:57
10 mile-53:44
1/2 mara.- 1:14:12
ETA: no applause, those are very mediocre times for a college runner
6th grade. I was being chased by the school bully, Robert Schimmins. Not only was that the fastest I ever ran, but I also scaled a 12-foot chain link fence to get away from him.
I’ve never been big on a sprint. I have run consistent 5" miles in longer races long ago. Bill Rodgers was still in view at the halfway point of the 1978 Boston before I faded fast. It’s a sorry claim to fame in a career with only one outright marathon win. I ran half my course this morning while plagued with the symptoms of PLS. I have so many running miles in that running is a more natural movement for me than walking.
Nice.
I only ran two years of track in high school. I got 0:59 in the 400 and something around 5:00 in the mile. Right now, I’m trying to break a 6:00 mile again. I could just about do it. (And I may have, but my little GPS running app got me at 6:02, I think.)
Faster than the guy trying to catch me.
Senior year of high school (pre-metric days).
880 - 1:56.7
Mile - 4:20.4
That was a loooong time ago. Cinder tracks w/a few rich districts having Tartan(?) synthetic. If it wasn’t for the easy access to beer and weed in college I think I could have improved quite a bit. Oh, well.
I’m still boggling over the fact that a four and a half minute mile is slow. Whenever I’ve been able to run a mile at once, it’s usually something like ten or twelve minutes.
Sub-light speed.
That’s within the context of competitive track. My college times would be good but not earth shaking times for high school. (California)
Good college runners are under 4:10 to under 4:00.
We got a fraternity to buy us a few cases of beer and gave them a case as payment. When the beer ran out later that night my buddy and I stole the bribery case.
I don’t know if anyone even noticed but we lit out of there like the hounds of hell were after us. Definitely the fastest I’ve ever run.
When you first get to Army reception, you have to pass a 1-mile run or else you have to stay in a “fitness company” until you can. That would extend my training by another month or so. So I ran like a murderer was chasing me with an axe. I needed to run a 9-minute mile (I think). I did 6:50 or so.
To graduate Basic, you have to get a 15:54 on a two-mile run. I again ran like I was going to die if I didn’t. Never before and never since have I ever done anything with more ‘guts’ than that run. I did it in 13:30ish.
Tall guys laugh at these run times, but I’m only 5’6" - I take twice their number of strides!
On the opposite side, when some punks in a car shot me with an air pistol (and drew blood), I started to give chase although I was on foot. I also seem to have been flying through the air (and even thought I was keeping pace with them for a block. But then they turned a corner and I lost them. Cops got them though.)
4.61s 40yd on grass. They finally moved me from DT to OLB in college.
Although my probably fastest run was on a kickoff in high school. My head coach had a claim to fame in his ~42 year career- no one had ever run a kickoff or punt back for a touchdown against his teams (he had a very very successful career). It was his final year and the final regular season game and I caught the runner at our 3 yard line by just running him over- I just kept going right on out of bounds. I had started as the contain man on the other side of the field and had been even with the runner at their 30 yard line- he at the far side line and I outside the near hash line. So I went 228 feet to his 201 feet; yes he had to avoid a tackle but he just veered a little. Oh and the guy was the state 100m runner-up the year before. Now this was South Dakota so not quite as impressive as say CA, but I have never come close to running like that again.
My coach thanked me for keeping his record intact when I came off the field.
In high school track I would run the 100 in around 12.2-12.3, which wasn’t that fast but got me on a back-up 4X100 team. My fastest 400 was around 53 seconds, which was actually a good 3 seconds faster than my normal time. I remember that race well because it actually felt different from any other race; I was on an outside lane and noticed around the 200 mark that I couldn’t hear the runners on the inner lanes catching up to me, and from that point on it seemed effortless. I actually kept my form perfectly all the way to the finish line, and didn’t have to struggle the last 30 meters like normal. I suppose that’s what it’s supposed to feel like, but I never had another race like that. My split of the 4X400 later that day was better than usual, but after that meet my times went straight back to where they were before.
I ran long distance in high school so I wasn’t setting any speed records. However, a few years ago I took my 18 month old nephew to the track with me. A friend and I like to walk the track as exercise because it’s got a full six foot fence all the way around with only two small walk through gates. They are the open kind with a bar in the center to make sure no one rides a bike through. We would bring kids and let them play in the “sandboxes” (otherwise known as long jump pits.)
Anyway, I was rounding the far end when my nephew, mad as heck at me for not carrying him around while I walked, decided he was done and went out through the gate and was looking like he wanted to go into the road . I was easily 100 yards away. I don’t think I’ve ever sprinted that fast in my life. When we got the boy safely back in the gate, my friend was laughing and teasing me for my new speed record.
Me and a friend were chased by a dog when we were younger. Being taller now I suspect I can run faster than I could then but that was probably the hardest I’ve ever ran and I remember being surprised by how fast I could move.
100m - 10.16
200m - 21.8
400m - 49.7
3 furlongs per fortnight
Mile, ever: 5:08
At age 47 I ran 3/4 of a mile at a constant pace of 10 mph which would have been a 6:00 mile if I could have kept it up for another 1/4.
Best 30 miles walking: 4 hrs & approx 10 minutes.