The stupid things you've done!

Yeeeha - I'm first. I'm going to press 'post now' just so I can be first.

OK, now that that's over, I can get down to business...

Many years ago a friend and I ran in a NZ race called the Kaweka Challenge. This is an off-road mountain run up, over and through the Kaweka Ranges in the central North Island of NZ. The race has a number of options including two day runs, but the hardest is the one day big run of around 70km (it has varied year to year, and now sits at around 50km).

I talked a fellow IM competitor into doing this race, with the view that we would do the race as individuals, but race side by side. This was his first ultra-marathon, whereas I'd raced a few before, including the longer Kepler Challenge, which is around 60km.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, two things happened. Competitors camp overnight at the race start as it is in the middle of nowhere, and next to us was some guy who was having a huge bowl of porridge for breakfast. Being a bit ignorant about nutrition in those early days, we had a few laughs to ourselves that this guy really didn't know what he was doing. We even had the cheek to ask him if he did much racing, to which he replied 'not really'. Boy, were we dumb. This guy was Neil Jones, a kiwi legend in adventure racing and multisport. The weekend prior, he'd come second in the Coast to Coast. Anyway, needless to say, he won the Kaweka Challenge, and whipped our buts.

We bombed big time in this race this day. We anticipated taking around 7 hours for the run, but ended taking over 10 because we didn't really do our P's on how much the route climbed and just how hard it would be, and therefore a realistic finish time. We ran out of food after 7 1/2 hours, and had to try to keep running another 3 hours with no food coming in. Talk about bonk. It was ugly, but we had to keep going, as the race follows tramping routes and the only way out of the mountains is to keep on going. The worst thing was that we'd talked it up before the race and had convinced ourselves and others that we would finish within 30-40 minutes of the winner, whereas it was about 2 1/2 hours.

It was a lesson that I've never forgotten, and needless to say, I get my nutrition right these days.

i think the stupidist thing i have ever done is forgeting my helmet at timetrial(i have to wear one as i am young) so had to ride 1mile back to the car to pick it up

Andy

bonk'd during a long bike session. I hit the wall so bad and had no water or food left with me...I lay'd down on the grass in the middle of a circle (round about etc) with cars going by honking horns and yelling things, I could care less...I HATE SPIDERS, they were crawling around and on me I didn't care. when my friends showed up with the car I ate an entire watermellon and cantalope like a savage animal...they still make fun of me to this day....this happend 12 years ago!

My best story is wearing a wetsuit on the bike in a sprint tri. It was only my 2nd ever triathlon, and forgot to take the wetsuit off. When I jumped on the bike, I realized things felt different and that it was due to the wetsuit. I wanted to take it off right there and toss it but I remembered the littering rule. Yet I did not want to run back transition. So I just continued, thinking I could unzip it a bit and that would help. It doesn't, it actually makes things worse. At least the wetsuit was a shorty - short legs and arms. That made things manageable, and the weather wasn't that warm so I did not get hugely overheated. I had a rocking T1 ranking! Overall the race went well. I may have biked faster in order to reduce the embarrassment time. I actually got a comment later from someone that they thought that maybe I knew what I was doing, and the wetsuit was making me more aerodynamic on the bike, since I had passed him. I believe I have pictures of this somewhere if the story isn't believed.

I don't lose my nickname because of this, do I? :-)

The Baltimore Basher

I did an ironman distance race in the UK in the early 90's. There weren't many competitors in those days and things were pretty informal. Anyway, I staggered into transition after the bike and went to the changing tent. It was a hot day and my brain was somewhat fried. I stripped off to change into my run gear assuming I had some level of privacy, and then turned round to find that the tent door had been left open, and my girlfriend and her parents were stood outside looking absolutely mortified. Things never seemed to go quite as well between us after that.

Erm, hobbling around 20 miles of an IM run with one leg and putting myself out of action for nearly 2 months afterwards and into physio for the same length of time. though I did improve my 400m time by 2 minutes during that time :-) Oh, not to be recommended, just DNF, please?! We'll see how I do on July 12th at the same race - ForestMan UK.

In 2007 I did Escape from Alcatraz as a "B" race leading up to IM Coeur 'Alene. My wife and I lived close by the start and as usual we procrastinated until last minute. In the morning I threw my unprepared bike in the trunk on top of my wife's gym gear and we arrived at transition to check in waaay too late - which is not good at a race that requires a shuttle and a ferry ride to the start - but I somehow made it while volunteers yelled angrily to get my ass on the last shuttle.

When I mounted my bike after the swim I heard some noise on my back wheel that went away after a couple of miles. Only after the race did I realize that my wife's bra was tangled up in the rear wheel and it came along for the entire ride. It got stuck to my bike on the way to the start when it was on top of her gym bag and I was in too much of a hurry to check everything when I positioned the bike in the transition zone before hand. Some friends still call me the bra'man.