Your greatest personal sporting achievement

[planetgeli]

Where did you do this?

They are held in Llanwrtyd Wells, up the road from me.

 

[flypanam]

Nice, I’ve seen big snorkelling but never had the nerve. Looks like a lot of fun though.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

Nothing to write home about and never been a particularly sporty person but having taken up running in my late 30s I've been happy with what I've been able to achieve. I've run three marathons, one ultra, and on my last birthday managed a 5k time of 20 mins 16 seconds which isn't bad for 43 I reckon.

 

[ffsear]

3 London marathons. Never ever thought I could run that distance until I tried it.

 

[colacubes]

As a kid I was a decent athlete and competed at county level in the 200m.

Picked up running again as a fatty in my late 30s and completed Couch to 5K and built up to running a half marathon in under 3 hours which I was chuffed with. I've since run a 2nd half marathon which I absolutely fucked my knee training for so now no longer run But have taken up outdoor swimming and managed to swim all over the winter when the facilities were actually open last year This year my aim is to try and do it just in my cossie rather than a wetsuit.

 

[Johnny Doe]

If there's anything I regret it's not having continued playing football. Even now I reckon I could curl a football from 25 yards into either corner of a goal with either foot. I just can't run

I can't imagine ever giving up playing football. People often double take when I say I'm still playing all ages football, not just Vets, but if you drop down a few levels as you get older, it's easy enough.

I captained our club's first XI back in the day, played in our 4th XI until last season at 46, when I started a 5XI and played in in it. This season coming, I'm playing in and managing a 6XI.

If I can keep adding teams until our former glory of 10 teams, a can drop a level every season and play forever!

 

[Poot]

I ran my first full marathon in November. It wasn't fast but i didnt embarrass myself. It felt like an achievement.

My pb for a half marathon is 1.52 which is not bad for an old woman (i didnt start running until after i'd had children).

 

[Gromit]

3rd place - British Open Full Contact Karate Championships.
Lost my last match to the Scotish Open Champion.
I blame my coach for choosiy the wrong tactics and my sensei for not being there as coach because he wanted to cozy up to the TV cameras and commentate instead of taking care of his fighters... Not that I'm bitter about it

 

[Johnny Doe]

I've just remembered a sporting low that is amusing in retrospect, not so much at the time.

I was in every school team as kid, so much in fact that I had a major falling out with the head of PE that I didn't want to represent the school in cross country anymore.

Anyway, I was picked to take part in athletics exhibition at Shaftesbury Harriers Copthall Stadium. The stands were packed and when my name was announced over the tannoy, as about to demonstrate the perfect long jump technique, I received an encouraging round of applause.

Not quite sure why, but my landing was not perfection, and I smashed my mouth onto my knees, smashing both my front teeth, which in turn made a bloody mess of my top lip. I don't think I was knocked out, but I was definitely dazed and was only told later that the announcer had stuck to his script, praising my Olympic standard leap.

I was never to keen on long jump from then on.

 

[xenon]

Not much. Though I was quite a good swimmer I spose. Won gold and silver in a London interschools competition thing. Some other sponsored swim where we ran out of time before I stopped doing lengths. Oh yeah and bronze in 100m. I didn't like running and TBF there were only 4 of us in that race anyway...

 

[stavros]

Finishing cross country at school before the fat kids, so I could collapse on the floor at the end and laugh at them struggle.

 

[blairsh]

Heh I have never been any good at sports.
But like DotCommunist I do really enjoy pool and due to my mispent youth and skintness I had a good incentive to stay on the table - to not have to pay for more pool and win drinks. I ended up on a pool team. I really enjoyed thrashing cocky dickheads very much. So that's my achievement- making men cry.

Last time we played you only won once as I recall this was probably my greatest achievement as you usually beat me down.

 

[Yossarian]

With seconds left on the clock in the basketball championship game, I took a near-impossible shot, it sailed through the opposing team's basket and the crowd went wild as victory was sealed.

The ball may have been a can, the basket may have been a bin around 20 feet away, and the crowd may have been my 2-year-old son, but this was still the first thing that came to mind.

 

[Clair De Lune]

Last time we played you only won once as I recall this was probably my greatest achievement as you usually beat me down.

This is true. I'm shit these days as I play like once a year. Well done though

 

[blairsh]

This is true. I'm shit these days as I play like once a year. Well done though

Not having that! i play way less too! i used to play snooker and pool a couple nights a week b.i.t.d when we also played.

Even keel! Fffs mun...

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

Heh I have never been any good at sports.
But like DotCommunist I do really enjoy pool and due to my mispent youth and skintness I had a good incentive to stay on the table - to not have to pay for more pool and win drinks. I ended up on a pool team. I really enjoyed thrashing cocky dickheads very much. So that's my achievement- making men cry.

When I lived in children's homes, they often had a games room with a pool or snooker table, so I had something of a misspent youth too. A cocky lad came along one day and I whooped him at snooker.

 

[Idaho]

My achievements are also of the modest, later life type. I played for a local cricket team and had a run of form with my strange, speeded up, non turning off spin.

Got my 5k pb down to 21.40 - about 5 years ago. Considerably slower now.

 

[tonysingh]

Back in my boxing days, another coach brought down a few fighters to spar with our lot. I overheard him refusing to believe that I hadn't had 50+ amateur fights. That was a huge thing for me.

I really do miss boxing.

 

[RubyToogood]

I beat Dr Jazzz at Scrabble once. This is no mean feat.

 

[Maggot]

I am a terrible footballer, but I once scored a goal direct from a corner. Everyone just froze for a few seconds as it was so unlikely. This had nothing to do with the strong winds in the park at the time.

 

[purves grundy]

I was selected for the Wee Willie Winkie race in my second year of primary school. It consisted of a series of tasks / obstacles over 100 metres. Iirc after the first 20 metres you had to put on a nightgown, next was a series of hurdle-and-duck-down things and finally a bedsheet you had to crawl under, before a dash to the finish line. I was ahead for most of the race but such was my sense of fair play, or my sheer idiocy, that I thought I had to wait for other people to finish the task before running again. So e.g. I’d get the nightgown on before everyone else but then wait, and only started running again when someone would belt off ahead of me. But even though I stopped and waited after each task, I still finished first

 

[Yu_Gi_Oh]

I competed up to the national level for Judo until I was about 13. Despite being good, I didn't enjoy it at all. The nightly training, the travelling all over England for squad training at the weekend, the additional fitness training like running I was expected to do, the bulky unflattering suits, the ridiculous amount of pressure people put you under when you're good at something, not being allowed to be on the netball team because it clashed with judo, the forced starvation before weigh-ins so you could compete at the top of a weight class rather than the bottom...

The one thing in its favour I'll say is that it gave me a solid level of fitness that I find it easy to draw on as an adult. Even when I don't exercise for a while, years even, I find it quite easy to get it back when I return to working out. I am also somewhat more gritty in my workouts than your average casual gym goer/yoga doer, iyswim.

 

[bendeus]

Probably my first 100 mile ride. 12 months previously I didn’t own a bike and was fairly unfit. I’m now close to being able to do a reasonably hilly one in under 5 hours, which is the next target.

Also, taking part in the world bog snorkelling championships.

I was about to post my global ranking of 42 - yes, the forty second best bog snorkeller in the world - after the 2008 World championship

 

[imposs1904]

Finally joined a Darts League 8 weeks ago at the grand old age of 52. (Spotted a post in a local Facebook group about a team in the lowest division who were short of players, and it was already a couple of weeks into the season.)

We just finished the league part of the season, and I finished with the highest individual points tally out of 43 players. My ego's temporarily gone through the roof but, in fairness to myself, I've been suffering from dartitis last couple of years, and I never thought I'd dredge up the bottle to actually join a team.

. . . what do you mean Darts isn't a sport?

 

[girasol]

I think my achievements are the constant, regular practice over a number of years rather than medals or whatever as I don't do sport competitively...

Running twice a week since 2008 - had to stop a couple of times for a few months due to hip/knee/ankle injuries, but got back into it to run longer distances & faster. (I never did any long distance running in school, I ran when needed, i.e. playing games, running for a bus, etc)
Capoeira 2-3x a week since 2011 - haven't really stopped or not trained for longer than a week (holidays). Whenever injured I just adapt by doing easier version or skip whatever aggravates it.
Yoga - on and off since 1993? ish
HIIT/Cardio + Strength workouts at home probably since around 2008 too, started with Zumba & Insanity DVDs, then moved on to YouTube workouts.

oh, yes, the London Classic on bike for me was quite epic, I even picked a bit of an RSI injury that lasted about a week on my hands from cycling on cobbled streets but it was only 27miles iirc.

I played A LOT of volleyball when I was school, but was too short and never made it to any team, not even school level . I also swam a lot, but once again, just for fun. And dancing... took lessons and everything, but also just for fun. Roller skating, I was good at that for a while... I was always very active but it was always for fun. That's probably why I still enjoy exercise so much?

 

[pseudonarcissus]

We just finished the league part of the season,

. . . what do you mean Darts isn't a sport?

I never knew darts was seasonal, but congratulations. Last time I played darts was 1990 in Bath with the Round Table. I didn't join the Round Table...I don't even know if they still exist...I guess I'd be too old now

 

[twistedAM]

I think I came second in the shot put at my year 8 sports day.

Haha me too but I remember it clearly as I was a skinny long distance runner and only entered the putt to pass some time as my race was last of the day. Somehow I produced a big throw on my first attempt that had the big farm boy who won every year sweating. News of his demise spread and soon most pf the school were there to cheer me . I couldn't repeat and farmboy produced the winning putt in the last round and promptly gave me a slap for my efforts. He got attacked by the crowd. Come to think of it we had quite a bit of sport-induced violence at our school in the 70s.

The other sporting achievement was finishing five minutes ahead of Chris Boardman in a bike race the year he won Olympic gold

Spoiler

It was a time trial and a race and I'd set off about 10 minutes before him on the road

 

[SpookyFrank]

Some guy I used to work with who I really didn't like would go on about having played cricket for Warwickshire as a schoolboy.

I caught-and-bowled the cunt. Leg spin, third ball of my first over. Not even my first over in that game, the first over I ever bowled. And the last, as I retired that same day with a mathematically unassailable bowling average.

 

[girasol]

I remember when I was about 9 years old practically being forced into entering some stupid swimming competition where I was doing swimming lessons, backstroke it was, I really didn't want to do it, I only been doing lessons for about 6 months, I hated every minute of it and vowed never to compete in swimming again... That's not to say I'm not competitive, because I am, but I don't like formal competitions. It seems like a very pressured, restrictive life, as someone mentioned earlier, you have to give up a lot, do a lot of things you don't like and deal with the pressure of it all.

 

[Sasaferrato]

It makes me a bit ashamed to think how much I could run as a kid. At ten and eleven I used to run over a mile to school, home for lunch and back again and home at school's end. As an older kid year I ran four miles before breakfast every day. At 12 I cycled 16 miles each way to do an hour's athletics training on a school night. I could run 100m in 15 seconds and it was my worst track event. 800m was 2.20-ish at 12. I could run forever, that feeling of getting into a perfect cadence where your feet almost didn't feel like they were hitting the floor.

Never achieved that state. Ran for bloody miles in the army, and felt every step.