This is long and probably not worth it, but I might as well give it all the flavor. Here's my best story, the one that I still hear about almost 25 years later.
I did shot and discus on my high school track team. While I was by no means good in a macro sense, in our crappy little six-team Catholic league (which included a school for the deaf and a school in the inner city with about 50 students) I was the best. It was the only time in an official sports capacity I was ever a success. And I was especially enamored with the fact that the Buffalo News paper ran the high school track box scores with the winner's name of each event. With two events, I usually was in the paper at least once in the box score pretty much every day after a meet, and often twice.
But somehow that wasn't good enough for me. In our league, you could do a max of three events, so it was theoretically possible, and some kids did, get their name in the box score three times by winning all three events. Somehow, I became obsessed with getting my name in there three times. The problem was...I only had two events. I was reasonably fast for a short sprint for someone my weight, so I started agitating with our coach to let me run a leg of the 4 x 100 relay against one of the suckiest opponents. It was the last event, so we'd know if we won. And our 4 x 100 team was excellent, so three of those guys and me could have still beaten many schools we played.
But there was absolutely no reason for me to be allowed to do that, it was simply selfish and stupid. But I never let up about it.
So it's the last meet of my high school career. It's on a Friday, and me and some guys on the team got plans with all the rest of our buddies to go out after the meet, so all our friends decide to show up to watch us for the first time in four years. Which is nice.
Niagara Catholic shows up with about nine total guys to cover the whole meet. They've got some events with just one person in them. I win the shotput and the discus, and we've got the meet mathematically won about 20 minutes after it starts. And I start walking up to the coach...he sees me and says "Save it. I've got you in the relay. You're welcome." So I run up to all my buddies in the stands, "You guys! You've got to see this! I'm going to run the 4 x 100 baby! I'm going to win three events!"
Except...my coach doesn't put me in the 4 x 100, he puts me in the 4 x 400. Which is about 4 x farther than I'm used to running. I'm assuming on purpose. I don't find out until shortly before the event, when he yells at me to get out there... and I'm running the anchor on top of it.
Well our 400 guys are excellent, so I'm nervous and a little irritated, but I'm thinking I got this. These opponents were scrubs anyway. As the first three legs unfold, we're burying them...by the time I get the baton, I've got about 250 meters on the other team to work with. But, in a-hole fashion, I get the baton and take off like a bat out of hell. I'm chugging, and I'm STRETCHING the lead...I can see my opponent not too far ahead of me on the track. I'm going to lap these scrubs! My friends are going bananas in the stands for me.
For about 150 yards I felt that way at least. At that point I know something was wrong. By 200 meters I was losing feeling in my legs and not getting enough oxygen. By the time I hit 200 I was slowing down precipitously. At 300, I thought I was going to die, and now the only thing I can hear is my friends laughing, drowned out intermittently of blood pulsing in my head. I basically cover the last 100 meters at what would generously be called a brisk walk, and the other runner walks me down with a good 50 meters to spare. I stepped across the finish, kept walking up into the stands, and sat down. My entire lower body had quit on me, I couldn't feel anything below my chest. I couldn't stand up for over an hour, just sitting there alone on the bleachers until my friends got tired of making fun of me and left.
And I'm still reminded of it every time I see them. And every time, I hear it, I was that much faster at the start, and finished that much further behind.
