After all these years do you regret devoting so much time and energy to running?

Join the military as a officer since you have a degree or if you are a pacifist join the Peace Corp...Id get out and see the world..your too young to be whining and depressed over your situation...Take any job in any city out of state you need to get a life..Im serious

Why do you need start up money or a credit history.

You're already doing accounting now.

Take a look at what it would take for you to do it on your own, make your plan, and gradually go in that direction.

Soon you will be there. Just like with running.

sgt. is right for sure. at least i'm not losing my hair ya know...

Do I regret running?

Do I miss 6 am practices? Do I miss obsessing about my weight? Do I miss a coach who constantly threatened to take away my scholarship? Do I miss taking a handful of advil a day? Being forced to hang out with people I didn't like?

I must admit that my time away from running has made me realized how unimportant it is in life, how ridiculous all the shit I had to put up with was. I am still in college, about to graduate with honors, and I have gotten over the fact that I will never hold that all-american certificate, something I had dreamed of daily.

I definately do not regret running. Running as much and as hard as I did made me a stronger person. Often I look around at the students in my classes knowing that I have endured more pain than they will ever know, that, on occassion, I have pushed my body and mind to its limits. A small fraction of the country has experienced this, leading me to appreciate how running has strengthened me. It truly is a gift.

I do regret all the drinking, partying and sleeping in I have done the past year. This lifestyle, often typical of a college student, does not inspire people. Running does. My advice is if you have lost the fire to run, find something that does inspire people, whether it is through work, family or school, just because the goal is not equivalent with the glory of winning a race does not mean that it is not worthwhile.

I've run without interruption since 1967 and if I were 14 again, as I was when I started, I'd do it all over again. What would I do with myself otherwise? Work more? Earn more money? Buy stuff with the money I've earned? And not have the experiences I've had or know some of the people I've known because of running? Not a chance.

How many people have ever been asked to sign autographs? I have. How many people have raced on the track against Olympic champions? I wasn't that good. But just "being there" made amny of these dorts of things happen.

How many Americans have friends in foreign countries? How many have even been out of the US? How many people can watch a major sporting event on TV with friends and family and discuss knowledeably what the competitors are experiencing because they've done it themselves?

How many people perform an activity where they know how good or bad they really are? Think about that. If you're a teacher, for example, how do you know if you're really any good or bad or whether your evaluations are based on whether or not your supervisor likes you? But if you're a four minute miler, or a five minute miler, you know how good a miler you are.

My wife doesn't run. But without running I'd never have met her and I wouldn't have my kids. There are people I've known for a really short time who I feel as close to as if they were family because we share a love and appreciation for the sport and its impact on our lives. I have never had that experience with a non-running friend/acquaintance.

And how many people have the experience of putting their all into an activity where they seem to have no ability and performing at levels which they once thought were fantasies?

I've had a great ride for 51 years and running has been a major part of it for all but 14 of those years. Yes, there are "down times" when it's a bit of trouble, when it's painful and frustrating. But anything that you love will be that way. If I were to make a wish list for the time I have left, one of those wishes would be that I have the health and motivation to stay connected with the sport.

VOXBOX and several others have the right idea: this is a life you chose. You act like someone forced you into college running and you couldn't leave the "cult" or some shit.

Nothing is farther from the truth. You can't get a "great job" right now because nobody can. In Michigan the unemp. rate has risen every month for 2003 and it didn't start the year in a great place. If you regret not being able to stay up late and drink hard and smoke pot or snort coke or eat like a big pig then YOU MADE THE WRONG CHOICE WITH YOUR LIFE for a few years.

Me? I knew running would be like it is, actually I thought it would be worse. I started when I was 11 and thought that nobody got anywhere special unless they ran every day, 15-20 on every Sunday, and raised their mileage 10 mpw every year until they hopefully reached 100-120.

I was wrong. You can be a good student, good son, good runner, good boyfriend, and good person and still be well-rounded and have a "fun" life. I also knew that by middle school.

To the poster of this thread: if you don't regret missing out on the above activities, but just wish you hadn't spent all that effort to run then again YOU MADE THE WRONG CHOICE WITH YOUR LIFE for a few years. It's not terminal.

If you had never run, I doubt your grades would have been better and you would be in just the same spot you are in now... the same spot every person with a degree from a good college is in.

I had to do yardwork today because the leaves get vacumned up on Monday, and an 80-year-old lady asked me if I would rake and mow her yard. I said yes. She asked, "Are you going to miss the football game if you do my yard?"

I said, "I haven't been able to watch football on a Saturday in 20 years." Ever since I was 10 years old I have had to go to a XC race, an indoor meet, an outdoor meet, a road race, work in the yard, work at the store, or ride my bike 110 miles for probably 40-45 Saturdays every year. That is 800 Saturdays. Sometimes I am tired and wish I could sleep in, but I never, ever wish I could stay home and watch football.

You may be one of those who should never have stuck with it past freshman year in HS. Me? It is the sacrifice I chose and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

\"After all these years do you regret devoting so much time and energy to running?\"

NO

I\'m young, I can party and screw all around for the rest of my life. I can never run my races again, parties come every other night.

The instant gratification of parties is stupid, a deluded person parties and skips running. Running during college and trying to be somebody is what really matters.

I was deluded and went the party route, I wish I didnt in hindsight. All the drugs, late nights, I have nothing to show for it, the temporary pleasure has only left me empty. running filled me with joy, the accomplishments, the festival like atmosphere of races - the excitement. Losing made me feel, pain, the sorrow of life, the determination would build up and I knew I would overcome, by doing so I knew I was a better person and the pleasure was immense.

I dont miss my 22 milers, at 17 id break and walk in undescrible pain, on hot summer days -- or the 10pm 30degree runs in a sweater and beenie, especially in sweats in snow or rain. It made me stronger in retrospect, but damn i could never do it again, i got softer when i got older.

Getting fat and older I can be in awe about my personal running accomplishments.

I never wasted a moment of it. Sure I was alone a lot on the trails busting my butt in whatever weather thinking of what i was doing for myself but i never said I wanted to be someone else, I was born a runner....

[quote]wordzsad wrote:

but your view is so unrealistic. "f**k the world"...well no, that's easier said than done. i'm sittin here, poor off my you know what, lookin for a job, living with my parents, etc etc. i have a college degree from a great school and nothing to show for it. i wish i could just move out somewhere, do what makes me happy, make enough money to live on, etc etc. that'd be awesome. but it's not realistic.

*********************************************************

Why is it unrealistic? Have you ever considered all the people in the U.S. who don't have a "degree from a great school" and still manage to make a living? That is a pathetic statement that "running" made you unable to earn a living or "move out somewhere".

A few years ago I made $65,000 a year, got laid off from a job I hated and for the moment I make $400 a week, but I still pay my mortgage and am happy. I could be much happier, but it has nothing to do with the money, it would make me happy to be running and riding more.

I graduated from a BIG-10 school with a 3.6 gpa in an average major (no great shakes there) and without even trying got 5 decent job offers the first six months. I had no internship, NO relevant experience, and DIDN'T have any All-America certificates. Every one of them was (I found out later)a lowball salary, even for right out of college, but every one of them was more than $30,000 and this was 1994!

This is plenty to live on and stop feeling sorry for yourself.

blasphemer,

spoken like a true suburban "rich" kid if you ask me.

you know why i ran?? no you don't. it wasn't a bad choice or the wrong choice like you say. it was the ONLY choice. you ever been to the grocery store with your mom and she pulls out a couple papers (food stamps) rather than cash or a check book or plastic??? i doubt it man. well i did for the first 17 yrs of my life. i could go on and on with stuff that you take for granted and you just assume you made the right choices. but i'll spare us all.

i ran in college cos it was the only way i could pay for it. my parents didn't graduate high school so if i turned down a full scholarship they'd wonder what the hell was wrong with me. so careful how you spread your all-knowing, everyone who's unhappy f'd it up themselves approach.

Yeah, this blasphemer has been spreading similar shit on a variety of threads. A strong theme of self import and criticisms of any other lifestyle that doesn't conform to his own.

VOXBOX is the man.

Maybe I may be too young to make an accurate judgement, but to me running is all about chasing a dream. It's about finding your individual limits and then refining them. Sure it is possible that no matter how hard you train you may never become an olympian or all american even. The thing is not many do, but one thing that all serious runners share is a desire and passion that nonrunners do not have. Hell almost everyday I think about why the hell I am punishing my body like this, but it is purifying. I mean the sport is full of drama. You have your bad races, but other days you have good ones where you feel completely at one with your body. It may seem like pointless suffering, but at the same time it gives you the will power to just push yourself that much harder in life! How many people have the will power to do this? They wouldn't even be able to comprehend running mile repeats or doing long runs!It defines my life, everytime I get hurt I just do not feel the same without it. I mean if someone is involved in this sport just to get recognition then I'll admit you may never get it. It is a self fullfilling sport! I don't think any other sport can even compare to it in that aspect.

The bottom line is Don't do run to try to impress anybody else, run to impress yourself!

f\'n french wrote:

I definately do not regret running. Running as much and as hard as I did made me a stronger person. Often I look around at the students in my classes knowing that I have endured more pain than they will ever know, that, on occassion, I have pushed my body and mind to its limits. A small fraction of the country has experienced this, leading me to appreciate how running has strengthened me. It truly is a gift.

I don't wish to minimize the effort you expended or pain you endured while running, but try to keep some perspective here. You are what, 20, 21 years old? You have (I hope) many decades of life ahead of you. The pain and suffering you went through during a few seasons of college running will isn't going to seem like a whole lot 30 years. If you are very lucky it might still seem significant. There's a whole world of pain and suffering out there, apart from running.

Sorry if that sounds preachy.

Blasphemer's name is Brian McCuewn.

... Brian McEwen actually.

To the guy who assumed I'm a silver spooner:

Parents divorced when I was 9. My mom had five children, from 1-14. So poor we qualified for free lunch in grade school and middle school. Eligible for welfare from 9-14. So I had exactly the 'food stamps' experience you did, and I was the oldest kid still at home so I got to be the one to help with the shopping.

I put myself through college, to the tune of $60,000. My Mom made enough that I got zero Fin Aid, not even eligible for loans. My dad was out of the picture by then. I didn't get any kind of running scholarship. But I did earn some meager academic ones.

The nose has been so firmly pressed to the grindstone for that time that I didn't take a vacation from age 10 to 25. No joke.

Did you not read far enough into the post to see that I've had to race or work, sometimes race AND work, for nearly EVERY Saturday for 20 years? What "rich suburban kid" willingly does that?

How could you find my name and then misspell it so badly? I guarantee you I never write my name like that.

What I regret is that I have no patience with my running. I am always pushing way to hard and ending up injured. I forget that I have a entire life behind me of running (I'm 24) but I seem to only want to think that if I don't train hard now I won't be able to ever.

So I ask God for patience on a daily basis.

As far as living and breathing running, all is good. I train 2 times a day (most days) and am about to open a specialty running store where I will work 7 days a week and do some coaching...but all is good.

Here's somthing I just wrote...Haven't proof read it or anything, I was just thinking about this thread, and started typing, and 10 minutes later had this:

I love to run, and I love to race. Doing those two things well requires a lot of time and effort, and I'll be damned if I'm not going to give it my best shot, and see exactly how good I can get at this crazy sport.

Maybe in 20 years I'll look back on my life and see a massive waste-land, filled only with mileage figures, workout splits, and race times. Maybe I'll regret spending hundreds of hours on the roads, the trails, and the track. Maybe I'll regret getting up on Sunday mornings for 10 or 15 or 20 milers. Maybe I'll think of all the other things I could have done, all the parties I could have gone to, the academic excellence I could have achieved with a little more effort, the job or promotion I could have gotten if I had just given it a little more attention. Maybe I'll regret missing out on so many things in life, because instead of paying attention to them, my head was always turned the other way, immersed in race results and planning the next day's workouts. Maybe I'll look at my family, and think of how much closer to them I could have been, if only I had come home instead of putting in a few more 130 mile weeks at altitude with other US Elites like Jon Thomas, John Macguire, and Matt Daniels (haha). Maybe I'll think of all the relationships I missed out on, the good times I could have had. Maybe.

But I doubt it. More likely, in 20 years I'll look back on a life and be proud of my accomplishments, proud of pushing the limits, bending them, extending them, maybe even breaking right through the damn things. Maybe I'll look back and cherish all the hours, all the miles, every drop of sweat an accomplishment in and of itself. Maybe I'll remember all the good times I spent with my dad, running side by side, or planning out the next day's training session, the next week's race, the next year's progression. Maybe I'll still be enjoying many of the hundreds of relationships I forged throughout the years. Team mates, competitors, and coaches. Maybe they'll be some of the most influential people in my life. Maybe I'll look at the medals I've won, the records I've broken, and realize that I, unlike so many other people, have done something worthwhile with my life. Maybe I'll come to understand that all the tempos, the 400's, the 800's, the hills, the fartleks, weren't just a form of escaping adult hood. Maybe they were a form of self expression. Maybe they were a stage for artistic performance. Maybe they were a pathway to finding myself. Maybe, just maybe, they were something worthwhile. Maybe in 20 years I'll look around at my contemporaries and see a bunch of overweight, cholesterol-filled, over-medicated, depressed smokers, who never took their shot. Maybe some could have been All-Americans at basketball, maybe some could have been famous authors, or life-saving doctors. But they never took their shot. They never went for it, like I did. Maybe THEY'RE the ones regretting things. Maybe I'll begin to really appreciate the fact that at 36 I can still slip on some spikes and belt out a national class 3 or 5k, or hell, maybe even a world class marathon. Who knows. Maybe I'll have a sense of fulfillment, of contentment. Maybe I won't have any doubts about what could have been, and maybe I'll be a better person for it. Maybe I'll realize that somewhere betwen the gut-wrenching intervals, the glycogen-depleting long runs, the quad-killing hills, and the mind-racking races, I learned something. Something about life, maybe something about myself. Maybe that something will help shape who I am. Maybe...just maybe, it's all worth it.

DJL

P.S. I know it's kind of sappy, and it basically just echos the sentiments of many other posts on this thread, but I thought some of you might enjoy it regardless.

DJL