I was forced to run at a young age by my father and my mother was too scared of his violence to stop it, although she disagreed with his behavior.
Unfortunately, I was good at it (4:25 freshman mile, 4:10 sophomore), so I got a little more freedom from Dad as I went through high school, although my brother tells me that I got beaten by my Dad after the 4:10 as a sophomore as only I only placed third in the race. I have blanked the whole thing out, which is either good or very scary. I simply have no memories. My brother reminded me that my team won the XC state meet twice. I only remembered once in my senior year. I have moved on.
My biggest regrets are not running, it is that I never had a childhood. No bike as a kid since I would ride it instead of running, No ball glove since baseball took away from running (I thought I was one of the best in my town when I borrowed other kid's gloves to play, but little league was out. So was cub scouts. So was most everything).
One smart decision I made. I went to college on a mixed academic/track scholarship. My coach had coached my father in 1959 for the one year my father attended my school!. My coach was in his 60s, so the timeline makes sense. My Dad was kicked out for sexual assault but walked since that is the way things went those days. (My Dad was also a very successful high school coach for 3 years when I was young but got fired for -you guessed it-sleeping with a student).
My college coach knew what I was dealing with. I think he recruited me (aside from a 3:48 1500m) because he wanted to help me. He did not want me going home in summers and arranged for me to stay-even Christmas. Mom was a mess after the divorce and all the women and violence anyway.
Luckily, given Dad's rap at the old school, he stayed away. He remarried a much younger women who really needed material stuff, so he dropped the whole running thing as he had a big house to build, clubs to join, and Mercedes to buy.
Anyway, Coach knew what I was dealing with. He also wasn't strict with my training. I never ran 2x a day. He also really encouraged my studies.
I don't really like running and I don't think I have natural endurance, but the sport also gave me a father figure that I badly needed.
My brother and I, despite all our academic success (Him, top law school, me, Ph.D. in Econ from a great school), still have a fantasy where we could have just left high school, went to community college, paid rent, and lived like normal kids. We think we would have worked are way up.