Do any of you feel obliged to keep training at a high level for fear of regretting it later in life

I put in moderately high mileage for a number of years and ran the obligatory marathons in my mid 20s. Injuries and career forced me to step back, but I kept running and racing at that 40 to 60 miles a week range. 30 years later still at it. Feeling kind of creaky and sore these days but have seen and done a lot. Coulda shoulda woulda run a sub 2:30 marathon in my early 30s, but did 5Ks and XC. Other than that no major regrets.

This is why the 30-40 age group is so soft, and often the 40-50 is more competitive. The 20-something speedsters pack it in at 30.

People in their 30s focus on career. Once you hit 40, you realize running is awesome and focusing on career is much over rated.

This is the time to focus on your career. I'm in my early 40s and wish I had spent more discretionary time on career rather than running during my 30s.

I've had an enjoyable life but now that I'm at an important point in my career I wish I had some of that time back to invest in my career.

Typically quite the opposite; youth is wasted on the ...

If you're done, you're done. It sounds to me like you are. But if not, leave it all out there now. There is only one way to find out what you're truly capable of with racing and it's not gonna happen when you're 45 and wondering what if.

training flats wrote:

This is why the 30-40 age group is so soft, and often the 40-50 is more competitive. The 20-something speedsters pack it in at 30.

People in their 30s focus on career. Once you hit 40, you realize running is awesome and focusing on career is much over rated.

Exactly

Many of us lose the fire in our 30s but come back hard in our 40s. Perfectly normal and hard to avoid.

So, I'll add my story.

In high school, I played soccer in the fall and tennis in the spring. I was one of those dudes who played a lot of sports growing up, and was generally athletic enough to be fairly good at a lot of different ones. Never thought once to join track or cross country, although I ran a 6:58 mile as a 6th grade during one of those Presidential challenges, to which the gym coach thought I could be a good mid guy.

Fast forward to college, nerd school in the East. Join a fraternity, spend most of my time playing beer pong and studying. A couple of my fraternity brothers are on the track team, and are hosting an intramural track meet for the campus to compete. Having played a few different intramural sports with the fraternity, a few of them commented that I was quick and should join the team, as it is typically weak in the sprints.

I show up the intramural meet, and win the 100, 200, 400, and LJ. The only time I remember is the 400, which was 53.3, in flats. The coach is there, tells me that I should join the team when training starts back up in the fall.

I eventually do, mostly to hang out with my friends and pad my resume. Two years later, I hold five school records and are the first All-American sprinter in my school's history. I also continue partying at the same rate, eat like shit, and never lift a single weight. I don't say that to brag, I say that in regret. I took every practice and every race extremely seriously, but had no discipline off the track.

After my final race, I'm burned out. I graduate with a CS degree from the aforementioned nerd school, and I'm eager to start my career and finally get out to Silicon Valley. Years pass, and I never run seriously again.

I regret tremendously because in two years, I went from a complete novice to an All-American, all while doing all of the wrong things off the track, and frankly, as a sprinter being coached by a distance specialist. Do I wonder what could have happened if I had done a few things differently? Yes.

So in regards to your situation, I completely understand that guilt and have in fact started to run again with the idea of maybe running some unattached meets just for kicks. I wish I hadn't stopped all those years back though, and I suspect you'd feel the same.

OP, I can definitely sympathize with you and I've been in a similar place myself recently. Always been a super dedicated runner (obsessive to a fault) and I really looked down on people who would take days off or cut runs short or skip core, etc., out of laziness. And I really loved it too; I genuinely loved going out there and running. Now at 29-years-old, after training hard for 15-years and running into injury and failure time after time, I've started to lose a lot of motivation, get "lazy", and lack enjoyment in running. Multiple days off in a row for no reason, runs cut short because I don't feel like being out there, no strides, no drills.. It's been months since my last 100 mile week or since I did a pushup or situp. I still do workouts and go hard in them, but I just get depressed by how far my fitness has slipped from when I was at my best a several years ago ... and my best was never that great to begin with.

After going on this way for a few months, I really contemplated quitting and just being done with it, but the problem is at this point I'm "pot committed" (for all you poker players out there). I've put in and sacrificed too much for running to quit and "cut my losses" because I just really don't have anything to gain from that. I feel like I need to achieve something to "justify" everything that I've put in.

If you have a million dollars in the pot, even if you only have a 1% chance of winning, you go all in because walking away with the $10 you have left doesn't make any sense if you're already in for a million.

My advice, try to get the enjoyment back. Do whatever it takes for you to love running again. Try training for a new distance, travel to new races/places or get new training partners. And the days you don't enjoy it, do it anyway and "fake it until you make it".

I can't speak for you, but I know I will 100% regret it later in life if I were to quit now. I'd be leaving too much on the table; I'm too far from the kind of times I feel I should have ran if I had done things right and got the chance.

The thing is, one day I'm going to enjoy running again and when that day comes I want to be able to look back and smile at my marathon PR, rather than cringe at the time I know could have been 2, 5 or 10 minutes better. And even if I'm already "done" (as they say) and never PR again, I at least want the peace of mind knowing I saw it through to the end rather than DNFing with only a couple of laps to go.

That's me though. You could be different. Maybe you have more going on and have a lot to gain if you focus more on your career. Personally, I've never been able to relate to people who stress and spend all their effort and time at the office so they can get promoted to a job that will see them more stressed and spending more time and effort at the office. Also probably while I'll never make a ton of money, so to each their own.

TLDR - Just another washed up LRC loser here. Move along.

The two last stories were great.

Do you have the genetic potential to be an elite runner? If not, which if you did, you would know for sure by age 18-20, you don't stand lose enough to justify seriously regretting that you sacrificed training for other endeavors. When I look back, by far my #1 regret not having moe sex with young women before I got old enough to feel like their dad. Not that I didn't train 100 miles a week to get my 5K under the great 15 minute barrier.

marijuologist wrote:

When I look back, by far my #1 regret not having moe sex with young women before I got old enough to feel like their dad.

Wtf is wrong with you.

I'm not olympic, not national, and barely regional caliber of a runner. But I train to race because I've known enough people that have had that privilege taken away. Through death or other means. I bust my a$$ because tomorrow that could be taken away from me. No regrats.

I'm only 21, but I've gone through the same feeling as running was always for my own personal satisfaction. I don't run in college. You're best bet may be to have a period where you don't train very much or very seriously. At the end of the day, the training (which you spend so much more time doing than reaping pr's) should be something you enjoy. If not, drop things down a notch, and if you are rejuvenated, that's good, and if not, there are so many other ways to enjoy life beyond running.

This is exactly my dilemma at the moment, or after this season:

Brief summary - Quite talented junior, ran well first year of college but got ill the second and had a few decent performances here and there after that.

Quit in 2012 for 6 months and had to work had to get back to a semi decent level of fitness. Then basically quit in 2013 for another 6 months and quit in 2014 for 9 months.

Then I ran very close to my pb having been 20kg overweight 3 months before. So I thought, why not give it a go for a year and see what happens...

2015 roles round and I run a 3 second 1500 pb - maybe breaking into a different level of runner. Now I've done another year of training and am thinking, right maybe i can run another 3 -5 seconds quicker... but then what? i'm 26 now and my 'career' hasn't exactly started, i'm in a fairly basically administrative job that has no stress and allows me to train. Do I carry on 'living the life' or do I pack it in and start building a career. Tough choices.

What worries me the most is packing it in, not being satisfied with how the 'career' focus goes and then wanting to get back into it... having to start again and build fitness when I could have just continued to improve. its difficult.

Let it go for a little while, but find a way to stay fit and active so that when (if?) you decide it is a priority again, the road back is not so long.

I started running as a walk on in college at a DIII school, and had a fair amount of success, breaking 14:20 in the 5k my senior year. I kept it together for a year of grad school, but then took a year off from school, moved to a new town, then moved again to go to law school. I jogged here or there, but never really trained hard.

I had a bunch of on again/off again come backs, but never got serious about it again until my wife had our first child. At that point, the bar scene and certain kinds of socializing became less important, my career became more established, and I had the structure necessary to make a more valid comeback attempt.

The result is that I have been one of the most competitive masters runners in the country over the last few years (well behind the marvels like Lagat, Meb, Castille and one or two others, but basically in the mix to be among the next tier down).

I often wonder how good I could have gotten had I stuck with running in my 20s. Running just under 14:20 in my 4th season of track, on 50 miles a week - could I have progressed to break 14 (maybe, probably not)? Could I have qualified for Olympic Trials in the marathon (possibly)? But to what end? I would not have been an Olympian - in short, I would have been what I am now according to the masses on this board - a hobby jogger.

But now I am a hobby jogger who has reconnected with his love of running and who uses it to keep fit, to maintain social bonds with friends, to connect with my community through coaching and giving advice, etc.

I may not have any of that had I not walked away from the sport for some time.

A big part of training hard when you are young is to see how fast you can go.

That is the only time in your life where you can see what your full potential is.

If you have lost the will to push yourself, then you are not going to run any faster.

It may be a good time to step away or scale down.

It is hard to push it in your late 20's and early 30's if you train hard and are not getting faster.

So most people get away from running because the search for a PR can no longer be fulfilled.

Later, you may get back into it just for the joy of being able to do a solid tempo run.

The challenge of getting back into shape can be rewarding because seeing improvement is rewarding.

Running hard and not getting better kind of sucks.

Imagine yourself 20 - 30 years from now, looking back on your life...

Was it worth all the stress and unhappiness worrying about how you may or may not feel guilty about not running harder? Is running that important considering that it's not your profession. Run easy, take some time off, enjoy your life, focus on your career

As the others have said, maybe in your 40's you'll be rejuvenated/motivated to run harder again.

You only have one shot at life

I am more nervous to train too hard for fear of regretting it later in life. Knee pain and possible replacements. I am scared that my body will break down.

Former DI Guy wrote:

My advice, try to get the enjoyment back. Do whatever it takes for you to love running again. Try training for a new distance, travel to new races/places or get new training partners. And the days you don't enjoy it, do it anyway and "fake it until you make it".

I'd agree with this. But competing is not necessary. Just enjoying running. It doesn't have to be towards any end or goal.

The focus of a competition is perhaps too much - just enjoy the activity. If you have to miss a week because life intrudes, so what. There are many gratifying things in life, and running is just one of them.

I was permanently sidelined by injury at 22 and never got to go after any PRs. Not long ago I would have told you to feel blessed that you are able to do it at all, and to take advantage of it while you can. Now at 28 I'm not sure that I would do it myself if I could still run. My life has started to change rapidly with family and a career. Sure I would still like to, but I realize the toll it takes on other areas of your life that are now more important to me.

Go ahead and take a competitive break. It's tough to keep after it for so many years. If you heart isn't in it you won't be running very well anyway. If you take 6 months "off" while still running 40-60 mpw, it won't be all that hard to get back in shape. You'll end up running a lot of that mileage pretty quick because you won't be dead from workouts. If you start to get the itch again you can be back within 4 months. Think of it as a mental recovery run so you can come back and hammer that next phase.

I feel more or less the same way right now, and I am 47 years old. I began running late in life, in my forties. Thus, I am very motivated to get in some good performances prior to my 50th birthday. However, improvement is not a given, and we are sometimes surprised by our results. Have been feeling good lately, and so, on the spur of the moment, I entered a 10k, even though I am between cycles. Was not expecting a PR as I am not in PR shape, but was expecting to have no problem beating last year's time. The result: the course felt tougher than last year, and I did not beat last year's time (though I was only four seconds slow). I was surprised that I felt so little "oomph" or "drive" in that race. I just did not want to push it--even though I had such good runs in the two weeks prior to the race, and had no inkling of ending up being slower than last year. In fact, the race features two tough climbs, and on the second one, I wanted to stop, but, thankfully, I did not. I usually get this way only when I am breathing too fast and am feeling that awful feeling that comes with a lack of oxygen. I did not feel this in the race. I just wanted to "take a break." I gather I am getting "stale." I hope it goes away.

All the best to you...