dealing with realizing you never reached your full running potential

Think about the things you're doing right now, where you still have the time to reach your potential. Right now, you wallowing about running is preventing you from applying energy to an aspect of your life where you can still excel to the best of your abilities.

Think about it: you now have no control over your running career in your 20s. But you do have control over what you can do with your 40s. Get after it!

ok

20:44 my a s s.

Even winning an Olympic gold medal is meaningless in the grand scheme of life. Are you healthy? Is there people that love you and that you love? If so, then you’ve “reached your full potential.” Everything else is meaningless.

Bingo. I reached "sub-elite" status in the marathon (OTQ) and possibly could have reached "elite" status had a worked harder and longer. So what? Unless I had the talent to be the second coming of Eliud Kipchoge, which is highly unlikely, I was always going to make more of a contribution to society and build a bigger bank account by pursuing that "other more important thing". I'm not sorry at all that I probably left something on the table as a runner.

You are an imbecile. My 5k, 8k, 10 mile and all of my track times are way better than yours.

You ran a mediocre marathon which in comparison to my times is a much lesser performance. And you know it.

Don't you feel pathetic trying to think you ever were in my league?

I was told you are a lifter upper.

Never ran competitively.
Thought I’d be satisfied if I ran a marathon.

Then thought I’d be satisfied if I qualified for Boston.

Then thought I’d be satisfied if I ran sub 3.

Then thought I’d be satisfied if I ran sub 2:50. I never did that one, but came really close.

The point is almost nobody is satisfied with their running career, especially if they don’t go pro. Most of us aren’t even close.

I’m coming back after a 7 year break at 44 and it is really good to start running some workouts/races in times I was running at 24-25. I didn’t really peak until 31. I’ll likely not get back to that peak, but it’s possible since I was never that fast and it will be very fun to try.

Ran my best (2:51) at age 30 and was on the upswing at the time. Life got in the way (like it does for almost everyone at some point) and my running turning into "staying in shape" for about a dozen or so years. Did not run a single race from 2004 until 2012 and only ran a handful from 2012 through around 2017 with not much training. In 2018 I found time to really train and caught the racing bug again. Covid ended any chance to race for a while but less work meant even more time to train. Broke 3:00 in my late 40s for the first time since I was 30 and it was a 2:46 on the Masters age-graded calculator. I'll never run 2:51 again but I'm looking to run an age-graded sub-2:45 in October. I'm certain I could have run close to 2:45 in my early 30s but I'm not going to dwell on "what could have been." Becoming a Masters runner has given me motivation to set age equivalent PRs. Find your motivation and just get out there and be the best you can be TODAY; forget about yesterday. Besides, very few people truly reach their potential unless they are professional runners. For the rest of us mere mortals, life takes precedence.

Consider that almost no one, even the elites, truly reach their full potential. Run to challenge yourself. Run to have fun. These are great blessings in life.

I don't usually enter into this sort of thing, but the question struck a chord in me. I didn't even start running properly until 18. I didn't have a clue about training so I ran hard and long every day. I just liked to run. After 6 months jogging around I entered my first marathon and ran 2:51. The next about 10 months later 2:33. The year after that 2:26. So I figured I'd train harder still. I ran an average of 120 miles a week while working full time doing manual labor. The highest weekly total I got to was 171. I still remember the hardest day of running I ever had. 6 miles to work. 8 hours hard digging. 8 miles to a race. Ran 10k on the track as a tempo and as tired as hell in 32 minutes. Ran 12 miles home. 2 weeks later my body was ruined with a stress related auto immune disease (ankylosing spondylitis). I was told my running ambitions were over at 23. At 61 I still run today - slowly and often painfully, but I think I have reconciled myself to what is and what could have been. I am not bitter or unhappy. But every now and then, I wonder. Enjoy every moment.

I didn't reach my potential in a lot of things. No one cares. I don't even care.

literally nobody reaches their full running potential. mathematical impossibility.

so gtfover it

Everyone has their 'real' pr's and their 'theoretical' pr's, and if you race long enough you can get pretty accurate theoreticals. You just need to be honest with yourself. Don't tell others your theoreticals, though - no-one will believe you!

Almost every elite athlete reaches his potential. They train hard for years and years. What else do you think they should be doing to run even faster?

Will Rupp one day regret he never broke the AR in marathon? He certainly had the potential, but didn't peak for the right race. If he had started racing marathons earlier, he would have got more opportunities to break the record.

How about Flanagan? She even went to Berlin in trying to break the record. That must have been some financial sacrifice since she would have got more appearance fee from NYC or Chicago. Does she have any regret she never won Boston?

This! I didn't run from 18 to 33, picked it up again at 33 and have made significant progress from where I was in 2017!

Yep, even if you train right there's so much luck involved to peak at the right time as well.

Did some idiot like 6 posts above just say his hardest day of running was 30+ miles in one day, including a race, and with an 8 hour work day of physical labor..and then he got injured? ya no shiet doofus I coulda told ya that wasn’t the smartest idea. what the f LMAOOOOO