Not motivated wrote:
Entering third year, have had some issues with injury thoroughoht my career but shown some promising flashes. Been injured to start year and really questioning why I'm doing it. Normal student life seems so fun and I feel like I'm missing out on it. Can anyone who has quit give me their thoughts?
Quit. You will feel a huge burden lifted from your shoulders.
I was in a similar situation: D1 small school, I ran for a while then it realized it just wasn’t worth it.
I had shown some success but was middle of the pack at best. I trained so hard to only get to 26:50 8k. I was in a race at Penn State and there were approximately 500 Runners in the race. I’ll never forget how the first mile of the 5 mile race went out fast, at like 4:53. I looked at the green LED clock and it was like, 4:45, 4:46, 4:47 as I ran past. I was like, whoa I’m gonna hit the wall later in the race, where there are hills and mud. Then, I glanced behind me and there was nobody behind me. Maybe only like 4 or 5 runners. That’s when I realized I suck at running. College is a completely different ball game. Even with all of the aggressive training for years, that still didn’t even get me to middle of the pack that day.
i thought, man, I could train my butt off and maybe get down to 26:30 or low 26:00 in the 8k, but I would still suck compared to most college runners. I thought I was a decent runner during our colleges tryouts where we had to run 10 miles in under an hour, and I did, easily, but still was barely able to keep up with the team.
it just wasn’t worth it for me. The other dudes were more talented and no matter how many 75-80 mile weeks I ran, they could still crank out low 25 8k and kick my butt.
i still ran a lot after I quit and still run to this day a couple days a week to keep fit along with lifting.
The benefits of quitting: I focused more on academics and graduated with strong credentials, got to go to another country and learn another language, got a college girlfriend. I’m sure you could still do those things and while running on the Xc team, but it is logistically more challenging.
good luck.
id say, it’s a win either way for you. If you grind it out, then you can have the pride knowing you stuck with it. If you quit, you can get into a lot of other cool activities.