Do college/mid 20s runners still relate to "Once a Runner"?

I think the Andrea part was the weakest part of the book because not enough pages were spent on the storyline. Its ok as it is, Parker wasn't writing the next great American epic. I kind of get it though - Quenton and Andrea dated for all of one semester, so its not some super long term relationship. They dated from September to January in Once a Runner. Its implied that Quenton breaks up with Andrea too. Andrea could easily have not even appeared in Again to Carthage without the book being any weaker.

Anyways, if you want a book where dating plays a more central role to the story, there is Pain. It has its own problems, the author seems to think alcoholism is cool and that "just a 6 pack" is a light night of drinking, but the protagonist's relationship is just as central as his running.

I'm a little older than you, also female and 100% agree. I absolutely loved Running with the Buffaloes but found Once A Runner a big disappointment.

My experience as well. I didn't know about it in the late 80's and early 90's and I think I only heard about once I started coming here.

I think if I had read it when I was in HS I would have loved it, instead I read it as a 40 year old and it just seemed very dated.

RWTB is better as far as running books go.

Relax

the main character didn't use social media and there wasn't any mention of palestine so I really couldn't relate so I stopped reading after 2 pages and asked ChatGPT to summarize the book for me but I thought that was boring so stopped reading that after 3 sentences and then I watched tiktok for 5 hours straight about funny pranks and why china isn't that bad actually. my parents pay $80,000 each year for me to go to Bates college.

Relax

If they're not staging fake trials for their teammates they need to put the phone down and study this book like the damn bible that it is.

That makes sense. I have only read OAR all the way through when I was in college. I’ve reread parts recently (age 38) and there are definitely cheesy and dated parts to it that were easier to ignore back then. I see it as a diamond in the rough.

Back in the day there were LetsRun discussions about how it should be made into a movie and who you’d cast. Someone even made a trailer for it that was actually convincing for the time. Of course now that I watch it, it’s a little cheesy. But the idea of it being a movie has always stayed with me.

I bought this book like 35 years ago. It wasn't good. It just seemed like self-glorification in his own mind.

There should be a sequal to Once a Runner 2 where Quentin Cassidy makes a comeback as a master's runner with supershoes, bicarp, and wavelight pacing. Despite aging, the storyline could be about him running the same times with all the modern advantages