The term "balance" is half-ass as it applies to running performance goals. Wouldn't you rather reach your full potential in your 20s and then have plenty of time to party in your mid-30s after you are past your prime? The chicks, booze, and bars will always be there but your body and it's capacity to perform at it's peak level will not be.
I would hate to look back at college and only have memories of running and attending class.
While agree that it is the one time you can really concentrate on running, there is an off season. And I'd say use it.
Again, it's about striking a certain balance. Don't do the late nights and drinking and such during the season or the night before a big meet.
This is the problem with most Americans, there is no balance. People see things in such black and white - no wonder the US is in the state that it is in - nothing but extreme polariztaion.
People seem to be saying either or ... black or white ... unless you are on the edge of being qualifying for the Olympics ... "wasting your youth doing nothing but running". I would argure that many people are wasting their lives and futures on booze. How many lives have been wasted in a bottle? How many spouses and children been beaten because of booze, how many marriages have failed because of alcohol??? Millions. Ask yourself the same question about running ... I think that you get the picture. There is no RA (Runners Annonymous) like AA, there is no "Runanon" like there is for families of people with dependencies.
EZ10Miler says that he wouldn't trade his fun for 1 min in the 10K - that is certainly fine and his decision. Some people carry this much further, sometimes EZ's "1 min in the 10K" becomes for some "I wouldn't trade my fun for [more time with my wife, my family, my job]" Many of these habits and addictions are started in college and people just can't shake them once they are out. College supports this lifestyle and it is not that apparent in college, but then you graduate and get a job, family, etc. where drinking is not enabled, life becomes more difficult.
Sorry guys, but you have the rest of your life to figure out how much you can drink. Your ability to run fast is like the sand in an hour glass, it is quickly running out quickly.
There is nothing wrong with being a shade of gray ... having a few responsible drinks occasionally, while trying to see how fast you can make your body run some number of laps around a track, even if you are not on the verge of qualifying for the Olympics.
Ask the "old guys" here, I'm guessing that most will tell you that it seems like just yesterday that they were 16, 21, 25, 30, 35.
Like a rock
And I stood arrow straight
Unencumbered by the weight
Of all these hustlers and their schemes
I stood proud, I stood tall
High above it all
I still believed in my dreams
Twenty years now
Whered they go?
Twenty years
I dont know
Sit and I wonder sometimes
Where theyve gone
I don't know why so many feel like they have to drink. I've been drunk before, but it's so overrated. I think I get laid MORE because I don't drink--I'm more of a dominant factor, more in control, instead of having the illusion that I'm funny and that girls want me.
Not everyone drinks.
I'm pretty crazy, I have lots of fun, and I won't miss one second that I wasn't drinking. I go to parties, but I don't feel the need to emulate the Animal House phenomenon, as if that's the only way you can have fun in college. There is so much more to do than that. I'm not religious and I'm certainly not anti-partying. I'm a big goofy dork who has good friends I have fun with, and I still get action with girls, probably more than other athletes I know.
Drinking is a lot like video games. The more you do it, the more addicted you get to it, and you think about it more and look forward to the time you get to do it again. You end up wasting all your time doing it for nothing.
There are lots of things in the world that are relaxing and fun, that will create memories you can look back on. Running is hard work, but drinking is not the outlet I look to to relieve the pressure and intensity of training and school.
For shorter distances, I'm not convinced it matters. I got blitzed at a birthday party the night before a "just for fun" 5k and I felt great and ran faster than I expected. Since then, I've tested this theory out with several 5k's that I've done and it never seems to affect my performance. I can go dry the week before a 5k or I can get drunk the night before, and I run about the same.
I'm kind of a weird person though and I've had several friends that have tried this after I told them about it, and they have had bad results.
Also, I think a lot of it has to do with how frequently you drink. If I got drunk every night for a week straight before a race, I'd feel like sh!t and have a horrible race. It wears you down after several nights, but one single night of partying, doesn't seem to affect me.
Longer distances, where hydration plays more importance, don't drink the night before, or maybe even several nights before.
It also depends on what you're used to. I think I read somewhere that Deena always has a glass of red wine, every night. And that she had one the night before the Olympic Marathon. That sounds crazy to me, because even a glass of red wine seems to dehydrate me, but it works for her.
So, play around with it. If it doesn't seem to negatively impact you much, then party away. If it does affect you a lot, and your running is important to you, then scale back, or go dry for parts of your season, like others have suggested.
It's funny to me that the big dichotomy everyone is talking about here is between: 1) running as fast as you possibly can in your youth; and 2) using enough alcohol and drugs to have lots of fun.
As one who ran pretty fast but tipped the scales far in favor of #2, I still managed to preserve enough brain cells to know that there aren't too many people of substance in the world who would have an existential crisis over failing at either of these pursuits.
Anyway, put me in the camp who rates a fun an interesting life as more important than clocking fast times. The sauce makes for some fun, but also interferes with fun at times, and undermines the potential of a whole lot of abusers in all aspects of work and life. If you miss a lot of workouts because of hangovers, you may be at risk for being one of those people who will regret drinking for screwing up more than your 10K PR one day. Or you might be a normal kid who does just fine in the end.
Looking back, I think I had the most fun when I wasn't completely trashed -- so some form of moderation is probably a happy medium.
.... so you take advantage of drunk chicks at parties?
Hell Yeah!
Okay, seriously, my point was, if you're going to a party to hook up, you have a better chance to do it if you're not drunk than if you're blitzed. If that's what you want. But if you're sober, at least you won't wake up with a Texas two bager (a second bag for you in case her bag falls off)!
But hey, I look a lot more like Brad Pitt when the ladies put their beer goggles on!
Flip f wrote:
The term "balance" is half-ass as it applies to running performance goals. Wouldn't you rather reach your full potential in your 20s and then have plenty of time to party in your mid-30s after you are past your prime? The chicks, booze, and bars will always be there but your body and it's capacity to perform at it's peak level will not be.
Oh the chicks will be there allright. Only they'll be in their late 30s (like you) and mostly nowhere near as hot as they were back in the 20s. Neither will you, for that matter. Too many of your friends will have moved on from their partying days and will be married with kids. Then you'll be the 38 year old hanging out with 20 somethings.
Besides, "past your prime" depends upon the distance and your physiology. Carlos Lopes didn't peak in the 10k until he was 37 years old. Set a marathon world record at 38. And it's too easy to set new goals, justify training just a few more years, etc. Then you're some guy in his 40s with great PRs and no life. Or worse, a 40+ year old trying to hang out with 20-somethings
The term "balance" might be "half-ass" in terms of running goals but those running goals aren't going to seem like a whole lot when you've ignored most of your 20s and 30s so that you could knock 10 minutes off your best marathon.
Well congratulations on chosing not to drink. If you don't drink why did you even responde to this thread?
Maybe you feel better about yourself for being so "above it all." Personally I like to drink, and I like to get drunk on occation. To each his own.
I partied the first two and a half years of college. I got fat and ran slow. The other two and a half years I focused. I say that's the best way to do it. I have some regrets, but for the most part I had the best of both worlds.