26. Thinking of putting my life on hold to take one last shot at running in 2015.

Why do people on here think that qualifying to run in the Olympic trials is worth putting your entire life on hold? It's one friggin race. Say you train your butt off for the next 5 years and run 2:18 to qualify. Then what? You still aren't an actual Olympian, nor will you ever be. You have absolutely no chance of coming in the top 3.

It's the Olympic TRIALS people, not the actual Olympics!

Tyrone. wrote:

Why do people on here think that qualifying to run in the Olympic trials is worth putting your entire life on hold? It's one friggin race. Say you train your butt off for the next 5 years and run 2:18 to qualify. Then what? You still aren't an actual Olympian, nor will you ever be. You have absolutely no chance of coming in the top 3.

It's the Olympic TRIALS people, not the actual Olympics!

Other than genetics, this is probably the best reason for why America can't keep up with the East Africans.

Why train to make the Olympic Trials? Because you want to. Why do anything else? There is no true value to anything we do except that with which we imbue it. And then, ultimately, we die, and nothing we did matters. Got married? Had kids? Had a good job? Made good money? Doesn't matter. At all. That's the ultimate truth. So in the meantime, do what you want.

Confident Leadership wrote:

Tyrone. wrote:

Why do people on here think that qualifying to run in the Olympic trials is worth putting your entire life on hold? It's one friggin race. Say you train your butt off for the next 5 years and run 2:18 to qualify. Then what? You still aren't an actual Olympian, nor will you ever be. You have absolutely no chance of coming in the top 3.

It's the Olympic TRIALS people, not the actual Olympics!

Other than genetics, this is probably the best reason for why America can't keep up with the East Africans.

Most of them seem to have retired at 26.

Do it and check out the book Chasing Ghosts where the protagonist faces a similar crossroads in his life.

If you hate your PhD program, that is a different issue than whether you should put your life on hold to run. Don't use running as an excuse for not examining what your career goals are.

That said, a PhD is the perfect place to train to your potential. If you can't get fast while living a normal life, you are not going to be significantly faster focusing just on running. Either you want it, and you have some talent, or you don't.

All that said, don't waste your life doing a PhD you hate. Figure out what you want out of a career and go get it - now. Do not wait.

I've gotten some pretty strange responses on here, so I want to clear some things up. My current PhD program is requiring me to work 60+ hours/week. There's not enough time to run more than about 30mpw, so in my case, grad school is not taking time off of life. I hate my program for other reasons and would leave it even if running wasn't on the radar. I WOULD consider transferring to a different program though.

As for being poor, no, training hard for me would not mean moving to Flagstaff and joining a club and not working. I train on my own very well and was actually in pretty good shape last year when I was simply working a full time job (40hrs/week). I was able to do the same workouts I was doing when I was in about 30:00 10k shape in college, and I wasn't even training seriously last year. That's one of the reasons I've been thinking about running a lot lately: I feel stronger and more athletic now than ever before, like I'm just at a different level physically now at 26 than I was when I was in college and was 22 or younger. I feel like I achieve the same fitness off less work, or greater fitness of the same work. I got a bad stress fracture my best year of running going into track, so my PRs aren't great, but that year I beat guys in xc who went on to run around 29:00. I also ran under 4:15 for 1600m in high school (I don't want to give my exact PRs), so I had potential.

Finally, running is a huge part of my life. I totally understand it seems crazy to a lot of people to care about just making the trials or something like that, but it's crazy to a lot of people just to run a few miles every day. I am most happy and fulfilled when I am running a lot and training hard. I also wouldn't be completely putting my life on hold; I would simply get some sort of job in my field that wasn't super demanding (like last year) and just make a conscious decision to put running ahead of everything else (relationships, drinking, etc). I don't really see myself getting married any time soon, maybe not even within the next 8 years, so ignoring relationships for 2 years or so wouldn't really be hard for me.

Thanks for the input so far those of you who took my post seriously.

Two words:

AJ Acosta.

30:00? Really?

Go get your PhD, son.

Dude, it's crazy because, even in your wildest dreams, what you're shooting for will not mean diddly squat. It's great to run in the Olympic Trials, but what you're talking about amounts to taking 2 years off from life to qualify for MLB tryouts.

I would say. goforit! You never know!?!

Sure a 30 min. 10 km butthey maybe if you organize your lifestyle for training, maybe under 29 or even better.

A good coach who's willing to work with you would be of a great asset.

There's always time (youre only 26 now) to get on with the other things in life.

Everything you do has an opportunity cost. It sounds like trying the running thing is what you want to do.

I ran my last race at age 24, but struggled through getting back in shape then getting injuries doing twice a day training (incl a lot of cross training) for about a year or two more (while also doing a PhD programme).

In hindsight, I wish I'd quit sooner. My life really took off after I did. I had all this extra time and energy, which went into the phd as well as founding and running an arts organisation at night. Then I moved country to be a postdoc, and my career has been pretty great (but all-consuming) since - never a prospect of getting back to serious training. I now realise that while I was obsessive at running, getting to sub-elite level (what it sounds like you're aiming at) but going no further was the most I could have achieved, and I feel like I've done a lot more with my life in other areas.

On the other hand, if I had quit earlier, I guess I would have had more reasons to look back and wonder 'what if' - but right now, I wish I had those years back, and had spent them on awesome stuff that wasn't running 100mpw and icing various parts of my legs every week. Still enjoy watching other people run, much easier!

Camus wrote:

Why train to make the Olympic Trials? Because you want to. Why do anything else? There is no true value to anything we do except that with which we imbue it. And then, ultimately, we die, and nothing we did matters. Got married? Had kids? Had a good job? Made good money? Doesn't matter. At all. That's the ultimate truth. So in the meantime, do what you want.

Camus gives OP the best input yet. Dude, you're not 'putting your life on hold' by running. In fact, you're doing so with the kids/family option apparently taken by the majority of MB viewers. Those guys are flushing their entire over-25 lives down the toilet. Having kids is the least worthwhile thing you can do. Running is the most - according to you, and you get to decide. I realize every else in our culture makes collossoly bad decisions (getting married, agreeing to support your wife financially, knocking her up, etc) and the one time a guy is actually considering something better and more worthwhile, they rag on him.

Let the masses have their shallow, meaningless lives fullfilling their goal of overpopulating planet Earth and do exactly what you feel you should be doing. By avoiding the conventional toute, you are missing nothing but torture and certainly not 'putting life on hold'!

never had my shot wrote:

I also wouldn't be completely putting my life on hold; I would simply get some sort of job in my field that wasn't super demanding (like last year) and just make a conscious decision to put running ahead of everything else (relationships, drinking, etc). I don't really see myself getting married any time soon, maybe not even within the next 8 years, so ignoring relationships for 2 years or so wouldn't really be hard for me.

This paragraph makes me sad. Running, even competitive running, takes up hardly any time. Even if you run twice a day, do some sort of core routine, and stretch/ice/whatever, you're out maybe three hours. Likely no more than two.

To free up these 2-3 hours, would you ignore all relationships, or just romantic ones? Would you still have friends? Talk to family?

Training hard doesn't require you to live like a monk. In fact, your running will probably be better with some balance in your life. A couple of beers on the weekend or taking a girl out won't derail you.

I say do it if you can swing it financially and not compromise your future employment/earning potential (e.g., if you can take a leave of absence from your PhD program without losing your spot/funding). I was pretty good in high school and decent in college, but now I'm in my 30s and have a wife, 2 kids, a mortgage, and a 9-5, and I will never be able to do this, even if I thought I could be competitive. I basically hung up the spikes until a couple of years after I graduated from law school, and now that I am getting back into it a bit, I am just now starting to touch some of the times I was running in high school. It would have been fun to know how fast I could have run in my prime if I had focused just on running and used a more sophisticated training program. You have that chance now. Good luck -- I hope you do it.

This, exactly. Even if the plus from a 60+ hour work week was a big plus, why can you only run 30mpw? If running is important to you, you should be able to find the time. Even if you sleep 9 hours a night and work 75 hours a week, that still leaves you 30 hours to do whatever (including running).

LRC coaching? wrote:

The question is, will the Brojos coach you for free?

Like some threads are worthless without pics, this thread is kind of worthless without PRs.

1. What are your PRs?

2. I don't know how demanding a PHd program but an undergraduate college lifestyle is ideal for running. It's better than being a pro runner in many ways- there is enough to do during the day to stay busy but nothing to tire you out. There is no way you will be running for more than 2 hours a day. I can't possibly see how EVERYTHING would take more than 5 hours a day. Even if you sleep 10 hours a day. that still leaves 9 hours a day for something else.

Do it!

I was in a similar setting, and perhaps even more implausible per the nay-sayers....as a freshman in college I finished second to my training partner at the triathlon national championships...probably a lucky results to some extent, but created in me the same "what if" sentiment that you have now. I ultimately took a leave of absence from school, trained like crazy and found out that I was a mediocre pro for a few years...disappointed about that, but pleased I didn't leave myself with the "what-ifs"

Contrary to what the nay-sayers might suggest, I was able to return to college (where I felt I was a more mature and focused student) and now am successful in my career....and still working out.

YMMV

Separate from any running considerations, you might want to

consider dropping out of your PhD program and getting back into a career job with regular hours.

If you find yourself running regularly and still motivated to train for the Olympic Trials, then meet with a coach who could work with you to train for that goal. You may find that at 26 and your current fitness level (versus past PRs), that it's not a realistic training goal to qualify for the Olympic Trials in less than 2 years. If you still want to train regularly to see what you could do in that time (or more), then maybe that's worthwhile, and you'll be continuing in a career job during this time.