Cannot see myself doing anything besides running as an occupation

Here are some tips that may or may not work wrote:

Start building an online social media presence to increase your desirability. Reebok or under armour or hoka one one is going to be more likely to hire someone with 50,000 YouTube vlog subscribers or 100k Instagram followers than just some random unknown guy who runs a 14:00 5k. Also, consider running ultras.

^ this

also just like any other profession you should try it out in the summers while in school to see if it is a good fit for you.

So next summer just run, sleep and vlog.

I am in high school going into my junior year of track also and I feel the same exact way you do. I find I'm not really passionate about anything in school anywhere close to running and I am completely willing to make less money running and doing way I love than some job I don't want to do. My xc 5k pr is 15:51 but I have only been running for a year and I recently ran a 9:36 3200m indoors and hope to run sub 9:20 and sub 4:20 this track season as well as hopefully a 15:20 indoor 5k coming up soon. So we're about the same speed (kinda) but my point is I'm in the same boat as you and I really can't see myself doing anything other than professional running in the future.

notveganboi wrote:

When I was 4 I wanted to be a firefighter, I couldn't think of doing anything besides it as an occupation

I don't believe this. Nobody wants to be a firefighter at that age. You might have wanted to be a fireman, but not a firefighter.

please elaborate wrote:

Bruce Frederick wrote:

Avoid taking her down to the river. You'll end up with a union card and a wedding coat for your 19th birthday.

If this occurs, should he expect any wedding day smiles or walks down the aisle? Flowers? A wedding dress?

No way, mister. All them things that seemed so important, they'll vanish right into the air

Bruce Frederick wrote:

Avoid taking her down to the river. You'll end up with a union card and a wedding coat for your 19th birthday.

Da Burgh

Dude, a lot of Kids in your age want/ wanted to do that. You gotta find a way to do better then them. Ask yourself: Do you think you’re capable of doing that?

Good. Then don’t forget about other stuff to do in life.

Good Luck.

Bruce Frederick wrote:

Avoid taking her down to the river. You'll end up with a union card and a wedding coat for your 19th birthday.

And driving your brother's car, working for the Johnstown Company!

It's January and you're about to go into your Junior year of high school. What happened this cross country season?

:

*How are you "going" into your Junior year in January?

Just go have fun and don't dwell at your age on making money racing later in life. You can really enjoy your youth as a 4:15/9:00. Go and get good money at a D-1 Program, be a really good runner, make friends, get a career *(you'll find something), family, etc. Like me and millions of others, you will later be thankful for running and all it brings you without having to be the next Rupp.

I and many of us here have 30-40 year running friends, run age group races, and have what we have in large part because of running. You are going to find out that's what it's all about.

Be happy with that as life unfolds and if you run sub-13:00, 27:00 or 3:30 worry about it later. .

Things change you will change. I had the same ideas as you my family supported me as a runner but they did not support me living at home running races at 24 years of age. I also had a tough time in the dating world. I found women want a financially secure guy that can support them and travel not a weekend warrior that talks about running. You are only young once I am 35 now and haven't ran a race in year's. This is coming from a former 4:04 Miler. Don't give up your day job or career options because regardless unless your name is Bernard Lagat you will have to grow up sometime and when you do you don't want to be a ditch digger.

If you really want to spend your life in athletics, I recommend the following.

Take AP Bio, AP Calc and AP Chemistry in high school. Get 5s on the AP test. Do that and you will make freshman year college a lot less stressful and probably avoid weed-out classes. Choose either Kinesiology or Biology as your college major. Kines if you are a people person/extro-vert or Biology if you are more book-oriented/introverted. From there, you can choose career paths such as a physical therapist, teacher, coaching, advanced sports training or possibly medicine/research if you do really well.

All of these jobs have high expectations but generally offer some freedom of schedule to train.

No one is going to pay you a dime to run unless you are sub 1:47/3:56/13:40/28:00/2:17. No one is going to pay you a living wage unless you are sub 1:45/3:53/13:10/27:30/2:13. On the other hand, a tenured high school teacher/ track coach in a good school district in Chicago, Orange County, or suburban New York makes close to a $100,000/yr and will retire with a pension.

There is nothing wrong with trying to keep running the most important thing in your life. However, you can only train 2 hours a day so give yourself some options as you pursue your goals.

Believe it or not you can pull down some "decent" scratch by cherry picking lots of local races that pay in the 1-2k range. By decent (for a runner) I say 15k per year. And if you have a job like apartment manager with free rent it's not too bad.

30:45X-C1978 wrote:

Bruce Frederick wrote:

Avoid taking her down to the river. You'll end up with a union card and a wedding coat for your 19th birthday.

And driving your brother's car, working for the Johnstown Company!

Now all them things that seemed so important

Well mister they vanished right into the air

Now I just act like I don't remember

Mary acts like she don't care

10/10. You should take up screenwriting. Way to tap into the pathos of a captive audience.

learn to write, get hired to run a blog, go to ethiopia and train.... at some point.

write 4 hours between morning and afternoon sessions.....

go for it.

what's your 400 PR?

if above 54 please move up to the marathon by age 27

Watch the movie "Hoop Dreams", where 8th grade kids are convinced they can make a living as NBA players, and translate that to the much smaller (and less funded) world of professional distance running. Find an academic interest that has some good career prospects and keep the running as an extra-curricular activity.

Most pension funds are vastly underfunded now, and by the time you get a teaching offer the situation will likely be worse. Do not count on the pension paying you much money in the future — the money they will take out of your check will not go to the future you but to pay some retired teacher living in Florida. So you should heavily discount the pension fund payments in you career calculus, although not as much as you should discount the payments you think you might get for being a pro runner.

Unlike all the Gloomy Gus advice above, I think you are at the pro level RIGHT NOW. You will need to google the following:

Gender flexibility

CAS ruling

Ca$ter $emenya

(caveat, you might want to consider an event other than the w800m, as things are a bit "heated" in there right now. How do you feel about the women's steeple or w1500?)

Believe me, the future is bullish for those that move on this now.