RunningTimes : The rise, fall and rebirth of Josh McDougal

Dude, you're going all adult on us. Remember, this is LetsRun where your dreams...or something.

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seriously. Who needs to read this sort of thing?

Once my mother told me "well, it's not like you are going to go to the Olympics or anything."

Not a great feeling. Thanks for reminding me of it.

Shoebacca wrote:

Yeah, my beef with it is that he couldn't keep it enjoyable. I tend to enjoy things I'm decent at, too. If he can't think well of himself running in the low 13s, then I'm not sure how he's ever going to think well in anything he does in life, because apparently the top 1 percentile isn't fun to him.

If we made it so that your entire leg/hip/lower back hurt every time your right foot hit the ground, I'm sure you would still love running just as much. Running fast is fun. Constantly trying to fix an injury that no one seems to be able to fix is a different story.

Shoebacca wrote:

Yeah, my beef with it is that he couldn't keep it enjoyable. I tend to enjoy things I'm decent at, too. If he can't think well of himself running in the low 13s, then I'm not sure how he's ever going to think well in anything he does in life, because apparently the top 1 percentile isn't fun to him.

Do you know how much pressure there is being a top Collegiate athlete? Josh has a lot of expectations on him and stress from running and honestly if he made a comeback, letsrun people would just rip on him anyway. For you, someone who is not as fast, there is significantly less pressure from everyone for you to run fast, but for Josh, it's something none of us could even imagine.

I can definitely see how you can start running for your fans expectations rather than your own. And I can definitely understand why his joy of running is shot.

I know people don't like this approach, but give him some time. Any runner interviewed while down and out is going to present himself as most likely being washed up, or at least as incapable of ever running as fast as he once did. Josh struggled mightily for a couple years, and is now coming off a teaser of a stretch in which he got just healthy enough to train hard enough to *not* come back and race. He's only 24, but of course he's going to sound like he's 34 and cooked because all he has is his own perspective. And when questioned by a journalist about the whys of his injuries, he or anyone will naturally look for a culprit by way of just trying to answer an often answerless question. Maybe it was his strength regimen, maybe not. But Josh is a smart, thoughtful guy who seems to know himself pretty well.

People here wrote off Goucher, including (by the sound of it if not in reality) Adam Goucher, and then he was back. Paul McMullen was back up to 200 pounds and missing some toes, and *he* came back to run as well as before. Stories like this are never guaranteed, but they are not rare. Peter Maher, Judi St. Hiliare, Stephanie Herbst, Webb if you care to count him, Gabe Je...well, not so much, but anyway. I wouldn't write of Josh McDougal quite yet.

Reading not too much between the lines, it sure does seem that Josh was let down by his coaches and trainers, who should have been giving him more of a sense of balance, as well as looking out for his long term prospects.

And that's so typical of the system, and not just in running - gymnastics and football are worse: overstressing athletes to maximize performance today, without regard for long term health, and leaving behind so many beaten up bodies and minds.

barefoot marathoner wrote:

Reading not too much between the lines, it sure does seem that Josh was let down by his coaches and trainers, who should have been giving him more of a sense of balance, as well as looking out for his long term prospects.

And that's so typical of the system, and not just in running - gymnastics and football are worse: overstressing athletes to maximize performance today, without regard for long term health, and leaving behind so many beaten up bodies and minds.

Actually, the article suggests that -- by McDougal's own admission -- left to his own devices he overdoes it, and that did his best running when under the moderating influence of Greg Jimmerson.

From a non religious person, I think it is a great story about an incomplete personal redemption.

Best wishes to him from someone who understands.

My perspective is similar to perspectival's. I was a D1 scholarship guy - pretty good, but not great.

High school running is great. It can and often does set up great habits for life. And the team aspect is fun.

College running is also great, but there's a catch. It takes maturity to re-orient goals. I liked running, and enjoyed the college scene and my teammates, but my adult life started when I really took school seriously in my junior and senior year and set myself up for a very competitive and enriching graduate schools experience. The offshoot of that education is a great career, and that has done great things for me. More than track? Maybe not - track permitted me to get a top flight education, something that would have been difficult from my single mother home. But the point is that perpetually chasing running has its costs, and it only makes sense for a very, very few. And the hazards of perpetual adolescence are real, if one succumbs to it.

I wish McDougal to be happy. Whatever one thinks of him, his body broke down - a devastating thing. I am not sure a serious running career is in the offing - again, I wish him well.

Josh was an NCAA Cross Country Champion. He defeated Galen Rupp in one of the most dramatic finishes the race has seen. Regardless of what happens going forward he is a champion and no one can take that away. Whether it is as a professional runner or a salesman selling widgets the man is going to work harder than 99% of his competition and be enormously successful. Our lives are made of seasons, some longer and colder than others, some hotter and dryer than others. This season of his life may be a difficult one, but it is not his last. Spring is around the corner!

He has no sponsor. I think he sees what he has done and doesn't see a big upside. Improving his pr's by a few seconds isn't going to make him competitive as a pro.

He was always more competitive at cross country than on the track. Perhaps there is no distance at which he can excel. He seems like a genuinely sincere and humble guy and I wish him the best at whatever he decides to do.

I think the race between he and Rupp was one of the best I ever saw. It tells you how deep these guys can go when he talked about the pain he was in on the trip home. I know I can't go that deep!

To the guy above. That is the wrong perspective by both you and Josh. Why would you or Josh limit this to the 5k/10k?

No distance he can excel at? THE MARATHON.

Everything in his career points to that. He has both the endurance, the background of mileage and superb speed. Basically everything a great marathoner needs.

And about the sponsorship problem. McMillian and Hansons would welcome him with open arms RIGHT NOW and he would instantly become a fully sponsored athlete.

sounds like yet another antithesis to LRC's dogma that high mileage yield faster runners.

If you've ever had or know someone with this type of injury it can happen at 50 or 150 miles a week. Go read the loss of coordination mega thread.

perspectival wrote: And this is viewed as somehow noble, or dedicated, or as some kind of starving artist integrity. It's not. It's Peter Pan syndrome. You're missing the prime of your lives if you're not getting paid at least 40K a year (that is, what you could earn at any entry level job) to run. And you'll regret it.

You're making the same mistake that all these critics telling McDougall what he "should" do are making: assuming that everyone else does (or should) share the same set of values as you.

I put running first until I was 28, and never made anywhere close to 40K from running. I don't have any regrets whatsoever about that time: it was an incredible experience. My life now is fine; I have a wife, a PhD, and a career that I'd do for free (but don't). But as much as I love my career, I can't imagine that I'll ever look back and say "Damn, I wish I could have spent 45 years doing this, instead of only spending 35 years and wasting that other 10 years training hard and traveling around the world pursuing a big dream."

Different things make different people tick. If Josh M. doesn't feel the burning drive to keep competing, then it's absolutely right that he should move on. If he wants to give it another shot, that's absolutely right too. Each person has to make that decision on their own -- not with the help of some judgmental, self-righteous prick who thinks you've got "Peter Pan syndrome" if you don't pursue exactly the same goals that he does.

unfortunately, he fell into the same trap that so many other runners fell in, believing that lifting could help him, and it looks like that eventually did him in.

You're a runner, running 130 miles a week, winning races and an NCAA champion. Why are you lifting weights? very unfortunate that he fell into that trap and I feel bad for him.

weights again... wrote:

unfortunately, he fell into the same trap that so many other runners fell in, believing that lifting could help him, and it looks like that eventually did him in.

You're a runner, running 130 miles a week, winning races and an NCAA champion. Why are you lifting weights? very unfortunate that he fell into that trap and I feel bad for him.

Simply astonishing how easy it is to diagnose someone based on a few snippets from a magazine article. If I had known it was that easy I'd have become a sports orthopedist. Guess I missed my calling.

WahhlanWebb wrote:

sounds like yet another antithesis to LRC's dogma that high mileage yield faster runners.

Sounds like you need to learn the distinction between "fast" and "never injured," and while you're at it you should definition what "antithesis" means.

in comparison to hall, mcdougal has always sounded very mature to me and he has always kept to the point in running interviews, rather than always beating us over the head with his god talk. he beat rupp out of sheer guts and much higher mileage and he ran 3:57/13:20 as a junior (Hall could manage 13:16ish only as a senior and never ran faster than 3:42 1500m). So, he was a tremendous talent and many thought that the marathon would have been his best distance. If he gets fully healthy and gets the love for the sport back, watch out. He sounds pretty depressed right now but that can all change. One thing is that you can coach your whole life, but you can be a great runner only in your 20s and some of your 30s. He's got 10 years to do it and he can even be an assistant coach while he's running. It may be that he sees no shot of being nationally competitive now that sub 13 has been accomplished by Teg, Ritz, Solinsky, and Lagat, with Rupp and possibly Webb to follow, but he has a huge base to build on when he comes back.