How to quit?

Good luck to you as you navigate this. I hope you have a great senior year!

I'm a dad of a female who was a good xc runner through ninth grade, struggled a bit in tenth, and then quit because she didn't really like running and wanted to concentrate on swimming. (I was disappointed that she didn't try to maintain xc running somewhat, but I didn't put up a fuss. It's her life.) She has continued to swim in college (D3) and runs a bit in the off-season, and surprised me by training for a half-marathon. She also has time (this being D3) to do some other things, too. Just let yourself be, see what you enjoy doing, and then go for it!

yeah, I guess it's something that's always in the back of your mind, but I suppose you get over it eventually.

thank you so much! yeah, I guess I'll just see what I wanna do in my life, but thank you so much for sharing :)

I'm a big fan of D3. There are some outstanding small liberal arts colleges with endowments larger than most state universities. No athletic scholarships at D3 level but many of these colleges are very generous with financial aid. They have a more reasonable and balanced approach to athletics versus DI. It's no problem if you want to do a semester abroad. If I was an elite HS runner today I'd target top D3 colleges.

This is coming from someone who has never hated running for more than 3 months at a time. learning how to quit something is almost as important as learning how to do something you hate for a bit to get to your next life goal (delayed satisfaction). Sounds like you have over committed yourself to things over people and relationships and thus everything is checking off things from a to-do list to get you to your next day (good grades, running, volunteering etc). It is important to cut back when you are over committed so you have time to relax or have fun. One day it will probably be financially wise for you to quit a job so make sure you don't get into the habit of thinking that everything you commit yourself to you have to do the rest of your life or at least N more years but as others have cautioned don't start quitting the moment you hate something. I'll try to summarize a Steve Jobs quote about that:

every day when you wake up ask yourself if today you are doing what you want to do.. if the answer is "no" too many days in a row change something... the Key here is there will be many days you don't want to go to work, run, volunteer etc but you still need to do those things to live, and not be a burden to your family or society but at some point you will need to pull the plug on a job relationship etc.. and that's ok too

Tell your dad you are pregnant. Wait till you see the shocked look on his face, then tell him 'not really I just want to quit running' - he will be relieved.

Might provide a different perspective here. If you want to get into Stanford or Duke for academics your state championships might push you over the edge. If you can tough it out another year getting that scholarship is going to be so so sweet. Think about it, people who study to get into a great college don't like that either, but they do it anyway so it's kind of the same thing. If you truly feel you need to quit you should but like you said, it'd be a shame to waste all of that training since 7. In my opinion, tough it out for one more year and see how you feel in college. Best of luck

Seems like lots of the people who get into great academic colleges actually do like to study, or at least find it mildly interesting as opposed to hating it.

thanks for the advice :), that makes a lot of sense

yeah, that's not something I've ever really considered, but yeah, I guess it's worth thinking about, thanks!!

thanks! yeah, that's something I have obviously been thinking about, and I suppose one more year would not kill me haha, but yeah, thanks for the advice, I'll definitely consider it :)

omggg, I totally should've done that lolll