neanderthal dream wrote:
Not to get too sentimental, but I'm glad as hell I gave it a shot. There's nothing like putting in the work and knowing your body is a finely tuned machine. Whether it was ripping off 400s in 1500/5000 training faster than I ever thought possible, or finishing 8 miles of threshold work at the end of a 20 miler and knowing there was more in the tank... There was nothing like being in the best shape of my life.
This should be QOTD
Ypm wrote:
Wow, just came across this thread for the first time and it really resonated with me. I wasn't nearly as fast as you in high school (17:40, 10:21, 4:48 PRs), but I really wanted to run in college. Had a couple offers from some small D3 schools that I was considering taking, but my dad convinced me to go to a big school and not sacrifice my education just to play a sport. I ended up taking this advice and didn't run in college, but always felt like I had unfinished business in running.
Fast forward to today, I'm 28 and about 3 years in since I started running again. Just now getting back into the shape I was in when I quit. I also share the farfetched dream of hitting an OTQ. I'm not stupid, I know it's probably impossible for me at this point, but I'm gonna keep getting after it because I'll never really know until I try. I know for sure I won't hit it by 2028, but maybe, just maybe if I can keep a good trajectory I can qualify for the 2032 trials when I'm 35 haha. If nothing else, I at least want to hit some big PRs before I'm done. Thanks for the inspiration, man!
bizarrely, I had nearly the exact same HS PRs (4:48/10:20). in college (D3), I ended up running nearly the exact same PRs as the OP at the "end of his journey" (14:48/31:00, 69/2:27). just wanted to comment on the weirdness of all the clones in this thread, as well as perhaps give some inspiration for those HS PRs
sorry, obviously meant that the HM/marathon PRs came after college (about 5 years later, which is when I started doing those races)