It's a hell of a price to pay. I'm just not sure it's worth it. You also don't need to batter yourself, I wish I knew this 30 years ago. I'm not totally sold on NSM for instance (that is on me! There's some bad habits I just can't shake!) but as time goes on I'm more drawn to it, even for an old school beat up vet like . A guy running the basic version of that just ran 1:06:30 half, solo TT. OK he appears to be coached by sirpoc so he clearly will be optimising everything, but still, he is probably going to run 2:14 close and at least sub 2:20 if you can run that kind of solo TT, all on about 65-70 miles a week, without putting himself in a hole he might not come out of. Obviously it's hard for compare people, but i think the general message is that you really don't necessarily have to do what he's doing for some sort of success.
This is the danger of YouTubers, they have built up the audience, so it's actually up to them, but sometimes I feel like the loudest voices should have to take some responsibility for the message they put out. Whilst it's entertainment to some, RTJ has gone too far and it's a party dangerous message he is sending out. He seems like a genuine guy, but it's probably time to pull the plug before he really hurts himself or someone else starts thinking as a hobby jogger that they can sustain and have success replicating what he's doing. Maybe that's on them, if they did. But people are stupid and I'm sure it'll happen, probably has.
I've been down the road of really big mileage and as a few others have said, once you start having health issues like this, they are hard to shake. From about 1992-98 I did have some good races, also some very bad ones, maybe it did allow me to tick off 1-2 good marathons I cannot say I would have got any other way, sometimes it DOES pay off, but it's a huge gamble. But I'm not sure it was worth it. I wasn't even really elite, even with 2:23 back then. I probably still have issues with things associated with that period. It's very hard for me to say it was fruitful and I do really love running, so it's hard for me to admit now in later life I can't enjoy it as much as times, because of the mistakes of the past catching up.
Hey, I'm just an old guy who likes to be grumpy at the modern world, what do I know. But I do feel like this is something I have been through and I just hope it doesn't end as bad as it seemingly is headed.