Why you did not become an elite runner?

Ha ha all you guys saying the reason you weren't elite is because you were wanted to chase women, or that you just had something else to do. Like you had ANY choice.

99.9% of you could do PEDs, get trained by Alberto AND Wetmore, live at altitude, wear super shoes every run and YOU STILL WOULDN'T BE ELITE!

Accept that you are a mediocre at best runner, no matter what other excuse you wanna invent.

According to many on this forum we should all be elites because all it takes are those “super shoes” and you run like minutes faster. Heck we should have all broken world records by now 🤣

My male genitalia is so big it gets in the way and prevents me from running fast times

There is only one reason, and it's because I am not fast enough. I still train full time 90mpw but work a full time job. At my level (4:02 mile) what's the point of being a 'pro' runner and earning 10k/yr off Instagram sponsorships when I could have a proper job and still run only a second or two slower in the mile than if I was 'all in.' I was never going to make an Olympic team so I may as well chase sub 4 while having a bit of cash in the bank, will only take me an extra year or two then if I was all in I'd think.

I would have liked to have read more details from the poster to whom you responded. Was he a javelin thrower for T&F club during his teens? Did he play in NFL in his twenties & thirties?

Did not have the required 200m speed to be any better at the 800m.

Did not have the stride, efficiency, aerobic capacity to move up to the mile.

I ran a 1:53 in college but I never looked good doing it. Arms never in the right spot. Shoulders twisting on my torso as I ran. Heelstriking during 400m races. Absolutely FRIED on 50-mile weeks.

Never had anything going my way besides great speed endurance.

Ran 4:21 at age 18, improved to 4:20 by age 20.
In a word, BEER.

I qualified for the JrC cross country nationals twice and indoor track 880 and mile relay once. I sat out a few years and then continued running at a D1 school. My coach who replaced the one who recruited me wanted to move me up to the 3 mile and steeple. I resisted then got injured doing something stupid. Anybody want to recruit a 68 year old with some eligibility still left.

I didn't have the genetics, the work ethic, the right training environment or training group, I didn't have any coach, my parents didn't care about running and neither did I. Other than that I was so close you wouldn't believe.

You probably would have only improved from 420-412, maybe under 410. Still not elite.

I blame for not being elite.

my coaches

my teammates

my parents

my friends

my school

This is the author of the post Aztec replied to and 600 asked about. And yeah, I completely lacked school spirit!

Funny that I came back and saw this. Haven't followed the thread at all. First off let me point out that the last post as I write this, so right above this one, blames the school system and coach they hired. Besides the obvious 'I wasn't fast enough' answers (perhaps true but doesn't prompt a fun discussion), this is the most common. Hence, my first post.

I suppose I'll respond to Aztec and 600 both at the same time. I ran in high school; only sport I did at the time. And while I don't necessarily disagree that running on Mondo or grass is a great experience for a teenager, so is running on asphalt or mountain trails or wherever. I didn't say 'don't run'. I said 'if the school, coach, team, training and racing schedule is why you sucked, avoid all that.' Feel free to count how many posts blame that system. As pointed out, there's yet another right above this!

So, yeah, I was a distance runner in high school. The best at school, which was not saying a whole lot, but with a student body of ~3000, in a big running city and area, right in the middle of the 'Running Boom', I did have competition for that distinction. So it is saying aomething, but alas, in the big picture, I was nothing to alert the media about.

I spent about 25 years after that rock climbing and mountaineering. Made my mark in another arena, I would say, then came back to running later. Still not world class!

Poor running economy and themoregulation.

I have the engine to be an elite runner, as I have a VO2 max of 66 as a female. However my times are much slower than what this VO2 max would predict. My problem is my running form and efficiency are quite bad. I heel strike and overstride. I also seem to generate a lot more heat than other people when I exercise. I drastically slow down in hot conditions, way more than what running temperature calculators predict. I am like an Escalade vs a Prius. I have a huge fuel tank (VO2 max) but poor fuel economy (takes me more O2 to run at a given pace).

I put it down to the bad luck I had in that I was crap.

Greg is just slow af

In high school (semi rural Oregon mid 70's), I played football and basketball. XC and track dudes were thought of as wieners.

I lack elite talent. Also, the idiot middle school track coaches put me off running.

I had a LOFT problem...lack of f'ing talent.

Injury was my initial hangup. I developed strains in both calves from several years of intensive middle-distance training (and likely poor biomechanics due to a back injury as a child). This severely limited my ability to do high intensity work, and forced me to focus on higher mileage and longer distances. I lost the motivation and desire to consistently log 100-140 mile weeks in my mid-20s as my corporate career and marriage started taking more of my attention, and once I got to that point, realized I was never going to progress.