Posters over 40, what is your biggest regret?

UsedToBeKnowItAll wrote:

Probably finding this forum. I've wasted so many hours on this crap website and imagine outside of some entertainment, I have gotten almost nothing in return. I got off Facebook a few years back. Maybe 2021 is the year I quit wasting time here.

Likewise.

Coyote Montane wrote:

UsedToBeKnowItAll wrote:

Probably finding this forum. I've wasted so many hours on this crap website and imagine outside of some entertainment, I have gotten almost nothing in return. I got off Facebook a few years back. Maybe 2021 is the year I quit wasting time here.

Likewise.

I guess i would be on that bus as well.

Poster way over 40 wrote:

My biggest regret is, to have found letsrun.

Now I am spending way to much time to help Greg and fight BS posts from YMMV and others.

There is always something I could have done better at the time. But overall I am fine with my decisions. I traveled the heck when I could, I got some epic racing in and found a great wife.

So life is good as long you stay off letsrun.

Hahaha! That one was the best here I say! I MYSELF LIVING MY DREAM RIGHT NOW AFTER 60 !!

I regret running the rat race. Never have had a job that I like, people are all assholes just out for themselves.

When I was 45 I had a mental breakdown and instead of getting professional hp

Not running a marathon right after college. Think I could have run 220 or slightly under.

Going to college, it was a huge waste. At the very least I should have taken gap year(s), maybe done a short military stint to push me out of my comfort zone and give me some better perspective for direction. I'm in a good place now in terms of career and home life, so I guess the path I took has ultimately been worth it. I just had to squander a lot of opportunity and resources and go through some dark times to get here, that's chiefly where my regrets lie.

No regrets. I am very pleased with the way my life has evolved. Worrying about things that are outside of your control is unproductive. Only worry about the things you can control in the present to shape your future.

I was a walk on at a D1 school. The coach was super supportive. I quit after one season of track to focus on triathlons.

Wish I hadn’t quit.

Wasted a good 4 plus years of my life due to an eating disorder.

Sarah Williamson wrote:

Not Steve Jobs wrote:

Going to college, it was a huge waste. At the very least I should have taken gap year(s), maybe done a short military stint to push me out of my comfort zone and give me some better perspective for direction. I'm in a good place now in terms of career and home life, so I guess the path I took has ultimately been worth it. I just had to squander a lot of opportunity and resources and go through some dark times to get here, that's chiefly where my regrets lie.

You should have joined the military. What stopped you?

I was recruited by the USMC as a high school senior and I was close to signing. My mother woke me up to the fact that I'd be expected to shoot people. Looking back, she probably just didn't want me put in harm's way which is the basic fact of USMC life. The experience made me dismiss the military wholly without exploring options like USAF or USCG where I could serve in a more technical capacity. I was then on a slippery slope with academia and family expectations that I didn't clear for years and by that point I was too old to enlist. Like I said, I'm happy where I am now and accept that my path has led me here and I've exercised intention to achieve that. Just would've been nice to skip so much waste.

I had a really good shot of making the Olympics in downhill skiing. I could not even watch the winter Olympic games until many years later.

But then I had my kids and realized that I would not have been married or had the family I had if I was an Olympic skier. So, now I feel like it worked out.

So I don't think I regret much anymore.

I stepped into military recruiting after HS but didn't have the guts to tell my parents, so nothing happened. College, career, family, kids.

I do regret not giving it a shot. I don't think it would have worked for me, but at least it would have been out of my system. Now I just read and listen to podcasts about the military, wondering.

I regret not investing in the stock market sooner. I also regret putting too much in my retirement accounts instead of putting the money in the same investments in a non-retirement account. Retired at 60. If I had done what I said above, I would have taken a company buyout at 57. Probably should have anyway.

On running only: 1) In HS running according to coaching instructions (too much mileage which left me always exhausted and unable to concentrate on studying properly & not enough speed development), 2) Now 50 years later not having the resume on paper to back up the appreciation directed at me when I'm out on a run (I like it, but sometimes feel undeserving)

10th Mtn Miler wrote:

Not investing starting in my teens.

I wasn't even thinking about finances until I saw this post (I assume all of us wish we started investing earlier - unless you're independently wealthy).

One of my biggest regrets is not getting braces. I fought and fought against braces (I don't know why and can't believe my parents let me win that fight) and hate that I have crooked teeth and my smile isn't 'clean' in my 40s.

Careerwise, would be not becoming a teacher right out of college. I wasted a good number of years working a crap corporate job before going back to get my certification. I'd be about 8 years closer to retirement than I am currently. Runningwise, I'd say not running in college. I messed up my foot the day after HS graduation and ended up bailing on a walk-on opportunity at school. In terms of family, I wish I had kids sooner, but I didn't meet my wife until my mid 30s and it took us about 4 years (and a ton of $) of trying to make him, so that wasn't really in our control.

Luckily, none of these really have any bearing on my life now or my future.

Things have worked out well for me, but yeah, there are some other roads I wish I'd taken.

I regret having read Joe Henderson's "LSD: The Humane Way to Train." I was "naturally" a speed guy and should have trained at a variety of paces, and trained for general fitness (strength, agility, flexibility, balance, yadda). Instead my training was all slow running and I was permanently crippled before my twenty-first birthday and haven't been able to run since.

I regret having had a poor self-image in high school, and then being a smart-ass jerk to "confirm" that image. Only found out years later that the girls, including the prettiest I ever saw, had considered me rather attractive.

In the space of a couple years in HS and college I was part of three extraordinary groups of "smart" students, in which I was pretty much the dumbest. I regret not having had the maturity to take those opportunities seriously, and not having kept in touch with those kids.

All that said, I've still been very fortunate. I have a wonderful wife, I get to live in Greenwich Village (*looks through penthouse window at Manhattan skyline*), and through coaching and teaching I've gotten to meet some marvelous students and maybe made their lives a little better.

TL, DR: I have some regrets but would be better off counting my blessings and looking to the future, not the past.

Should have quit serious 'training' at 24 when it became clear I was never going to make it at the top level. Instead I plugged away for years hoping for some kind of breakthrough and ended up hating the sport because I was constantly injured /sore/frustrated /miserable. Should have just run and cycled recreationally and stopped sacrificing my social life just so I could run in the morning.

With life: Not many. It's been a long and winding path, and there have been periods of darkness, but I've lived the life I was put here to live.

One regret: I wish I hadn't spent quite so much time as a younger man worrying about whether things were going to work out!

Running: As I've shared more than once over the past 15 years or so, I put running aside for 19 years--giving up hard/long training, running no races, just occasional recreational jogging. I suppose I could say, "I wish I hadn't taken that two-decade pause," but the truth is, I had a huge amount of fun and satisfaction when I came back into running in my mid-40s, and I completed well, running hundreds of races and actually winning a couple of local 5Ks with times around 19:30, earning $$ in both. How can I complain? I've got creeping facet-joint arthritis now, and on the past two mornings, it's made running impossible. I literally ground to a half after two-thirds of a mile, both days, and walked back to the start. Still: no regrets. I've had my fun.

Here's a word of wisdom for the young: make a point of regularly asking the question, "What is my purpose here?" And, as you age, "What remains undone?" Do this at the beginning of a solo run. Then just be quiet and let the question(s) linger in the air. Give your unconscious a chance to work on them. You'll be amazed at what comes up. It's a good way to live without regrets.

It also pays in the long run, and especially in committed relationships and family life, to be a little kinder rather than a little harsher and more demanding. This doesn't mean be a wimp. It's important to be firm when firmness is called for. (No, not like that.) But try and take your ego out of it.