How is it everyone on this board says they make 250 thousand a year have big homes and a beautiful wife and run 15 flat 5ks

House is only 2150 sq ft, but it’s a unique 1960s architect designed home in a highly desirable area.

To answer the Q posed by OP: The posts in threads like this, even if true, aren't representative. Some people actually have all those things and love to anonymously detail their achievements. Others lie/exaggerate.

Take me. I'm in the 1% and I own two homes, but I'm way past my competitive running days. I went to a great college and did break 15 while I was there, but I'm slow now. I'm in my 40s, and my wife has aged well, but we can only claim to be good looking for our age.

Can I honestly claim to have everything on the list? Sure, but I'm picking and choosing from various times in my life. I suspect that even for honest people, that dynamic is in play when they post.

trollism wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

I don't claim those things, but I DO claim to have a huge unit. That's the intelligent thing to claim. It can get you all those other things except the 15 minute 5k

So you claim to have the thing that makes it easy to get those things, but don't actually have those things?

So you're a massive failure?

Many have pointed out that Bad Wigins is a huge tool and he's just putting a positive spin on it.

slowingdownthesedays wrote:

To answer the Q posed by OP: The posts in threads like this, even if true, aren't representative. Some people actually have all those things and love to anonymously detail their achievements. Others lie/exaggerate.

Take me. I'm in the 1% and I own two homes, but I'm way past my competitive running days. I went to a great college and did break 15 while I was there, but I'm slow now. I'm in my 40s, and my wife has aged well, but we can only claim to be good looking for our age.

Can I honestly claim to have everything on the list? Sure, but I'm picking and choosing from various times in my life. I suspect that even for honest people, that dynamic is in play when they post.

Agree on some of this but not all. You definitely don’t get a representative sample. People, like me, like to anonymously detail their accomplishments both because we were directly asked and because, hell, we are proud of the work we put in.

The part I don’t agree with is not being able to have this all at once. I know a number of people who can run around 15 flat in the 5k (or a marathon equivalent), make a lot of money and have classically attractive spouses. I’m not talking dozens but 2-3. All it really takes is being a fast Dr. Not exactly an incredible rarity.

You may run yourself a sub-elite 5K

And you may find yourself in a beautiful house

With a beautiful wife

And you may ask yourself, well...why do I post here?

trollism wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

I don't claim those things, but I DO claim to have a huge unit. That's the intelligent thing to claim. It can get you all those other things except the 15 minute 5k

So you claim to have the thing that makes it easy to get those things, but don't actually have those things?

So you're a massive failure?

Having a huge unit is the ultimate success. Nothing else matters.

slowingdownthesedays wrote:

The part I don’t agree with is not being able to have this all at once. I know a number of people who can run around 15 flat in the 5k (or a marathon equivalent), make a lot of money and have classically attractive spouses. I’m not talking dozens but 2-3. All it really takes is being a fast Dr. Not exactly an incredible rarity.

Unfortunately it is hard. There's just under 1 million physicians in the USA and there's ~330 million people in the US. A very low percentage of Americans are docs.

If you just account for adults then the percentage is much higher but still low in absolute terms.

Then add a 15 min 5k which is actually quite tough. At my big 10 college 15:30 was enough to walk on. A very low percentage of people run 15 min.

Medicine destroys your running I must say. In our college running club we had a fair number of people go into medicine but we're all hobby joggers or don't run anymore since medicine takes up a lot of of your physical and mental energy.

The people that are still running all *didn't* go into medicine haha.

Sounds anecdotal to me and doesn’t match my experiences at all. Like I said, there aren’t thousands of people who are MDs and 15 minute 5k runners... but there are some. Similarly, physicians were just an example... while 250k is not exactly the middle of middle class there are literally dozens of occupations that can land someone at that salary by 30. Hell, I know real estate agents that make wayyy more than that.

To name a few:

-Mid level software engineer at a FAANG or high end of tier 2 company

-Low level manager at pretty much any tech company

-Pretty much any mid level position in pharma

-Big Law or general counsel at a megacorp

-IB, PE, HF anything in high finance

-Consultant at a tier 1 or tier 2 consulting firm

-Tech, medical equipment, pharma sales (many more)

-Real Estate (higher end)

-Pretty much any successful small business owner

You get the point. I would also add that the drive it takes to succeed in a reasonably high paying job correlates to the the drive it takes to succeed in distance running. While I will concede that the amount of time one works in many of the above listed jobs makes running harder I would still qualitatively give the nod to a positive correlation between income and 5k time for hobby joggers.

I don’t run fast. Never had. But I run often.

Income is extremely comfortable. And I have plenty of cushion in case of layoffs.

My two homes aren’t mansions but I’m happy. And one or both could easily be rented if I want to buy another home.

HHI 67k

Spouse is a ten out of seven to me but her BMI about 34 ( cushion for the pushin) but I like bbw

Had to spend about 9k on dental care in the last year

I’m bald ?‍?

QANON M@GA!!!! LetsRun is great for this!

2/3 for me (live in East London so no chance of a mansion)

I think runners are just more driven

Wow. I didn’t even know they had dental care in England. ; ) Good to hear.

I only make 50k and I am very slow. But I do have a hot wife, so I guess there's that.

15:15, and 2:29 for marathon so not quite; but age grade under 15 as a masters.

Bachelor’s degree at a top 20 institution, later masters and Ph.D. Worked in academia and public service where almost no one makes $250K. Have topped out in low six figures.

Wife is good looking, makes less than I do. We raised good kids: academic all stars and good athletes.

We are better people than the site owners here, most of the mods, and way better than the incel trolls that pervade this place.

I'm not saying this! I have a two room apartment with bathroom, makes 60 thousand a year but have a gordgeous wife, a real 10/10 !

Low six figures for a professor with a PHD? That is pretty low.

I agree with others that folks may have these things, but not all at once.

Sub-15 is something usually achieved in your early to mid twenties (and becomes more difficult after that)

Hot wife is something usually achieved late twenties or thirties (and becomes more difficult after that)

High income is something almost always achieved later in life. You can't just come straight out of school age 18 and immediately earn 250k per year.

So if you said this: "I broke 15 when I was 20 but couldn't now, I married a hot woman at 30 but she's less hot now, I've been earning 250k a year since I was 40." I might believe you. Having all 3 at once? Yeah right!

A successful life shouldn't be counted in how much money you made or if you had a beautiful wife.

When you eventually come to the end you should ask yourself '' Did I really experience true love ? Did I give true love ? ''

And the answer of a real good life then '' Yes! I really did!''

I've seen different income percentile calculators but this one has 257,000 as the 98th percentile for income for all workers.

This may not be that reputable of a website but it has 15:30 for a 5k as 99.5th percentile for men in their 20's. As age goes up the percentage of men that can run a 15:30 will undoubtedly go down.

Just multiplying these two variables (simplistic, yes, since a lot of runners are high earners and there's likely some correlation between type A runners and high income) and you get 1/50 * 1/200. That's 1 in 10,000 runners in their 20's will have income of 257,000 or more and also a 5K of 15:30.

There are plenty of folks making more than physicians but the percentage of people making more than physicians is quite low. You're talking most professional athletes, movie stars, big wig law, high end software engineers (most SWE won't be making 250k+), some finance bros, some small business owners, some CEO's. It's just not that common.

It's not that easy to make 250k or more a year unless you have family connections, are brilliant and hard-working (some tech workers), or grind it out and study careers which are usually high paid like medicine. The debt sucks though.

Add the attractive wife variable: a15:30 5k guy making 250k+ wife a wife more attractive than let's say 80% of women and it's getting super unlikely to see all these in one person at *one* time.

My med school had a lot of people, like 150-200 in my class. There were some runners but the fastest was 1640-1700.

My running club which was fairly fast and comparable to some low-end D3 colleges had one future doc who ran the equivalent of 16:00. Alas, he was the fastest one.

In summary, it's a very low percentage of people that can run 15:30, make 250k+ and especially at the same time. A lot people making good money are in their 30's and 40's and they can't run 15:30 anymore.