(Post?)collegiate runner in a weird coaching situation, looking for advice

Skip school, re-enroll later. You’ve already committed to the race.

Go back and run outdoor track with your remaining eligibility. When you’re old, you won’t regret it. Also, you can always run a marathon later.

As a coach on the other side of this story I faced this exact same scenario.

I was happy to encourage my athlete to join the college team and was open to him returning to train with me if he wished when he finished with the team.

A coach should always want the best situation for their athletes even if that means them leaving to pursue other opportunities.

The other thing is if I am coaching an athlete, I don't want his/her heart to be somewhere else while I am coaching them. That's a waste of time for everyone.

This seems like a no brainer. Do your swan song with your college.

What's your focus? Do you think you have marathon potential? Sounds like you sucked the big weenie the last few track seasons so why suck again?

Nothing awkward about this. Tell your new coach that you've been granted another track season & see if you can take a pause, before building up for a fall 2024 or spring 2025 marathon. No reason to rush into the marathon at your age. You won't get another chance like this to run on the track & have teammates.

go back to college and run. you do not owe the coach a very extensive explanation. one life, your life, get on with it.

It's only one semester. If your new coach is any good then they will understand you need to get this done and finish out your last college season. If they don't understand that then that tells you something about their coaching.

Won't Grandma's allow you to defer? Do that.

Your coach, if he's a good guy, will be happy for you.

Express your appreciation and try to take the lessons learned with him to make you a better runner. Best of luck!!

Too funny. But if his base training this winter has included more miles than past years (given the original June marathon goal) and he typically runs indoor track but also skipped that (maybe?), if he switches to an outdoor track focus for spring he could really be ready to pop off.

Do track! Grandma's will always be there but college running won't. You'll get one last ride with your team and no "what-if's". I took a 6th year at my program and even though it's a lot I don't regret it one bit.

No brainer. Go back and run track for your college. You have the rest of your life to run marathons or road races; you'll never have another opportunity to compete in college track and train with a team. You might do really well this spring given your strong base this winter. You should be able to either switch your registration to the half marathon for Grandma's weekend or still do the marathon more just for fun and finish just off of track training (assuming you keep reasonably high mileage and aren't like a low mileage 800 runner or something during track). Then take a short break after that and resume training with the private coach for future road races.

Run in college, you have the rest of your life to do these other races!!!!

unless you're a pro (and even then I'm not sure), running on a college team is about as good as it gets as a competitive runner. you'll never be able to recreate that and if you have a chance to extend it more, definitely go for it

Stay with your new coach. You like him. And you like your plan. Your happiness in the other scenario is hypothetical. What if you have another mediocre season? You'll be left wondering what might have been. Moving on is a hard; but necessary, part of life. Sometimes it means forgoing potential happiness. And Grandma's is a great race.

Make sure you win the college race so we can make a thread about another 25 year old beating up on actual college-aged athletes

I kinda agree with this. I think a lot depends on what you hope to get out of your last college season versus what you hope to get out Grandma's. If you'd be training with a group of adult runners, it might be worth using this as a springboard to start building out your network of adult friends. I also think there's a possibility you could find a middle ground and run Grandma's after your season if you decide to do track. Good luck with whatever you decide!

You have a private coach, great. Nothing stops a college athlete from receiving private coaching on the side, so long as they pay for it. (Happens all the time in the big sports—plenty of college football QBs have "QB coaches.")

You can do both—run for your college team, and train for your Marathon.

The question is what you want to do.

Many here are right—running in college is an experience you may not want to pass up.

At the same time, it seems like you want to focus on your Marathon and do the work your private coach is prescribing.

Training would definitely differ if you tried to do both—you're not dedicating your training to just track, or just a road marathon. At the same time, though, there are plenty of runners who do workouts that cover both areas. (Heck, Emily Sisson, a favorite for tomorrow's women's Olympic Marathon Trials, missed the cut for the 2020 Olympics cut, and came back (albeit a year later) and made the 10k. Safan Hissan is another example. Heck, even Galen Rupp, love him or hate him, bounced between track and Marathon a bit in his initial transition.

So it is possible, but do you want to do it?

Also, will your coaches—because you'd have two—support this? Or would they be childish and fight over your time and attention? They'd need to be on the same page as each other, and with you, on this.

The reality is your focus would likely primarily be on your post-collegiate future, and it sounds like you want to focus on that Marathon more.

Depending on your school's program, that may still leave you as a valuable team player in track in the distance races. Heck, depending on a number of things, you still might be rocking it and competitive.

You'd also likely miss some meets, and you'd likely miss out on some of the team training (because you'd have your private coaches' prescriptions).

Anyhow, TLDR—do what you want, but you COULD do both so long as you'd be okay with it, and your coaches were as well.

Good luck at Grandma's and have fun with whatever you do, because the older you get the more you realize you should be doing stuff like this for fun. Don't lose sight of that.