Why is Parker Valby so unconcerned about Olympic standards and rankings?

Why are you so concerned LOL

Come on bro. LA ‘28 is going to be her Olympic year, always was. She’s going to win the 5K. Sign a big deal. Work towards Worlds.

Look at Nico.

Now look at Parker.

Which one will not have to rely on earning an income?

All upside and no downside. She‘ll almost certainly win. And if she runs under 14:52, her contract would be even greater. And if she wins in a worse race that won’t hurt

OK, that's an answer. I don't think you can count on good health and timing that just right though. If you have a chance and are as fit as you've ever been, may as well try to be an Olympian now. But I probably come from a place of fear and missed chances, while she's pretty blithe and positive. Which seems counterintuitive for someone injury prone. But maybe she's come around so full circle she doesn't need one title or qualification to be her whole life.

The Trials 5K is wide open. Besides ESP. Valby will do great

Kind of the problem with our sport. Can I not just be a running fan and curious? Do understand this could be a POV about warding away creepy guys, but still, you guys, someone once asked me at The Ten what runner I was there for—as in, who I knew personally. Uh, no one. Just came by out of interest.

Never mind! She's going for it now!

She's had a great college career, especially this past year, but she's not ready for the U.S. pros, much less the international level. 14:52 doesn't cut it.

He’s pretty set I think

It seems like nearly a quarter of Letsrun posters are closeted

A quite uninformed post, considering there actually has been some accurate info on the board that has already gone over this.

Because she's unconcerned about Olympic standards and rankings

Something I hear more and more from NCAA athletes is that they're taking it day by day. A few NAU guys have brought it up, saying they just focus on doing everything to the best of their ability on that specific day, and not worrying about the future. Trust the process. After winning XC, Mike Smith said no one even mentioned nationals until regionals. I think that was also where some of the hesitation on letting Nico chase the 10k standard came from. Valby mentioned it too in her post 5k interview, saying she was just taking it day by day, and she was focused on getting a lot of recovery in tomorrow (meaning the day between the 5k and 10k).

I think the idea is that you should only focus on today, and maximizing what you can do today, and if you do that every day, you'll get better results than if you're constantly worrying about doing things perfectly every single day for the next 6 months. There's probably something to be said for not worrying about a race that's a few weeks or more away, particularly when you have 30+ laps to race before that. Wastes mental energy, causes unnecessary stress, etc. Let your coach worry about the long term plan. Trust that your coach will make the right plans for you. Focus on executing that plan today.

Small side tangent, but that's made me give some more grace to the pro athletes who aren't doing ideal things to qualify. There were a bunch of athletes upset about XC qualifying you for the 10k, and there were a bunch of people upset at athletes for not just doing a couple of easy races and getting a qualifier. But from an athlete's perspective, they have full faith in their coach (and people here often say that you have to trust your coach) to do what's best for them, and their coach probably doesn't want them to worry about qualifying, because in the long term they'll do worse. Realizing that made me more sympathetic to the athletes, and also harsher on the coaches lol. I could be wrong though idk tbh,

Lol, posts don't come any more uninformed than yours!

The #1 male model does not even make enough to retire on.

Like half of women can earn a living off of looks.