Can a 14:00 29:00 10k guy out of college run 2:10 if he sticks with it?

not everyone cares about putting in hard work to meet society's expectations of becoming "middle class." Some people are happy just with what may seem to some Americans like not very much. let people set their own priorities., if u love to run and dont care consequences such as being labeled a bum in our society, stick with it,who cares

besides, in my experience, competitive running and career prospects can go together. the discipline carries over into career stuff. it's only when you try to do too much with wife and kids and hobbies that something like sleep has to give.

Sagarin wrote:

Yeah, but the difference is, clearly you are NOT deluding yourself, as many are and have.

Hopefully you're getting a graduate degree or some tangible work experience along the way, but you're right... to each his own. Just don't be that guy who wishes he would've/could've made different choices in hindsight.

I have an MBA and work fulltime; wife and 2 young kids. I do my hard workout between 5:30am and 7am, before work and my easy, shorter workout (what would be most serious runner's 'morning run', 5-8 miles) after work and get in a couple of gym workouts and cross training at lunch during the week.

yeah..so what. am I hurting u? wrote:

I have an MBA and work fulltime; wife and 2 young kids. I do my hard workout between 5:30am and 7am, before work and my easy, shorter workout (what would be most serious runner's 'morning run', 5-8 miles) after work and get in a couple of gym workouts and cross training at lunch during the week.

As I said, you are not deluding yourself. You're not the 32-year old part-time shoe store/part-time FedEx guy with a 29:10 PR, despite many years of mega mileage still "hoping" for the big one. Good for you that you manage it all, enjoy your running and purpose, and are pragmatic with respect to life.

Look, I don't care if people listen or not. It really is nobody's business what you choose to do with your life, as long as you're not hurting anyone and your underachieving doesn't force you into a position where you have to sponge off of the American taxpayer. I'm just giving advice based on what I've seen. trust me, you don't want to be 33, starting your first "real" job with a headset on taking calls all day in a cubicle and worrying that your job may be offshored to India. The fact that some are so vehement in their defense makes me wonder about the regret part...

malmo wrote:

julio wrote:

i think using gotcher for those times in college to equal a 2:10 would be misleading. It obvious that he must of under performed in college .

Where did I say those times were equal to a 2:10?

Malmo, as with most replies posters do not read what was written.

You are right. Many 14:00/ 29:00 types in college give up. Mr. Gotcher seems to have worked his but off over the last three years. He had some up and downs, but has stuck with it.

Now that he is a 2:10 marathoner I would love to see him go over to ALSAL, just like RITZ did. Maybe Gotcher can become a 13:20 and 27:30 type of guy.

Sagarin wrote:

Regardless, Brett Gotcher is not a 29:00 guy. He's a 28:27 guy who's probably capable of much faster with the proper amount of sharpening.

Gotcher was a 14:00/29:00 guy in college, I think that is the point of this thread and others with the same theme.

Potential for WHAT, exactly, old boy? Maybe he's satisfied and even fulfilled with finding out just where his potential does lie, regardless of whether the result earns "a livable contract," or your respect. Nothing at all wrong with that, personal excellence is its own reward. Pursuing personal fulfillment in spite of cranky rants such as yours is to be applauded.

Gotcha Gotcher wrote:

Gotcher was a 14:00/29:00 guy in college, I think that is the point of this thread and others with the same theme.

And I've never said otherwise.

Frankly, if I were a 14:00/29:00 guy at the end of college and it hadn't taken four years of 150 miles per week to get there, I would've continued on. Fortunately, I got injured, and I didn't have to make that decision, ultimately.

Gotcher is taking a good, calculated risk. He has a degree from Stanford to fall back on, regardless of major, and it will open up possibilities down the road. It's not like he went to Cal-State Fullerton. He has a safety net. Wejo was the same way. Great academic credentials and some work experience who decided to put his life on hold for a few years. Nothing wrong with that, but in his case, he got accepted to Stanford's MBA program I believe and was able to otherwise parlay his passion into a career anyway with this website. He had a saftey net. And I applaud him.

Very pragmatic. If someone succeeds, its ok that they continued on. If someone fails, then, obviously, they shouldn't have gone for it.

I get what you are saying Sagarin ... I just don't like it.

What I find funny is the idea that he has "put his life on hold". The guy is a distance runner and has run 28:27/2:10:35 recently. To many people this means he is living his life to the fullest.

The other thing (among many) that bothers me about your tone is that if everything else was the same as it is for him, but he had gone to Cal-State Fullerton that he would be wasting his time.

People like you who fall down the cosmic rabbit-hole of TV and make mid-6 figures without a professional degree and years of toil to get there are so jaded about what it takes to do that. Not everybody can do it, just because the decide to ... there aren't enough spots open in the world for blowhards like you to take up space making 10-times-more than the rest of us.

If the world is the meritocracy that you make it out to be, what is stopping a man or woman from putting their "life on hold" as you call it for 10 years and pursuing grad school or some other kind of Sagarin-defined success at 32? The world will still be there, the schools will be also.

So you die with $ 4 million in the bank instead of $15 ... who cares?

You get it?

I'm sorry I so offended your "sensibilities" craig. And you continue to misstate my position. I don't want to take over this thread, and I'm not sure why YOU were so offended anyway. When did it become YOUR job to call someone out who is merely attempting to provide pragmatic advice based on countless examples of people who get "stuck" in the dream, at the expense of everything else in life, including their family? What is your real motive here?

By the way, Brett Gotcher ran the fifth fastest two-mile time in the nation as a prep. He's obviously always had potential. Moreover, he even runs 28-mile long runs... shudder.

Uh, well, for the record, I do in fact have a professional degree and did work extremely hard to get where I have (you have no idea how hard, if you'd any familiarity with my physical hurdles and all the unjustified whining I had to put up with my colleagues over the years - reminds me of this board actually). Next, I never said the world is about $$$, but there's also more to life than self-absorbed obsessions and sucking off the teet of the American taxpayer as so many choose to do.

Moreover, you are correct that Gotcher is a 25-year old 28:27/2:10:35 guy with a degree from Stanford, not a 32-year old, 29:10 guy with a degree from Metro State with very little upside.

You get it?

FYI Malmo to update your debut list,

Fastest debut marathon on Sept. 9, 1979. Four days after his 20th birthday. Was a collegiate record at the time. He ran for the University of New Mexico.

M 20 2:13:59 DAVID SEGURA 091358 ALBUQUERQUE, NM NIKE OTC OR 090979

http://www.usatf.org/groups/RoadRunning/OnTheRoads/OTR04MensTrials.pdf

http://www.bunnhill.com/BobHodge/Articles/bostonhubof.htm

I know you have one. My point is that if someone is a doctor, lawyer, PE, MBA, etc. ... they have 4 yrs of college, 3-4 yrs of grad school, and then doctors have a 3-6 year residency. For lawyers, accountants, and the like it takes years for them to make $200k, $300k or more. Not all of them make that, ever.

But your attitude seems to be that EVERYONE has the ability to make $500k a year ... not everyone does.

Also, I don't see why being a poor, starving runner means you necessarily have to be living off the American Taxpayer? In my state, I guess you could get foodstamps, or maybe healthcare, I don't know. I think if you are able-bodied and able to work you don't get anything ... I may be wrong.

But I don't know that pursuing distance running, XC skiing, rowing, swimming, triathlon, bike racing, mountain bike racing, Cyclocross racing, or anything else that doesn't pay means that you must be "sucking off the teet of the American taxpayer as so many choose to do".

Like the Hanson's runners, even if you never won any money, you are still supporting yourself.

if the US had more Brett Gotchers and less over worked, over stressed, over eating, obesse, heart diseased, self important people..... it would be a far better place.

Your your kind of snobbish self-righteousness offends a lot of people's sensibilities. The specifics of the debates really doesn't matter.

"really DON'T matter."

Beardsley wrote in his book that in three years he was running almost the same pace for a marathon as he was for 6 miles in college.

newname, first of all, is your name either Keith or Shawn? I'm just curious.

Also, I'm not sure how this thread became about money, meritocracy, and all that other bullshit. Of course not everyone has the same capability, just as I never had the capability to run a sub-4:00 mile. So what?

I first responded here by saying that both malmo and Hodgie were correct, but saying two different things. Then craig, no doubt still seething from some other thread, decides to unload his unsolicited resentment in response, and mischaracterize it to boot.

As stated too many times to count, if you are a 14:00/29:00 guy in college who hasn't already trained in a "Gerry Lindgren" type way and you have the desire to continue running for a little while to find your potential, I say go for it. But at some point, you have to re-evaluate. You have to ask whether or not you are giving up many of life's other experiences. You have to ask yourself if your self-obsession isn't coming at the expense of other gifts that you could use more constructively to help others in society, in whatever way that is.

Some people can never seem to give up the unrealistic dream, pursue life and living, and embrace the other aspects of their life like career and family. Again, this doesn't apply to a 25-year old Stanford grad who knew how much talent he had way back in high school.

That's all I'm saying, because I've seen people fall behind the eight ball and regret it. Take it for what it's worth. It's not self-righteous condemnation. It's advice, though many only find that out in retrospect.

See, it's things like characterizing running as "self-obsession" and then suggesting that a runner has some kind of obligation to "serve society." I have no problem with you- I have a problem with your self-righteous tone, and basically everything HRE stated. For what it's worth, I'm not seething, I just think you project your own decision to stop competing on others in an effort to justify it to yourself.

If a single guy chooses to work part time, train like a mad man, and never has the breakthrough, what's it to any of us? How does he, as you put it earlier, "suck at the teat of the American taxpayer?"

It's not like if you get to tell the government "oh, I'm not going to work a traditional 9-5 because I'm trying to run a 2:11 marathon. . . can you guys give me the equivalent salary a year from the public treasury?"