Am I pretty much doomed?

Eat more red meat.

An American who knows who Karl Pilkington is, love it.

And no, you're not doomed, and there's almost certainly room for improvement. Why quit the team if you enjoy it? And if you don't enjoy it, why are you there anyways?

You're doomed only if someone tries to make you bungee jump.

Distance running is a personal endeavor. You have your own personal bests and goals. What other people are doing should have nothing to do with it.

If it was the opposite, then every 15 minute 5ker in the world would be wasting their time, because people like Bekele can beat them by over 2 minutes.

For what it's worth, I had similar times to you in high school and likewise has very very nonathletic parents.

I ended up running in college (D3 obviously) and was 2 year xc team captain. I actually improved a lot in college, but was never stellar. I really enjoyed it however, and even though at times it was frustrating, I wouldn't change it for anything.

Keep training and one day you will get the returns and your times suddenly drop

Cynical. wrote:

An American who knows who Karl Pilkington is, love it.

And no, you're not doomed, and there's almost certainly room for improvement. Why quit the team if you enjoy it? And if you don't enjoy it, why are you there anyways?

Of course I know who he is; he has a head like a f***ing orange! I think he may be bigger in the states than you realize lol.

On a more serious note, I don't think my coach is doing anything horribly wrong because everyone else improves. I just sort of stagnate. More often than not, when I am racing, in the middle of the race, I have a really hard time pushing myself and kind of give up mentally and just sort of end up dogging it. How do I change this?

No Way wrote:

For what it's worth, I had similar times to you in high school and likewise has very very nonathletic parents.

I ended up running in college (D3 obviously) and was 2 year xc team captain. I actually improved a lot in college, but was never stellar. I really enjoyed it however, and even though at times it was frustrating, I wouldn't change it for anything.

If you don't mind me asking, what times were you eventually able to get down to?

Karl Pilkington wrote:

... People I beat during that first race would go on to break

Well, according to the guy who keeps posting all the videos showing how bad black people are, just be glad you're not black otherwise you'd be doomed to a life of violence and crime. Not only that but you'd be stupid too. Thanks to him, I know that I'm unintelligent and violent because I'm genetically inferior. Nothing racist about this of course, just facts. I'm just a waste of space. I will go kill myself.

I was lucky to break 18 minutes for three miles XC in high school. I went on to break 15 for 5K on the roads (never ran collegiately, but trained on my own). So, it can happen if you put in the work and really try.

Cynical. wrote:

An American who knows who Karl Pilkington is, love it.

And no, you're not doomed, and there's almost certainly room for improvement. Why quit the team if you enjoy it? And if you don't enjoy it, why are you there anyways?

Oh and one more thing: I am not going to quit. Running on the team is probably my favorite thing in the entire world. I just want to improve as an athlete/teammate because I am on a bad team with some graduating seniors and will probably end up scoring in every single meet this fall and want to help my team place as well as possible.