I'm becoming a hobby jogger and I am happy about it.

Good for you. You need to do what makes you feel good about running. If training and racing have become drudgery, than easy running is the way to go. At least you didn't get to the point where you quit for good.

As a former pro runner, I now jog for fitness and sanity...still twice a day, as became habit, but don't miss the constant anxiety over injuries, illness, slow workout and race times one bit. enjoy!

Welcome to the club. Maybe we can get together for some good beer and a cigar. Life is good.

You were a hobby jogger before, so nothing changed!!!!!

I'm surprised to see the comment about still running twice a day! That seems like a lot to me! I run 3 or 4 times per week, like on M, W, F, and Sunday, or something like that.

Good for you!

Got do a few more 5Ks on my bucket list and try to go sub-2 in the 800 before I can jump into my "running retirement" schedule:

M 4 miles

T OFF

W 4 miles

TH OFF

FR 7 miles

ST OFF

SU 10 miles or whoops I slept in!

kind of looking forward to it...but I WON'T QUIT until reach my goals.

Sounds good my friend. Couple of brewskis, cigars, and a football game. Sunday morning 20 miler with 10 at marathon pace? I think I will enjoy my coffee and read the newspaper. Maybe go for an easy 6 miles in the afternoon or lift some weights or something. Not planning my schedule around workouts anymore!

You can go a step more and become a troll on the letsrun message board. oh wait.........

I'm about a year behind you. I'm going to go after two attainable PRs this year and the call it a career. Road racing around here is for the very fast or the hobby jogger and I just don't find much relevance in being a masters runner. I just want to stay in shape enough for my weekly long run with friends.

All runners eventually become one of two things: a hobby jogger or a former runner.

piggy bank wrote:

All runners eventually become one of two things: a hobby jogger or a former runner.

All, except Ed Whitlock.

I think you're hitting the nail on the head here. I see a lot of myself in what you're saying. However I don't believe people like us deserve to be branded "hobby jogger" as that's for the chumps who "jog" occasionally and wear their running clothes and shoes mostly to go shopping at Target.

People who meet a certain level of committmemt and maintain a serious attitude towards running, however don't train to compete, deserve to at least be referred to as "recreational runners."

Former hobby jogger wrote:

piggy bank wrote:

All runners eventually become one of two things: a hobby jogger or a former runner.

All, except Ed Whitlock.

Good point.

If you run long enough, you eventually become a hobby jogger. The only other option is to quit entirely.

Unless your name is Ed Whitlock.

I went through the same good times after quitting running in college. 6 years later I am back at living the healthy life.

Sure it was fun for a few years, drinking, lifting, eating like shit, but after awhile I felt like crap and I gained 20 pounds then I had knee surgery.

I feel better being slightly disciplined and running is a way for me to make that happen. I won't be surprised if you return to running in a few years.

Running is a gift. That moment on a long run when you get warmed up, the pace drops and you are clicking off miles near marathon pace feeling like you are just gliding over the road. Getting to the last mile of a race and feeling all the training come together as you break away to the finish line. Very few people get the chance to do this. I know people who train like mad men for year to break a 3 hr marathon and never get there, while I will hit that pace for a 22 mi long run and not feel tired the next day. Running isn't for everyone. Not everyone is that dedicated. But, just because it isn't for you doesn't mean that it is not a gift to everyone else.

The use of the label hobby jogger is just idiotic. It was neither funny or clever when it first started being used and is still not. Makes the person using it sound like a tool just like the the people who argue about the runner- jogger debate.

Flagpole -- I don't think the OP is a professional runner, and I say that because I am currently doing the same thing he is, just to prepare for the Houston marathon. I'm just a serious recreational runner, old and female, but doing doubles and organizing my life around my training. It sucks sometimes, especially around the holidays -- I think that is what the OP is referring to. I have Houston and then Boston on my schedule for 2013, and then am considering retiring from marathoning, for the reasons the OP states (plus, my knees are starting to make crunching noises).

Anyway, Flagpole, your PR's are impressive to most people, and it's too bad that some LR jerks enjoy being elitist pr!cks about an activity that the rest of us enjoy.

Precious Roy wrote:

Running is a gift. That moment on a long run when you get warmed up, the pace drops and you are clicking off miles near marathon pace feeling like you are just gliding over the road. Getting to the last mile of a race and feeling all the training come together as you break away to the finish line. Very few people get the chance to do this. I know people who train like mad men for year to break a 3 hr marathon and never get there, while I will hit that pace for a 22 mi long run and not feel tired the next day. Running isn't for everyone. Not everyone is that dedicated. But, just because it isn't for you doesn't mean that it is not a gift to everyone else.

I'm going to flag this post here for awesomeness. Very well said sir.

wow. I had no idea that you were such a pathetic runner. 2.55??? You have got to be sh!tting me! That barely beats Oprah... and you call yourself a runner. I could kick your gottamned a55 at ANY distance.

So it's page 3 and no one seems to have gotten Flagpole's point. Flagpole is implying that OP was ALWAYS a hobby-jogger, because he wasn't getting paid for it, and that creating some dichotomy between his former runner self and his new less serious persona is a silly, self-serving distinction. The broader point is that runners are always doing this, creating hierarchies that place themselves higher in the moral/lifestyle pyramid over someone else, slower runners, cross-fitters, 5 hour marathoners, etc. Like this great article

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/23/sports/23marathon.html?pagewanted=all

in which a 4:05:52 marathoner says "“I always ask those people, ‘What was your time?’ If it’s six hours or more, I say, ‘Oh great, that’s fine, but you didn’t really run it," to which i want to say, you're slow too dude.

Point is, all but a handful of us are doing this as a hobby. It should be possible to enjoy the sport without putting other people down in the process; OP falls into that trap unintentionally.

I wish I had flagpole's PRs and fail to see how they have any impact on how we read his posts one way or the other.