Running bums: Sad or Admirable?

If they are happy doing then go for I say.

They're not sad and they're certainly not bums, by any twisted definition you wish to invent.

They're not wasting their youth. They're spending their youth doing something they enjoy.

They're not sacrificing anything. Careers are vastly overrated. Vastly.

I worked my ass off as a younger man and now at the ripe old age of 42 I can see retirement in 10 years. If I had bummed around I'd probably be working until 65 or even 67. I prefer it this way. Others may prefer it the other way.

You're right, the running bum term is kind of misleading. I just meant to try to equate these individuals with the better known "surf bums" who surf half the day and work at a surf shop or do surf lessons the other half.

If you're looking at life the right way, I don't see how you could possibly consider it 'sad'. So they're leaving some money on the table during their 20s to pursue a dream that they only have a short window to pursue. They have the rest of their lives to pursue career goals and make money.

I think it's admirable because many of these types, even after 4 years of high school and 4 years of collegiate running, aren't close to their ceiling yet. Going by the simplistic (yet accurate) '10,000 Hours' rule, there are a lot of these borderline pro types who stop after college and leave a lot of potential on the table.

being a running bum isn't sad or admirable IMO. it's just one of those things where if somebody is happy doing what they love, then let them be. if they're too dumb to consider the future benefits/consequences of their lifestyle then that's their fault but it's ultimately up to them.

I would consider it somewhat sad if the person really just isn't fast at all, being completely talentless to the point where they could never be competitive on an elite/top sub-elite level despite training at or near full time. Then I think its time to move on.

(eg. Post-collegiate male who could never break 2:30 for a marathon but runs 100+mpw and works at Walmart, I've met a few of these guys)

They have all my support.

It is a beautiful thing to have the wealth/governance/security/etc. to be able to do what makes you happy... So do it!

A majority of humans have never had the opportunity to follow their dreams, even have dreams, or pursue their goals. If you have the chance, take it.

I consider it noble.

I don't know. On one hand, I don't understand their mentality. Why train your butt off while working for minimum wage just so you might potentially qualify for the Olympic Trials or USAs someday? It's sorta like those wannabe rockstars who work at Guitar Center by day, and are out on the town trying to "make it" at night.

On the other hand, if they enjoy the life they've chosen and they don't have any dependents to provide for, more power to them.

After college, I continued to train and compete for a year or two unattached, even though I had no chance whatsoever of qualifying for the OTs. At some point I realized I was just trying to hold on to the past, and it was kinda pathetic. So now I just run for recreation/health, and I follow the sport as a fan. I occasionally enter races, but with no pressure or unrealistic expectations. So that's where I'm coming from. But if your dream is to qualify for the OTs, or whatever, and you actually have an outside shot of making that dream a reality.....shoot, whatever stirs your grits.

That's for each of them to determine for themselves. I have no say in it.

I'm in my 40's now, still run. It was a good ride.

No regrets whatsoever about going for it. Great memories, great friends, saw and did things I never would've. I can not quantify those experiences with a price tag.

Life is short, if you're living just to be a slave to a salary then one day you will wake up disillusioned. There is a big difference between "needs" and "wants" in life and in the western world people are really caught up in materialism that is basically like dust in the wind.

It comes down to the person and if they want to life with "what if's?".

You get 168 hours a week, how do you want to spend them?

Find something you are passionate about and pursue it. There are a lot of great things out there to pour yourself into. Don't wait around until you can't do it anymore.

The running bum lifestyle as you call it is a pretty hard one so I admire them. After college I spent 4 years training trying to make OTs but I was finally able to just qualify by the skin of my teeth. However I really had to sacrifice everything in order to qualify, running 140 mile weeks, having next to no social life, having a dead end job and living a very low quality of life (I had to share a bedroom with another guy). It took about fifteen years to finally catch up to my counterparts who got their careers started right out of college and probably could be making a considerable amount more money if I started my career at 22 compared to 26.

The Flagpole life isn't for everyone. I applaud those young men living their dream.

Admirable. "Wasting their youth" they're certainly not - quite the opposite. This is something you can only do when you're young.

I just started running seriously last year, and at 29 I know biology is working against me. For those few who have the chance to find out how fast you can really be...go for it.

What's sad is 3+ hour marathoners living the running bum lifestyle into their 30s.

I think the idea that a career has importance apart from as a job to pay the bills for whatever free-time/mental sanity to material goods tradeoff you want is the sad delusion.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2014/01/do_what_you_love_love_what_you_do_an_omnipresent_mantra_that_s_bad_for_work.html

Admirable.

Back the day, dudes worked full time and ran part time and still managed to run sub 2:20. The late 1970s early 1980s was full of those guys.

I don't know why someone can't work a full time job and find time to put in enough miles.

Now, if you want to have kids, work full time, and run enough miles...that may be too much.

But even if you want 9 hrs of sleep a night, 15 hrs awake 8 hrs at work, still leaves plenty of time to train. Particularly if you have weekends off.

I don't get it.

I've given this a lot of thought over the years -- in part, because I also was in a position to do something like this if I chose to.

At this point in my life, I don't really see it as either admirable (someone even used the term "noble") or sad. It's simply a choice that can have significant consequences. Whether it's a good choice depends on many factors, including (very importantly, I think) opportunity costs. For some people, choosing a "running bum lifestyle" may not be giving up very much, because their prospects in other areas are pretty limited. (I think that the dominance of East Africans in running is largely a matter of extremely low opportunity costs associated with being a full-time runner). Others who choose the "running bum lifestyle," however, may be taking themselves off a professional track leading toward great accomplishment, perhaps an obscene amount of money, and often the development of healthy social and familial relationships.

Of course, choosing another path also has opportunity costs. For me, there was always a question about how good I could be as a runner if I didn't have a very time-consuming, stressful job. I was constantly tired, and had a life that consisted almost entirely of my professional job and my athletic training. In many races that I didn't win, I was the first finisher among all of those participants (sometimes thousands) who had significant jobs outside of running. How much was I giving up as a runner by not choosing to commit to it full-time? I have no idea. In any event, the answer doesn't much matter to me anymore, because I don't believe that running a bit faster would have significantly enhanced my life in the long term.

One thing that does tend to bother me is the claim that someone (say, a 2:15 marathoner) is a "professional runner" when a more accurate description would seem to be "willfully unemployed or underemployed runner" (or, to use the vernacular, "running bum"). And all of these personal web pages detailing the training, racing, and general musings of these athletes seem over the top, at least to me.

done with the rat race wrote:

44, no job. 10's of thousands in debt. Pretty much have given up. Why not go running?

Why don't you have a job? There are THOUSANDS of jobs available every day.