My coach told me to give up competitive running

What has your progression been like over the last 4 years? Some people blossom later. I was running almost same times as you at your age. 15:50 at 19 and I knew I wasn't shit. the pressure I got was unspoken but pretty much the same message. I let it get to me and quit. You need to be reasonable about what you want to accomplish and ask if it's worth it. You could run 2:20-2:25 for a marathon in 8 years. I wish I had stuck around to do that. Those are great times but you'll never make a living off the sport. My opinion: who cares about the living. Get out of it what you can for yourself. Set goals and go after them. Think of running as a life long endeavor.

Waterworks wrote:

I am working at the moment to save up money to attend college in the future. I really enjoy running with the team but my coach makes me feel like i have nothing to offer. There are all levels of athletes in our club but he seems indifferent towards me. I do not see myself as a negative influence as i am an active member and do my best to bring more runners to the team.

Great that you enjoy running with the team. Is the coach threatening to kick you out, or is he just not very interested in you? If he's threatening to kick you out, that's a problem. If he's just not very interested, oh well + focus on the things you enjoy about the team. Hey, you're 10% slower than his 4 fastest guys - if his goal is to make a dent at, say, club nationals it's understandable that he'd focus on the people who are going to score and that just isn't you [unless there's a BIG drop off from that first four to the next few guys]. Nothing personal, just the objective reality.

Anyway, good luck with making the college thing work out + with finding happiness with your running.

At 19 you can do whatever you want, but I would definately get in school somewhere ASAP. With times like yours you could develop into a decent longer distance guy. I had an associate that had times similar to yours at that age that almost made the olympics in the marathon, and another that won a fairly large marathon recently. You probably need to gradually step up your mileage to 70-90 miles per week if that is your goal.

Rather than trying to save up, it might be a good idea to pursue ROTC or the military / coast guard as the GI bill is great and you can enter into a lot of different career paths and still be encouraged to run / work out. If I had it all to do over again, I would probably go ROTC and try to get the military to pay for med school or dental school.

oab wrote:

What has your progression been like over the last 4 years? Some people blossom later. I was running almost same times as you at your age. 15:50 at 19 and I knew I wasn't shit. the pressure I got was unspoken but pretty much the same message. I let it get to me and quit. You need to be reasonable about what you want to accomplish and ask if it's worth it. You could run 2:20-2:25 for a marathon in 8 years. I wish I had stuck around to do that. Those are great times but you'll never make a living off the sport. My opinion: who cares about the living. Get out of it what you can for yourself. Set goals and go after them. Think of running as a life long endeavor.

I have been running for nearly 3 and a half years. The first 10k i ran was 42.13 and at the start of last year, my best was 36.22 and by the end of the year i had dropped it to 33.10. I seem to have plateaued a bit this year. I think i have the speed and believe it's only a matter of time before i make another breakthrough.

My coach is not threatening to kick me out but has just been negative and disinterested in me.

Waterworks wrote:

I have been running for nearly 3 and a half years. The first 10k i ran was 42.13 and at the start of last year, my best was 36.22 and by the end of the year i had dropped it to 33.10. I seem to have plateaued a bit this year. I think i have the speed and believe it's only a matter of time before i make another breakthrough.

My coach is not threatening to kick me out but has just been negative and disinterested in me.

Good + I think you mean "uninterested" although I suspect "disinterested" may be closer to the truth, as in your coach doesn't have a vested interest one way or the other. If you get better, he'll pay more attention to you; if not, not.

So...keep running with the club, and if you take that next step forward to, say, 31 high for 10k, I'll bet he'll pay a lot more attention to you and offer more encouragement.

How many guys on the team are currently sub-32 for 10k?

Maybe 7 or 8 including the guys I mentioned earlier. I still have a lot of work to do to put me in a scoring position.

Waterworks wrote:

Dkny64 wrote:

Good + I think you mean "uninterested" although I suspect "disinterested" may be closer to the truth, as in your coach doesn't have a vested interest one way or the other. If you get better, he'll pay more attention to you; if not, not.

So...keep running with the club, and if you take that next step forward to, say, 31 high for 10k, I'll bet he'll pay a lot more attention to you and offer more encouragement.

How many guys on the team are currently sub-32 for 10k?

Maybe 7 or 8 including the guys I mentioned earlier. I still have a lot of work to do to put me in a scoring position.

Correct. So...keep doing the work [which it appears you enjoy], don't worry so much about the coach [whose inclination is going to be to focus on the sub 32 guys] and if all goes well, in another year or so you'll be one of those sub 32 guys.

If all goes well on the "working to go to college" front, what college do you plan to attend?

Tell your coach that if he can't coach you to a sub 30 then he should give up coaching.

I have not made my mind up yet. Just working on getting myself into a position to afford going in the first place.

doesn't work that way.

Said it was about time for an update on this thread in case anyone was interested.

I left my club a few weeks after this thread and was duly picked up by another coach on a one to one basis. He heard I had split from the club and contacted me. This has been the best decision I have made in my running life. Last week, I ran 30:51 for 10k on the road as a very early season opener which took nearly 2:20 off my previous best.

The difference in communication, attitude and general interest in my all-round life and running is on a different plane compared to my old coach. It's funny how much of a difference there is between a someone who has to coach you and someone who offers to coach you.

What kind of "stimulants" did your new coach give you?

VAcoach wrote:

How many runners in the US actually become elite? a dozen maybe two? How many are gold medal threats? 3...maybe? Cross country and track combined is the largest HS participatory sport in the US (or at least one of them for those of you who have access to other stats). Yet our professional pool is one of the smallest. In baseball for every game there are 25 winners and 25 losers, in a marathon like NYC, there is 2 winners and 40,000 losers. If you are going to derive any meaning from this sport, you have to find it amongst failure because that is the normative experience of the runner, even the elite.

I am sorry that your coach doesn't have a more productive method for finding meaning in your competitive aspirations. Take comfort in knowing he was a failure too...we are all failures, but that is OK.

This is perhaps the best advice provided on LR this week.

get used to it. wrote:

Keep running, give up trolling.

This. +1

Learn to coach yourself.