Unlike most of you I picked up the sport of running not in HS/College but at age 26 after being pretty f***ing fat (5'7 and 187lbs).
That was 8 years ago. Since then I logged over 9,000 miles, trained a ton (for me), dropped to 150 lbs (lowest ever was 141 lbs) and my PRs are as follows:
- Marathon 3:16 (ran 3)
- Half 1:26:10
- 10k 38:00
Fairly injury prone (but small injuries), mileage anywhere from 20 mpw to 60 mpw (only ran over 60 twice). Would say median around 35-40 mpw.
I'm clearly not the worst runner out there, but as a male, it's not that great and my lifelong goal is to break 3 in the marathon.
To do so I know I need to drop weight, log more miles, get stronger etc. but at times (like today) I wonder why I wasn't able to progress to a more "advanced" stage of runner.
So tell me honestly. Given the above, is my talent purely non-existent i.e. I really suck, or is this an ok progression for a non-talented male?
I do enjoy running tremendously and it makes me happy. If I ever break 3 I will be less interested in times (finally)..but I am wondering if I just suck right now, or just don't train enough (I travel a lot for work and err on the side of caution given injuries...it's not laziness)