D1 runner losing motivation

okay not to claim that i am actually a good runner but my 4:30 mile and 1:58 800 pr are both from sophomore year high school. I have run those times since but the medical treatment i had really impacted my running

Thank you

At a loss wrote:

okay not to claim that i am actually a good runner but my 4:30 mile and 1:58 800 pr are both from sophomore year high school. I have run those times since but the medical treatment i had really impacted my running

It's funny you give those HS soph PRs because they were almost exactly mine as a soph. I was much faster as a HS senior and one of the top recruits in the country.

Do what you want. Take personal responsibility for the result. I suspect you will blame someone or something.

Give up.

Anyone who smokes does so to fit in is weak willed and does not the essential quality to be an athlete

There's a famous quote from Jumbo Elliot, who was a legendary coach at Villanova (paraphrase): you can run, you can be a college student, you can have a social life, but you can only pick two of these.

It's a big jump from HS to college without trying to be on a D1 athletic team. If you take a step back, nothing good long-term comes from more drinking and smoking. Running (or a similar structured activity) is a better complement/outlet to academics than smoking drinking, but if you're not enjoying it you'll need to figure out why and if it's worth it to complete the season or change gears now. Usually there's a good social component to being on a team, and that keeps you motivated. Lot's of people find satisfaction with being a walk-on on a D1 team (and most people are with few scholarships especially for men). Having said that lot's of people get enough of a high school running experience and get deja vu in college.

U suspect i will blame someone else? What the f**k gave u that impression?

breaking: reality on letsrun wrote:

At a loss wrote:

okay not to claim that i am actually a good runner but my 4:30 mile and 1:58 800 pr are both from sophomore year high school. I have run those times since but the medical treatment i had really impacted my running

It's funny you give those HS soph PRs because they were almost exactly mine as a soph. I was much faster as a HS senior and one of the top recruits in the country.

Do what you want. Take personal responsibility for the result. I suspect you will blame someone or something.

At a loss wrote:

U suspect i will blame someone else? What the f**k gave u that impression?

you

Give it a listen if you feel interested. Might help.

http://one.npr.org/?sharedMediaId=514233224:514233226

You have the rest of your life to drink and smoke. You don't have the rest of your life to run at a D1 school. Working sucks, being an adult sucks. Keep up your grades, cut the drinking and smoking to just a bit in the offseason, and maybe even redshirt a season to train and rediscover your passion. A lot of guys would kill to be in your shoes. Your PRs aren't great but they aren't terrible. Train your butt off and they will improve. Maybe win some road races to feel like a winner again. Good luck!

Hey i truly appreciate this post and i think you are completely right

ajip wrote:

You have the rest of your life to drink and smoke. You don't have the rest of your life to run at a D1 school. Working sucks, being an adult sucks. Keep up your grades, cut the drinking and smoking to just a bit in the offseason, and maybe even redshirt a season to train and rediscover your passion. A lot of guys would kill to be in your shoes. Your PRs aren't great but they aren't terrible. Train your butt off and they will improve. Maybe win some road races to feel like a winner again. Good luck!

ajip wrote:

You have the rest of your life to drink and smoke. You don't have the rest of your life to run at a D1 school. Working sucks, being an adult sucks. Keep up your grades, cut the drinking and smoking to just a bit in the offseason, and maybe even redshirt a season to train and rediscover your passion. A lot of guys would kill to be in your shoes. Your PRs aren't great but they aren't terrible. Train your butt off and they will improve. Maybe win some road races to feel like a winner again. Good luck!

+1

well said!

Assuming that you're not a troll...

My son runs at a D1 Power 5 school. He's had a lot of teammates quit because they're not willing to put forth the effort required to succeed.

My advice is to stop running for your school. You have neither the talent nor the motivation to succeed in D1 running. Run club or just work out on your own.

Focus on your studies. Use the time you regained to do something productive like taking a minor, volunteering, etc.

I think a lot of people aren't realizing what a lot of mid level D1 schools are like for talent coming in. It doesn't sound like this kid is BIG10 or PAC12 material or whatever, but if he trains well he can make improvements look to do ok in some crappy conference. I think he should stick at it, don't smoke at all, don't drink as much (try to keep it in the offseason if you do), and keep those grades up. Even if you don't score at a conference meet, you are helping to keep the team's funding and such if you are bringing up your team's overall GPA.

Quit and let someone deserving the scholarship money.

zohan wrote:

Quit and let someone deserving the scholarship money.

Well like i already said, i am not on a scholarship

My situation was very similar to yours my freshman year of college. Similar PRs, back of the pack at a middle of the road D1, questioning whether I wanted to commit to the team or quit and party more. I'm thankful I stayed on board. I never became a world-beater, and to be honest, you probably won't either. But I developed into a contributor and a leader, and made some amazing friends in the process.

It's not the path of least resistance- it would certainly be easier for you to quit and focus on your academics and party it up. But it's not the most difficult thing in the world either. You're not playing football in the SEC. You can become a very successful D1 distance runner with 2-4 hours a day of work. The people who are telling you that you can't have either extreme concepts of "success" or unrealistic ideas of what it takes to become a good college runner. You clearly have the pedigree to become a very good runner with smart, consistent training. But you need to be self-motivated.

I recommend sticking with the sport. You chose to run in college sans scholarship for a reason. There will be times when you have doubts, but if you quit now, the regret, those what-if scenarios may continue to haunt you. If you don't love the sport and your team, or you are injury-plagued beyond repair, that's a different story. But if all you're experiencing is a little self-doubt? I say go for it.

I knew plenty of youger guys that felt burnt out or wanted to be a typical college kid but you really can't do both, especially for a Freshman/Soph.

My advice would be to get through this school year & talk to your coach. Maybe you don't go out next year. Then you will really know how much you miss it. For me I couldn't get rid of my competitive spirit for running but I still found time to have fun as a college kid without going overboard by my jr/senior year. I would run varsity for XC & outdoor track & run unattached for indoor since the team shrinks. That alone motivated me to come back in great shape for outdoor. Always loved the under-dog mentality.

It's really a decision you have to make for yourself despite what others say. You're young but don't set yourself up for a path you in the end didn't want.

FWIW I was a good bit better than the OP in high school but not good enough to get a scholarship at a Power 5 school.

I ran 1:55 in high school, was way more of mid d than XC. My college team was usually top 3 in D1 conference but that bottom half of our conference was pretty poor. I should preface in high school I maybe ran 20 miles per week, we didn't have anyone else under two mins for 800 or under 4:30 for the mile, in fact we hardly had any good runners. I was nowhere near good enough to make a legit power conference team.

Anyway I showed up for cross fall so out of shape and it was pretty obvious I wasn't going to be in our top 9, basically got no attention from our coach. These things happen, I pledged a frat, really hated running for awhile. The thing is I wasn't training hard but it was still harder than I was in high school and I dropped my 800 by 4 seconds frosh year first race of outdoor, it just kind of happened. I ended up being our fifth guy for cross and our 2nd best 800m / 1500m and got all conference so I would say a decent career by senior year.

Cross in college can be miserable (8ks and 10ks kind of suck amirite?) and indoor can be really frustrating too if the weather is crappy or you don't even get a chance to run a banked track so you feel like you aren't getting better.

I still vividly remember the first spring race because that really sparked a passion for me to get serious, really fell in love with the sport again. So I would say keep at it. D1 is hard, honestly there isn't a ton of room for those kind of 4:30 guys but if you like the sport keep doing it. If not, no hard feelings, not many people are cut out to make it.

Hey OP, I was a D1 walkon as well. Sounds like we have similar high school backgrounds so thought I'd offer my thoughts/experience. I was a 2:04/4:40 kid in HS. Only took running seriously my senior year, but certainly wasn't D1 material. Still I was fortunate enough to be given a shot to walk on to a good, regionally-competitive program.

D1 Running is nothing like high school. I hope you understood that going in, though. Especially as a walk on, if you want to have any amount of success, or even just survive, it absolutely needs to be your number one priority. Period. Ahead of school. Ahead of girls. Certainly ahead of beers and weed.

If you're willing to make that commitment and those sacrifices, willing to put in the miles and get your teeth kicked in every single day for probably two years (maybe less since it sounds like you're a little bit more naturally talented than me), then the times/performance will come. But it will suck donkey d for a while. I was garbage until junior year, but by the time i graduated I'd carved out a modestly successful career: ran mid 14min 5k, scored at conferences and qualified for IC4As a couple times. Nothing exceptional, but Im as proud of myself for that as anything I've accomplished in my life (hopefully won't be saying that in 20 years, but point remains).

If you're not willing to make that commitment, then you should move on, honestly. You'll hate it even more than now. I know plenty of other walk ons who quit and had awesome college experiences through other activities.

On a final note, hope you realize what fvking awesome opportunity you have right now tho. I'm friends with a couple d3 all Americans who've told me that looking back, they'd give that up in a heartbeat for the chance to train with D1 guys everyday. The battle you get to wage everyday to prove you belong is something you rarely get to experience in life, running or otherwise. So whatever you decide, choose wisely.

Anyway, sorry for the dam novel. Felt like I had something to offer and hope it helps you make the best decision for you. Good luck either way.