Why did you quit running?

Permanently injured, age 20.

kibitzer wrote:

Permanently injured, age 20.

I'm sorry to hear that. If not too personal, what was the injury?

I ran in highighschool and then ran off and on after. I was then injured playing basketball around 26. We both went for a rebound and out knees collided. My knee swelled up like a grapefruit. When the swelling went down, i was left with a hard bone, just above my knee. When i tell people about it they feel it and say "that isnt your knee cap."....... "no, my knee cap is way over here." Whenever id try to run after that, it would hurt a little bit and then hurt really bad after a few weeks and id give up again. At age 32, i decided to look in to it more. I had xrays and then an mri done and it turned out that i had an osteochondroma. Extra bone growth that grew when my bones were growing. I had probably had it since elementary school and i had run with it all through highschool. Whenever id try to run again, i was basically building milage up too fast and just getting overuse injuries. I started my second running life at 32. Its been a year and a half and ive been slowly building up my milage. Ive been averaging about 60mpw lately with my highest week so far being 70. The tumor in my leg has basically been a non issue

Broke my femur and ruptured my ankle ligament

Aucun regret wrote:

Seriously, I'm very interested in knowing why people quit running for good.

There are people on here who don't actually run? That makes no sense to me.

I never quit, I just take longer rest.

30 min run, 10 year rest

26 min turkey trot, 7 day rest

Good for you for building back gradually to those kinds of levels. Coming back from ankle injury now, and need to resist the temptation to pop back up to 40 mpw and above too soon.

I quit running because of all the idiotic posts on this forum.

Active Rest wrote:

I never quit, I just take longer rest.

30 min run, 10 year rest

26 min turkey trot, 7 day rest

Same here. I'm just coming off a 4 year rest segment myself.

I nearly quit the sport all together at one point in my life in my late 20s. I blew up in a Marathon and DNF'd after about 5 months of relatively shitty racing despite maintaining solid training that had worked in the past to 65-66/2:22-2:23 results.

It's hard to manage the workload if you're a 1:05 HM type guy, but also working 50+ hours a week in a corporate job which pays a lot that you enjoy, have a young family that you care about, and also are pretty good at other hobbies which can be at times more fun (kayaking, snowboarding) or that your wife likes which are also fun (camping, hiking, adventuring, climbing). You begin to question what the payoff is an the cost of effort and pain vs benefits. You've set better PRs than most, had your day in the sun locally or regionally and are bored with that and also know a bigger stage is getting out of the question. You also realize reaching those PRs is getting more difficult, so running loses the appeal it once had.

That said I still run 30-40 minutes 3-5 times a week, but lift every weekday and mountain bike on weekends. so not unfit just not into racing anymore at all. ever.

I don't get it? wrote:

There are people on here who don't actually run? That makes no sense to me.

What doesn't make sense? There are people who watch football or basketball and don't play.

I stopped training hard in college and in the last few years just focus on general health and athleticism. Every few years I'll run more but I probably haven't run more than 35 or 40 miles a week since college.

My body, however, is awesome. I prefer having muscles and weighing 25 lbs more than college. But I still love the sport.

dwightarm wrote:

My body, however, is awesome. I prefer having muscles and weighing 25 lbs more than college. But I still love the sport.

Is this what they call fatsplaining?

Okay.... wrote:

Is this what they call fatsplaining?

Yup! Going from 125 to a toned 150 (at 5'10") means I'm fat! Good call out, bud

600m Repeats wrote:

kibitzer wrote:

Permanently injured, age 20.

I'm sorry to hear that. If not too personal, what was the injury?

Never definitely diagnosed. Best guess, a partial tear at the insertion of the peroneus brevis (lateral arch). Not a Jones fracture.

Currently working with a podiatrist who might get the foot manageable (though not actually "healed"). Unfortunately, a bad hernia repair some years ago means that running may still be a no-go, even if I get past the foot problem.

Yes, it sucks. And yes, I miss running. Every day. Forty-five years later.

I will let you know when it happens.

I already had enough Gold medals.

dwightarm wrote:

I don't get it? wrote:

There are people on here who don't actually run? That makes no sense to me.

What doesn't make sense? There are people who watch football or basketball and don't play.

I stopped training hard in college and in the last few years just focus on general health and athleticism. Every few years I'll run more but I probably haven't run more than 35 or 40 miles a week since college.

My body, however, is awesome. I prefer having muscles and weighing 25 lbs more than college. But I still love the sport.

It is much odder for someone to spend a lot of time on a running message board and not run. As you note, you still run.

dwightarm wrote:

My body, however, is awesome.

I can't even imagine the type of person who says this.

I don't get it? wrote:

There are people on here who don't actually run? That makes no sense to me.

Oh boy... count me as one of them; I've legitimately spent 20x as much time on Letsrun in the last decade as I have spent running.

I quit running competitively 12 years ago when I was 20. I was having major issues with asthma and the only way to be marginally competitive was to take a cocktail of drugs. I took the drugs for a year, ran ok, then decided it was time to be done and move on. After college I moved to Colorado and running wasn't exactly fun/enjoyable at 8000'+, so I never really got into any sort of regularity. From 20-26 I "ran" 30-50 times a year and maintained decent fitness for having no consistency (sub-18...)

For the last 5 years I've run maybe 30 times total, while mountain biking and skiing a lot more. There's no crossover to running from those activities, besides a very basic aerobic base. I've been able to maintain some amount of running ability with pretty much no training. I ran 5:32 last summer on the track at sea level, 19min for 5km, and 1:48 for a trail half marathon at 8000-9,500ft (ie- altitude hobby jogger).

I've since become as immersed in skiing and ski mountaineering as I was into running, though I'm still very mentally attached and involved with running (HS/NCAA/Pro). I think it's a mix of legitimate interest and enjoyment of following the sport, along with nostalgia and a bit of denial about the past.