Just because you don’t have a trust fund doesn’t mean you aren’t privileged.
Just because you don’t have a trust fund doesn’t mean you aren’t privileged.
rojo wrote:
ncrunner25 wrote:
Hello everyone, I’ve been stalking the forums for a while. For the past year, my partner and I train daily and work full time. For the past year, we wake up at 3:30 am M-F and lift (she’s more of a lifter). We finish at 4:20 then we run the dog for 2 miles and bring the dog back. Then we run for 3.1 miles by ourselves. After work, she runs 2 miles by her self and lifts. After school, I run 7-8 miles. I don’t lift again. On the weekends, we don’t lift, but continue our routine. We run daily. We run all of our miles at 7:30 pace. We don’t do workouts. She does 50 miles per week. I am around 70-80 (I cut back a bit because I don’t want to go over 80 miles per week. We sleep at 9 pm. She’s an engineer, I’m a medical student. Goal is to build our base through the Spring and ease in workouts and some 5K races. We’re between 27-25 years of age. In HS, I ran 4:45 for the 1600 m and 10:20 for the 3200 on less than 30 miles a week. Gave up routine running for almost 10 years for pre-med and medical school. Started from stratch over a year ago. Built up from 14 miles a week. Helpful things are that we live in the South (warmer, can always run outside). Goal is to get the OQT by 2024. If not, we’ll be damn good runners and healthy. If you are motivated, you can do it.
Free advice.
Cut out the weighs, give the dogs to your parents and up your mileage from 80 to 120 (assuming you are going for the marathon).
I disagree with all of the above. He's staying HEALTHY at 80 mpw, lifting and having dogs to run with.
When I was in my mid 20s I realized I was not going to be an olympian but could still compete at a high level. I trained 'lazily' meaning I ran but didn't take ancillary care of myself. I worked 40-50 hours a week and trained in my free time. I didn't have kids so it was easy and I didn't have to give up TV or video games. I continued to run at a nationally competitive level, content knowing I was still doing well in running but not slaughtering my professional life.
Had I wanted to get another 1-2% off my times I would have kept my job and worked at the little things that get you to the top. Life is not that hard. Choose what's important. You can work a lot and still train. Support yourself with a job and fit whatever else into your life as you see fit.
A very accurate post. If I had to take a guess at who this was, I would maybe say Mark Parrish (steeplechaser)? Regardless, keep at it and glad to hear you are enjoying it!
As for myself, finding a job with flexibility has been a tremendous help in training. What began as a part time job with some required office time turned into a remote, full time job. Time management is really important to finding the appropriate amount of time to run, lift, double, hit the track. Kudos to those that have to go to an office for a set amount of time daily, even the commute eats away at your time. Those are the true blue collar runners!
Pacing and racing certainly can provide some extra income if you do enough of it. Road racing pays better than the track, generally. Occassionally, pacing actually pays better than most of the competitors in the race!
Decided to add my real name to the username since that seems to be a liked and respected detail in the letsrun community. I figured that if David Torrence could post on here then I feel the need to obscure my identity. Hopefully this post and thread helps a college runner hoping to compete post collegiately who finds him or herself without a sponsor.
txRUNNERgirl wrote:
rojo wrote:
Free advice.
Cut out the weighs, give the dogs to your parents and up your mileage from 80 to 120 (assuming you are going for the marathon).
I disagree with all of the above. He's staying HEALTHY at 80 mpw, lifting and having dogs to run with.
The only way someone can safely up mileage is running through a sandy forest after it rains. It's like running on a trampoline.
Slight mix of a couple.
Work 30 hours a week. Cheap rent. Keep the money from running separate from my job and other expenses. Day trade/swing trade stocks as well. I just don't blow my money on unnecessary stuff. Moving here shortly to get some better weather and job opportunities while starting grad school in January. I only have best times of 4:05, 13:57, 29:20, and a 65 half.... You peak in your late 20's. Stay with it.
Live frugal boys and gals.
KyleMerber wrote:
Daddy wrote:
A lot of the guys who go pro from Ivy's live off daddy's credit card (Kyle Merber) or a trust fund until they get some sort of partial sponsorship.
Do you know how I can find this trust fund you speak of? My first year as a 'pro' was aided by NJ*NY TC which is a 501(c)3 and to this day, a major mission of the club is to assist newly graduated college runners chase the dream. I had rent covered by living in the team house (there were 7 of us), which we got at a good deal for because a local family cared to help out. We ate as a family every night (Ford would cook) and that helped save some money. Over the course of the 6 years the club was based in New Jersey, we probably had 25 people rotate through that place. Additionally, the club gave me a stipend of maybe $200/month, which more or less went to gym membership+massage and I worked 25 hours/week at the Sneaker Factory selling shoes. That summer I bought my own ticket to Europe and thankfully set some PRs and won some races while over there. After that, HOKA got in touch and I made good money racing domestically that summer so I stopped working.
It doesn't workout for everyone and that's why after 2-3 years people will either have made it or move on. I think you would be shocked to see how many really great runners are working jobs and look no further than the top runners from CIM. Emma Bates is a nanny. Brogan Austin is a project manager. It's extremely impressive by those who can balance both.
Wow, Kyle Merber posted here! Kyle, you've got a lot of fans on here. Consider doing an AMA thread sometime over the long winter?
Don’t be like me, but...
Lived illegally in a storage unit. Couldn’t hold a bank account after anti-money-laundering rules forced me to have a physical address.
Washed dishes. Most hotels/restaurants provide a meal every shift.
Formerly races were cheap, organized at a loss (or free).
Sponsored runners gave me used gear.
Bought a good gym/resort membership & showered there (cheaper than rent).
Moved to the tropics with all the other bums.
Ran & walked barefoot sometimes.
Etc!
By Working A Job wrote:
I'm sub-elite/elite in my mind. Qualified for the past couple USATF outdoor championships with the auto standards as well as relatively high finishes at USATF road championship races. I work 40 hours a week at a career job that I went to school for. Meet with people to train a couple days a week. It is really not that bad. In my opinion it would be kind of a waste of time not to be productive for my future at this point in my life. Running doesn't take 8-10 hours a day. More like 2-3 hours or I'll give your maximum 4 hours if you're doing a ton of rolling out and stretching and getting massage and all the stuff that doesn't directly fall under the 'workout' category. You do have to have good time management though. You've just got a window of a couple hours before work and a few hours after work to really get the training in. If I didn't have a regular job I'd be able to sleep in and run whenever I was ready.
The major benefit about working the regular job is that I don't have to be stressed out about making damn sure I run fast and win a ton of prize money. I run because I enjoy the competition, if the race goes well that's great. If it doesn't, my livelihood isn't hurt at all.
Great example of doing both is Martin Hehir who's in medical school, and Brogan Austin who just won USATF marathon championships while working as a project manager. There are many others that are just under the radar, never winning the USATF titles, but always in the main pack and occasionally finishing really high.
Thank you for an excellent and insightful post. I've wondered how 'sub elites' managed to survive. Sure, it stands to reason that they work like the rest of us, but they aren't high-profile, so you don't read articles about them - you come here to find out how they do it. Definitely pays to plan ahead, because no matter who you are, you won't be fast forever. Good luck as you continue to chase your dreams. There's a lot of us that love seeing blue collar runners do well.
@Daniel
Thank you for the support, though I am not Mark Parrish, lol.
Yes, having a job with flexibility is big. I don't really work 40 hours per week, I work about 35 with the remaining 5 being "hey, whatever, as long as the work gets done" and lets be real I think a good amount of us work jobs where we could get 8 hours of work done in 7 hours or maybe less. I suppose it all depends on how good your employer is with that kind of attitude.
How did you get into pacing? I think I would be a pretty good pacer, is definitely something I am interested in pursuing in the future.
I definitely made more money this year over last year by just racing more. I plan to race even more this coming year.
@rojo
I will add a bit more info because I think it may both answer your question about how I save as well as be helpful advice to other aspiring sub-elites.
DO NOT SUCCUMB TO LIFESTYLE INFLATION! poster "Spot on..." has the right idea too. I was way more stressed right after I graduated with the mindset "okay, just gotta find races with a few hundred bucks of money and win them a few times a month.... oh, there aren't that many of those races... oh, and I'm not good enough to actually win many of them, so forget about all of them, week in and week out." Once I realized I would absolutely need to work to support my running, I became less stressed about money, and only just a tiny bit stressed about "will I be able to compete at the level at which I want to compete". And then once I realized I could compete well while working, i became way less stressed about that. So I think the lesson is, do not run for the money. Run for the running. Work for the money.
Sub elites: If you aren't yet good enough for a sponsorship, you are not good enough to be making a living off of prize money. You need to be like, good enough to reliably and consistently place at major marathons/US championships to be able to make even halfway live-able prize money. So don't try to do that, you will lose a ton of money by not working for a living. I believe this is called opportunity cost.
My rent is very cheap compared to a lot of places, and on top of that I split it with an SO and another roommate. I don't have a baby to take care of either, so that helps a lot, lol.
Basically, I take home roughly $2200 a month. about half of that I spend on things I think are reasonable expenses: rent, utilities, groceries, only a little bit of eating out, transport pass and car insurance/gas (don't use it that much so don't spend that much on gas) plus a "loose" $100 fun budget. Some months I spend more, like if I am going to travel to a race or like a wedding or something, or needed to spend a couple hundred do some maintenance on my car, a real life example of a recent expense. I already have achieved my savings/emergency acct goal, so I do not feel bad at all when an expense like that takes away most or all of what I planned to put in there that month. So the other half of what I take home I can pay myself via my roth IRA and savings account. You only need to budget $458.33 per month to max a roth IRA. So I now have 3 fiscal years of maxed roth IRA under my belt, plus 5 digits in emergency fund, which helps me feel very safe and secure.
Learn how to cook for yourself! It saves a ton of money by not eating out for either dinner OR lunch, if you're like me and make 4 servings for dinner, one for me one for SO, then one for each of us for lunch the next day. Sometimes I also just have rice and beans for lunch, a can of beans is like 79 cents, and a half cup of rice is even less. Also, cooking is fun, leading to my next point...
Learn how to entertain yourself. Cooking is great entertainment. Hanging out with my SO is basically free. Libraries still exist. I sometimes play some old video games that I have had for years, they are still fun. And netflix is only $12/mo (less if you agree to split it between roommates). Also, running is entertainment, and it's basically free, depending on how much you need to spend on shoes (for me, fortunately none, but if you just buy whatever is on clearance on running warehouse with 15% off, you can get some pretty good values). and dont waste money on new clothes! wear them until they fall apart!
Great advice.
Learn how to cook fast basic everyday meals should be mandatory for everybody. Not only it saves you a lot of a of money, it is also healthier.
I really would love to see, who really can live from their running. I am sure there are some. But the average you tube blogger who wins a couple of races here and there and gets some free shoes is not living from running.
They might have a job they don't talk about and or they get supported by somebody else.
Unless you are really a World class runner, I would stop thinking about making a living with running. It probably won't work for most people.
jesseriley wrote:
Don’t be like me, but...
Lived illegally in a storage unit. Couldn’t hold a bank account after anti-money-laundering rules forced me to have a physical address.
Washed dishes. Most hotels/restaurants provide a meal every shift.
Formerly races were cheap, organized at a loss (or free).
Sponsored runners gave me used gear.
Bought a good gym/resort membership & showered there (cheaper than rent).
Moved to the tropics with all the other bums.
Ran & walked barefoot sometimes.
Etc!
Where do you live? We should meet for a coconut milk sometime.
Wonder how the shoe companies handle sub elites if they do at all?
Getting good quality inexpensive running shoes is key.,,
Any solutions for this?
Anyone got ideas?
Coppess didn't grow up in wealthy suburbs with a smartphone in-hand, entitled privilege, and a chronic case of Peter Pan Syndrome.
Iowa dudes are fast wrote:
Phil Coppess worked full time in a factory when he set the Twin Cities Marathon record at 2:10.05 and when he won Chicago beating Frank Shorter. His PR is faster than Shorter's. These Iowa runners have always been around. Maybe Iowa natives will go 1-2-3 in the 1500 next year, Houlihan, Schweizer, Simpson.
I live with 3 other runners - 2 of us have marathon OTQs and the other 2 are going to be chasing qualifiers in 2019. We live in Boston so the cost of living is higher than pretty much anywhere save NY/LA/SF and we all work full-time jobs. Two of us work in the running industry and two of us work in industries totally unrelated to running. All of us pay our own rent (i.e. without parents' help) and although we all have little things like phone bills, health insurance, etc. that our parents help out with to varying amounts we are all basically financially independent.
If I had to highlight keys to success, I think these are the big ones-
- In your job, you want either serious flexibility or serious stability. I have a bunch of friends who work in jobs that are 40 or more hours for week but those hours are scheduled in a flexible or nonstandard way. Having a company/boss who is willing to let you take a few days off for a race or who doesn't mind you scheduling work around a workout is INCREDIBLE. Unfortunately that's pretty rare, but if you can get your hands on a position like that you should. If you don't have that opportunity, it's great to have a job like I have which is pretty consistently 9 to 5 or 9 to 6 and rarely having to work on the weekends or travel for work. Being able to plan your life around known constraints and develop a routine that works goes a long way even if you can't just take 3 hours to run every afternoon like you could in college. You might be sacrificing a higher salary or opportunities for advancement, but hey, that's what "retiring" from running in your 30s is for.
- The community you're part of is super important. Almost all my friends outside work are serious runners and understand the grind/have compatible schedules. It's a lot easier to get up at 5 a.m. to do a workout if you know you have to meet someone at the track at 6. Also it's a lot easier to be social if everyone is doing the same races as you and planning schedules and nights in/out around them. Peer pressure in the running world is almost always a good thing.
- Minimize major "luxury" purchases - I am far from the best money manager around and definitely spend more than I should on food and beer, but for the most part I rarely spend over $100 at one time on anything besides plane tickets (almost always to races- if you're gonna go on vacation you should drive or schedule it around a race). Things like concerts, sports games, etc. are fun but just not worth it. Also, don't go to New York a bunch. Seems like every time I'm there I run up a couple $50 bar tabs without even trying.
At the end of the day, it's super hard sometimes. Do I wish I could work less and run more a lot of the time? Absolutely. But if I was offered a pro contract tomorrow I don't think I'd take it. I like my job and my life and I've found a balance that keeps me fulfilled and works for me. And it makes it all the more satisfying when you do have that big breakthrough to know you did it the hard way.
rojo wrote:
Can someone explain the logic of the internet to me. Facebook is all about bragging to your friends about your life but this guy won't even post his name on the messageboard?
It's the logic of this toxic site, not requiring a login to post. Idiot.
Brian, great race at CIM. I love seeing the success of a Boston-area group. I know one of you is coaching, but you said that two of you work non-running related jobs. Do you mind telling us what exactly those are? I am always interested to hear about what those who are successful in both running and their careers do for a living.
Usus wrote:
Just because you don’t have a trust fund doesn’t mean you aren’t privileged.
Just about everyone is "privileged" in one way or another. Maybe you have tall privilege (easier to get girls and be a basketball player), maybe you have poor privilege (easier to appreciate what you have and generally happier), or maybe you have rich privilege (can get what you want). The thing is we are all dealt different cards in life and that should be celebrated, not looked down upon. I don't see people complaining about good basketball players had "hood" privilege because they got to grow up playing against good players. Here is my point, people are different. GET OVER IT.
Poor privilege and hood privilege? Wow, Letsrun exploring new horizons in bigotry and narcissism.
Everyone needs some low level of income to pay for food and things unless they are being supported by another person (parents, spouse, etc.).
But you really do not need that much money to survive. One way to pursue the running dream is to manage your life so your expenses are as low as possible. If you do not spend money you do not have to make much money.
Cut rent by living with multiple room/house mates, or live in a car/tent. Also house sit/caretake properties. Food is relatively cheap if you eat simply and prepare it yourself. Cars are expensive: walk, run, ride a bike, use public transportation, catch rides with others. If your income is low enough you are covered by gov. insurance for major trauma with high deductible (take care of yourself...). Run local races you can travel to easily and only enter a few races each year (make them count). Develop an efficient low impact running style and wear shoes until they fall apart.
For many years I survived ok and ran/raced/lived well by working very part time. During those years, I would run more miles each year than the dollars I made during that year. Example run 4500 miles during the year, make $4200 during the year.
This may not be possible today with inflation, but you get the idea.