Is it worth it to drop out of college, coach myself etc...

Are you on the school's xc and track team?

How much money will you need to make to come up with rent, expenses, etc?

What are you currently studying at college?

What year are you?

Well....how deep is your understanding of coaching and training methods? Are you able to make subjective unbiased observations about your training and state of fitness and how they align with your seasonal goals -> olympiad cycle goals-> career goals? Are you going to be able to be your own agent with connections to get you into the appropriate meets to get you in the races you need to be in to continue to progress towards your goals?

Stay in college and do the training that you would do have done on your own anyway. I ran middle distance in college and for Puma for three years after college and my weekly time commitment was usually just over 20 hours of training time. I would have waisted my opportunity to get a college degree that is making life comfortable after giving it my best shot. While I ran for Puma, I worked in a running store because I would have gone crazy just sitting around waiting for my next training session. Besides, I wasn’t making a lot of money from my Puma contract so that I could just chill.

You may have more time to train now while in school than while you have to work to make a living as you train.

Also interests change all of the time. You may want to be a coach now but something completely different, that you haven;t even thought of yet, 5 years down the road.

"School is stressing you out." Well life will stress you the f*ck out even more. In hindsight school is the easiest thing you'll do in life. School can be a great place to meet people, learn how to handle stress and deadlines, take interesting courses, and to enjoy your youth. If you want to coach, then coach people on the side right now.

Isn't there some youtube guy who is doing what you are thinking about?

College is a waist of time, I make $10 million a year and I never went and I do whatever or whoever I like.

Also, you mention "happy" a few times.

Life isn't about being happy all the time. Life is about being alive. And being alive has 100 different emotions attached to it. Being stressed is just as equal of a human state as being happy. If you just chase happiness, your life will end up being more stressful than you think.

worst business/life plan I have seen written in quite some time

Left school in my junior year. I worked manual labor for a company that then went out of business. It was stressful for about 6 months until I discovered that I learned something valuable working for the company: I knew who bought what and I knew I could do it on my own. Others told me I would not succeed. I did and very well. I moved to a small city near spectacular nature and ran almost everyday in paradise. Then I started international travel. I didn't have a care in the world for over a decade. That was the ultimate in freedom: Go where you want, do what you want any time you want. Money came in in floods. Something I never dreamed could ever happen.

Then my business had some totally unforeseen set backs. I am currently trying to make a comeback and it's difficult. But I have no choice. So I say to anyone: Follow your dreams, don't let others mess with it but know that it may get very difficult, not just in the beginning but at anytime. The solution to adversity is the sustained right efforts. The old saying "Don't quit" is so true.

On this topic, check out the best podcast episode ever on it. Jordan Harbinger Show Episode 205: Deep Dive. What to do when your purpose starts to suck

https://www.jordanharbinger.com/deep-dive-what-to-do-when-your-purpose-starts-to-suck/

Why do hopeful pro runners always work at a running store? I’d say of the other available part time jobs, 75% of them are better than that.

I thought this was a joke. No, you are not going to chase your dreams this way. Life is expensive, and you will not want to work hard when you are older. And you will need money to pay for your hip replacement, medications and elderly care.

Get a real job. Know your level. Study something that has a job at the end of it that you can do. You are not the best. You probably cannot even get a coaching job that pays enough to live on. Just do something where you can contribute and get a job to make and save money. The military is great because of the pension. Look for military jobs you can do. Hardly anything is as attractive as that. A pension on 60k/year is valued at 2MM. Imagine having 2MM at age 42. You can run on the side. No one cares that you most enjoy running, gambling, drugs, reckless spending or whatever the hell. You are not special. Those will cost you in the long term. Do something that would help you take care of your mother. God, kids these days. "I am just really passionate about eating McDonald's 3 times a day and eventually want to have a youtube channel where I talk about and rate fast food restaurants..." Jesus. Do what gets you a job that best pays your bills.

Who needs an education when almighty government will provide for all of his needs by taxing the rich.

You are nuts. Unless you are one of the very best in the NCAA right now, you have no business thinking you could become a professional runner, let alone one that takes you to the Olympics and makes you desirable as a professional coach. If you want to be a coach one day, the best path is to get a degree, do as well as a college runner as you can, start as a volunteer assistant coach and then start applying to paying jobs after 1-2 years of doing that.

If we wouldn't recognize your name, you need to go back to class.

The way it's written this doesn't seem like a troll post, but it easily could be. What even are your PRs.

Despite what e-book hucksters tell you, having a degree still matters in life especially if it's from a brand-name university with an influential alumni network. Don't drop out. If you're studying a joke major, switch majors and finish school.

And everyone at that age thinks money doesn't matter. But they still have a minimum standard of living in mind (that doesn't necessarily match the average salary of the field they're going into) and have more important goals like raising a family. Of course you could always let your wife be the breadwinner...it's the 21st century after all.

"having a degree still matters in life"

Only for certain occupations like medicine, law, etc. But for most people it doesn't matter. Most university education is wasteful and can do more harm then good.

My best years running where when I graduated undergrad and got out from under formal coaching and had the freedom to do it on my own....through 4 years of a tough PhD and 2 more of a top tier MBA. Classes and group work are a ton more flexible than a real job. My running success came to a crashing halt when I graduated and started a real career and couldn't manage 100+ mpw anymore.

It's great to be happy. Being stressed about money 24/7 is not happy. If you can find a way to live cheap enough so that you can live on a job not supported by education and be happy more power to you.

Training to be a distance runner doesn't take that much time. Even if you a running high mileage it's an hour in the morning, and hour and a half in the afternoon and maybe another hour and a half of the little things (showering, stretching, lifting, etc). That's only four hours out of a 24 hour day. Switch to an easy yet marketable major and you'll have the 4hr/day to spend on your running while still having just enough structure to distract you the rest of the time.

Yes absolutely drop out and take life advice from this garbage website

Aside from holidays or periods of unemployment, I never had as much time to train as when I was in college. There's no reason you can't run on your own and coach yourself without leaving school but if that's what you really want to do, do it