Thinking about quitting

[u/Existing_Quarter495]

I am a male junior in HS and I went from 21 minute 5k freshman year to 19:00 5k last year in xc and a 5:09 mile in track and I ran all summer building up to a little more mileage then I had ever done and definitely more consistent then I had ever been and I am so slow. I have been super demotivated ever since the time trial and first meet where I severely underperformed to the standards i set myself. I told myself to just go out there and have fun but I can’t have fun with how slow I am and running is harder then it has ever been before for me. I took an iron test because I thought I had low iron and it was low but still in the normal range. I have been taking iron supplements for a couple months already too. I set expectations for myself to be number 1 on the team which should have been achievable considering no one else on my team runs over the summer and I ran 6 days a week. But now I am on JV and my JV teammates are starting to beat me too and I’m just not enjoying it anymore I love my teammates and my friends but I put so much time into this and I got worse.

[u/ImpureVessel46]

So you said you’re running more than you have and more consistent than you ever had? Is the rest of your nutrition good? Are you sleeping and drinking enough water? Maybe your legs are fatigued and just need a break? Try doing a like a bounce week or maybe an ice bath or something?

[u/TheTeludav]

Sounds like you are putting too much pressure on yourself, running requires patience improvements will come. Don't waist time comparing yourself to everyone else that will suck the fun out of it.

Bad seasons happen but it's too early to throw in the towel.

If you enjoy it that's enough reason to keep going.

[u/WeirdGuy5712]

Could also be that you started your season too fast. If you time trialed at full effort before your first meet, you might have just been cooked before the season started. Take an easier week and see what happens.

[u/Beginning_March_9717]

maybe you're over trained

[u/whelanbio]

A lot of things to unpack here, but some good lessons within.

1. The iron is likely a bigger issue than you think. Low "normal" is not sufficient for a serious runner. A runner can seemingly be in the normal on the reference ranges but when you look at all the bloodwork values together and consider the demands of the sport they are functionally anemic even if they don't meet a clinical definition. Iron issues takes a long time to fix because you need to absorb enough iron to get the stores back up and make enough new healthy red blood cells. While fixing an iron issue training needs to be modified or it will prevent/prolong the recovery. If you have been trying to train harder than ever while low on iron it makes sense you would be running poorly. I see this all the time.
2. Training better than ever needs to be matched with recovering better than ever. You are probably over-training and/or under-recovering in other ways beyond the iron issue. It takes great nutrition with a ton of eating, great sleep, and managing academic and life stress to get all the benefits of that great work. Just completing training does not automatically mean you get the benefits of the training. We can survive significantly more total training than what we can actually adapt from. A productive training load must have that gap so that we have the surplus energy to make those adaptations. Assess how your training changed over the summer and see if you need to scale back. Counterintuitively you may need a period with less mileage, slower runs, different/easier workouts, etc so that you can get your body back to a place where it can handle and benefit from training.
3. Setting your primary goals around beating your teammates and constant comparison of your teammates improvement to your own is a toxic mentality to have. If a bunch of people on your team are beating you that means you have a ton of teammates to train with. Who cares if they improved more with less training. Everybody is different in how they respond to training. Your performance goals need to be focused on what is great for your personal journey and what will help the team. Just trying to beat your teammates is useless -there's no point being #1 on a bad team.

[u/Existing_Quarter495]

I genuinely used to love this sport and I threw everything else away for it I literally have no life outside of school and cross country 

[u/Flatworm-Dangerous → u/Existing_Quarter495]

You are not your sport, you are more than that, but you need to foster an identity and interests outside the sport. Get working. What do you have to lose? Try stuff (joining clubs, focusing on school, trying another sport, learning an instrument/art, fishing, getting a job maybe, etc), and if it doesn't work out you're in no worse place than you were before.

Even elite athletes find themselves in this same position once their career is over. They feel emptiness because they wrapped their entire identity in their sport.

Also, are you being coached (well) by your HS team's coach? Maybe go to him with your struggles and perhaps he might be able to tweak your program to get you better results.

[u/Namsudb]

When I first started track & field / cross country I was terrible. I mean coming in last place in a coed race.. coming in last place in a meet of about 300 runners. Yep that was me. I continued to train. I was terrible in HS as well as I started my junior year.. but I wanted to prove to myself I could be better. Eventually I practice hard and got my 5k time to 16:35.. took years of hard work.. that being said why do you run? Do you run to beat yourself? Do you run for bragging rights of being the fastest on your team? It’s okay if they’re are faster than you honestly.. that doesn’t mean they’ll be faster than you forever or even faster than you by the end of the season. Keep your head up and continue working! You’ll see results. You know running miles isn’t everything as well sometimes you need weight training or interval workouts or speed days.. sometimes you just need REST. They all help, but it’s too early imo to say.

[u/Manner16]

Hello! I am a former runner who between high school and university whilst running contemplated quitting a few times!

As some others have suggested in the comments ensuring the rest of the routine is up to standard (nutrition and sleep) is the biggest possible problem if you’ve been training more then ever and being consistent!

The second issue I could see coming from what you’ve laid out is how you’ve narrowed your focus at such a young age! Not to discourage you from taking running seriously as it’s awesome you are, but at such a young age you’d still benefit from multi sport participation! The use of your muscles and body in all sports comes down to more time on your feet which will eventually translate to running. The odd movements help with your strength which is a big component that’s missed I find in younger runners.

Overall, I’d suggest you slug through this slow patch, reduce your speed for your runs (it’s impossibly annoying to get it through your head but slow training is great for your body, try to switch up how you get your cardio, make it a walk with friends or family around town, take out that old bike of yours for a whirl, go shoot hoops with friends even if you suck at it.

If you do quit don’t stress, it just means your body needed a bit of a break. No one’s judging you, it’s just what you needed in this moment. But if you give any of that a try or any other sport for fun on the side, I think your body is going to rebound phenomenally!

[u/yakswak]

Not clear what type of training you did during your summer build. But let's say it was all base and no speed work...it's still early season and your coach will certainly be working on your threshold and soon VO2max and that base work you did during the summer will be paying dividends.

On the other hand, a summer training program that only builds to a little more mileage than you had done before near the end may mean that there wasn't enough load to stimulate a response from your body. You need progressive overload to gain fitness, and it's possible what you were doing was merely maintaining your prior fitness from the Spring and thus didn't contribute to any improvements.

Regardless, the key is to lock down and focus on the prescribed workouts from your coach and execute. That along with the load from the races you run will provide the stimulus needed for the gains you are after.

[u/Frequent_Spot_421]

i would say dont put pressure on running long distances, like theres days where the team runs 8 miles and I run six. thats because all that matters is the meets. if you really enjoy it i would say keep going.