If I was 18 or 20 and had the talent to be a professional athlete? HELL YEAH!!!

I'd do it in a heartbeat.  I love being coached and being pushed, and totally miss my time as a college athlete.

I think if you are 18-20, why not give it a shot? When else are you going to have that kind of opportunity to do something that only a very small percentage of people can do?

Ideally maybe run in college first while getting a degree, then have something to fall back on after the running career ends. You can always give up the running to go back to a more "normal" life, but hard to decide later in life to go the other way.

I would have never had the discipline, even if I had the talent.

 

I read about your running last week and your awesome long run on Sunday. I'm so impressed!

Thank you!  Seeing the kind of mileage all of you guys and gals are capable of really inspired me to push a little further myself.  So you get a little credit for my running last week too

I posted this in Off The Beaten Path forum George mentioned (as a response to another post) :

My wife was always in a good shape and athletic but she was never into competitive sports herself. She married me knowing that I was a competitive runner and in her words, that was what attracted her to me (god knows it wasn't my charm or good looks). 
 
When we got married we were 22 had our son within a year and our daughter two years latter. She took care of family completely and she was the reason I could've run/train at the highest level. 
 
I was involved in competitive sports from age 6 and at somewhat elite level from 15 till 31 when I retired from competitive running. I was sick and tired of running when I was done, but I would do it gladly again.

Yea it's different life and EVERYTHING is about running (I saw my wife 3 hours after our son was born, I had my track workout earlier, so I could not make it to the hospital), but I also "worked" 20 hours per week and got paid for 40, had the world class coaches and support team (doctors, PT's, masseurs, sport psychologists, yoga trainer, sleep specialist, nutritionist, kitchen at the center for elite sports where I was eating my breakfasts and lunches, video analyst, travel assistant...). I traveled to all kind of different places and everything was paid for. 
 
It's OK and enjoyable and fun as long as you think that you'll get better. When you feel that you have nothing left and you are done, you start hating every workout and it's time to let go.

I've never been athletic. I'm terrible at team sports. One of the things that drew me to running was that it's solo, and if I do poorly the only one I'm disappointing is myself. I hate being in the spotlight and I would never want people depending on me to do my best for our country.

So, no. I wouldn't.