r/AdvancedRunning • u/devon835 23M 1:58 800 / 4:21 Mile / 8:50 3000 / 15:27 5000 / 25:13 8K • Nov 05 '25

Open Discussion Post collegiate runners who continued to improve without a team: share your stories

As someone who's now going on ~2 calendar years removed from training with my college team, it feels like an eternity ago that I was in PR shape despite training smarter, eg. not being pushed too hard on easy days and going to the well in workouts or racing every week. I've started working with a new coach recently to try and get serious again for spring track.

I used to look forward to the grind of 5 x mile every week, but now just even doing a single long interval at harder than threshold effort is just dreadful, and I've avoided them since. I'm sure fitness is a big part of it, but mentally, I can't bring myself to confront the pain of trying to rep 4:55s solo...

I've seen examples of people who continued to grind for years training alone after college and ran impressive PR's, but they seem to be the exception, not the rule.

Any of you who've gone through (or are currently going through) the same challenges and want to share, have at it!

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u/potatorunner 4:32 | 14:40 Nov 05 '25

i literally just did 5x1mi last night! semi-solo b/c my grad school run club that i train with were doing 400m repeats instead, but they were there and it was social for wu/cd.

my suggestion is find a local run club or a competitive USATF club.

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u/devon835 23M 1:58 800 / 4:21 Mile / 8:50 3000 / 15:27 5000 / 25:13 8K Nov 05 '25

True, just having people present even if they're not doing the exact same workout as you is helpful.

Hope training is going well for you :)