It broke my heart to hear Kenneth say being 38 might mean there’s no more up to go in his sport. It hurt so much because I’ve felt that myself. 

I’ve Quit My Sport(s) Before

I felt it at 22, when I had never trained outside of a team environment, yet was suddenly on my own to set my goals and schedule then execute the necessary work to perform.

I felt it at 26, when I traded entrepreneurship for a long commute and a desk job, so found myself with barely an hour a day to train and too little enthusiasm or confidence to use it.

I felt it last year, when I crossed the finish line of what I knew was my last bike race, but hadn’t yet found the conviction to return to the track.

Every time, I figured there wasn’t enough upside in the sport to justify the effort to participate. I figured it was my fault, because I didn’t have time (or wouldn’t make it), couldn’t train like I had in college (or hadn’t sought out appropriate methods), and lacked the talent (or kept bouncing between sports) to play at the level I wanted.

The Athletes Who Kept Going Kept Me Going

But the difference between me and Kenneth is that every time I quit, I met someone doing exactly what I claimed was impossible. At 22, I met an athlete who woke at 5:00a every day to put in work in weightlifting simply for the joy of improving his skill. At 26, I worked beside an athlete who made nearly the same commute and worked longer hours, yet was a regional favorite in criterium races. And last year, I watched an octogenarian high jump a season best, having only started competing three years prior.

The hardest thing about sport as an adult, as a Master, and as an amateur, is how easy it is to quit. And the way to know there’s still room for you to grow in your sport is how angry you feel when you give in to one of those reasons.

When I was a teenage football player looking at 4 more years of sacrificing my body for wins and losses that I didn’t care about, it was obvious that I wanted out. When I was bitter about time on my bike and saw that I could as easily ride great trails for free as pay for race entry, it was obvious that I was done. When you want to be done, it isn’t a mystery or a drawn-out affair.

But when you just wonder if you should be done, that’s means you have unfinished business. I have unfinished business on the track after nearly a decade away. Sean and Kathy and Peter all have unfinished business, even after decades in the game. I’m still battling through old injuries that were caused by wanting too much too soon. Even though the constant rehab activity and the weekly shots of pain are discouraging, I have those three to look toward. Every season they grapple with something, yet every season they deliver a standout performance or two. They haven’t quit so I’m not quitting.

What It Takes To Stay In The Game

And that’s the message I shared with Kenneth. Well, after I lost my mind about how aging out of the game is not real. You can be out of recoveries from major injury. You can be done with the technical practice and the speed work. You can be all the way over the travel schedule and expense. But you’re not too old until you talk yourself into believing you’re too old.

But after I dumped all that on him, I could level with Kenneth about the state of things: it takes a higher degree of consistency, a greater attention to recovery, and a larger tolerance for discomfort to keep excelling and growing in sport as your injuries mount and your other interests pull at your attention. It takes more support from professionals and providers, more engagement with your sport community, and more inputs to your “addiction” to keep the fire burning. The burden increases the longer you stay in the game and the higher performance you want to be. But the burden becomes increasingly social. You stay in for the people and how you feel around them as much as for the measurable improvements. Ironically, by focusing on your love of the game, the improvements are easier to come by.

It’s taken me every year since college to really embrace this perspective, that not only can I continue to get better, but that I will only do so by buying in to my sport community and being a kid again watching videos and reading magazines and looking up coverage of my sport. I’ve seen glimpses of the brilliance this can bring, when I stayed after races and went to dinner with other cyclists or when I volunteered at powerlifting meets and offered advice to first-timers.

So now I’m all-in. I volunteer at meets and I join meet directors for dinner after and I meet up with competitors for weekend practices. I get Track & Field News. My primary YouTube subscriptions are meet recaps. I can’t consider this indulgence anymore; it’s the team environment I depended on in school. I have a “track practice in a bag” (which is just bonus for coaching other athletes) and a carefully built-out home gym. These aren’t wishful thinking for home exercise; it’s how I manage being time-poor and knowledge-rich. And I register for every meet I might make it to right at the start of the year, so my deadlines are obvious.

You Don’t Have To Quit Your Sport

I’ve learned from others, older and later to start and with a longer list of challenges, that I’m not out until I want to be.

So I couldn’t let Kenneth think that being 38 is a reason to give up on sport. If that were true, I’m in the final years of my career and all that I’m doing is pointless. But it isn’t true. I have the help to know that intimately.

Not everyone has this much help.

The reason I coach…the reason I narrowly focus on athletes who feel stuck, who need speed and power to level up, and who have banged their heads against the wall long enough to want to try something different…the reason I write articles and speak to teams and volunteer at events and take every phone call…is to help YOU understand that you don’t have to give up. When you want out, you know it deeply and fully and clearly. The fact that you’re thinking it means you’re not ready to quit.

And I’m not ready to let you.

(All names have been changed.)