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Comment by canucker2016 | Hacker News Reader

canucker2016

You were a fast collegiate-level runner, became a wealthy financial adviser, who now has three sons who are doing well in high school long distance running.

What do you do? You convince one of your old running buddies, who now coaches elite runners, to coach your son. The son sets the national high school indoor record for the 800m.

Son decides to go pro after graduating high school.

Then Covid19 hits. Access to outdoor 400 tracks is limited. What do you do?

You build an 8 lane 400m track with running surface to match the quality at the site of the Word/US track and field championships. Cost: ~$4M

You hire the best coaches for your kids. Coach needs a place to stay nearby - no problem, buy a townhouse for him to stay at. etc.

see https://www.letsrun.com/news/2025/05/how-josh-hoey-went-from...

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Is there any scenario where a pro runner can gross $4M in lifetime running earnings?

Maybe, but this is one of those ‘if you need to ask, you can’t afford it’ type scenarios.

Sure, through sponsorships and adverts. But like all such things, it's an extremely limited number of people who have the right combination of talent, training, perseverance, looks/charisma and probably luck to get that amount.

But that's the thing, if you'd no longer need to think in money-constrained terms, then instead you'd just want to make something happen in the world. It doesn't need to have a financial return, because your finances would be solved already.

Suppose you have more than enough money for you and your family to live out their lives without needing to worry about that. Now that's solved, you can move on to what you actually want to happen in your life, such as helping your kids become pro athletes.

I'm sure taking the bronze or silver in the Olympics is a great talking point for a future as a lawyer or financial analyst, so the backup plan is in place.

Roger Bannister, the first person to run a sub-4 minute mile, did minimal training compared to modern day athletes.

from his wikipedia entry:

  When asked whether the 4-minute mile was his proudest achievement, he said he felt prouder of his contribution to academic medicine through research into the responses of the nervous system.

Pretty sure Usain Bolt has.

Usain Bolt estimated net worth is $90million. Maybe as many as ten others have passed $4m? A few listed here https://athleticsweekly.com/aw-promotion/top-10-richest-trac...

And yet he needs to do a cringe ad for Skip?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KScnjzfK6f8

he only got that money doing cringe ads after cringe ads. you only happen to Haven seen one.

absolutely, but let's just say the distribution is a bit skewed to making nothing from pro running ventures. It has an extremely bad effort to potential reward ratio.

By putting in the same level of extreme effort into any classicaly well paying profession you would highly likely become very rich and successful.

It's really sad that you equate "reward" with "earnings"

Lance Stroll, the F1 driver also comes to mind. (Also basically every single other driver but not to the same degree)

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