What does transitioning out of professional running look like?

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Elite running is a very all-encompassing pursuit. In order to reach a certain level of competition, runners need to devote most of their lives to pursuing their goals. But what happens when the goals have been achieved and the fire is gone? What happens when elite athletes retire?

The International Journal of the History of Sport did a study in 2013 called, A Study of the Relationship Between Elite Athletes’ Educational Development and Sporting Performance. The study examined that relationship between athletic pressures and academic and career success. “Most athletes’ time is dedicated to developing their sporting career, with very little time left to develop other aspects of their lives outside their sport.”

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The study was considering the merits and drawbacks to maintaining a dual-career path. Dual-career path in the case of this study means pursuing academics or career and athletics at the same time. While studies suggest that it is increasingly difficult for athletes to pursue dual careers, many athletes claim they wouldn’t have it any other way. 

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“The pursuit of academic and sporting excellence simultaneously might be regarded by some performance directors/coaching staff as highly conflicting. This is often the case in certain cultures of sport, typically football and combat sports whereby education is seen as a threat to the sporting development of their talented athletes.”

“Despite these initial setbacks, 17 out of the 18 student-athletes interviewed agreed that they needed to have both careers in their lives.”

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Geoff Harris is a Canadian Olympian over 800 metres. Harris was a very successful runner who maintained a job throughout his running career, and felt as though his transition from professional running was relatively smooth. 

Harris now a NextGen endurance coach with Athletics Canada. He left university before graduating, in order to pursue running full-time. “I left Dalhousie University in the 2007-2008 school year. That year I got national carding, and honestly the only reason I went to university was for sport. I decided that I needed to go bigger, and devote myself to running.”

In his time as a professional runner, Harris always had a job. “I still worked up until 2012, when I had my really good year. I wasn’t carded that year and I was working in the hospital. At the hospital I was working eight hour days, five days a week. I was a porter and an emergency room attendant.”

“It was flexible work. I could refuse shifts if I needed to for running. The job also gave me extra income so that I could afford to travel to race and train.”

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In his early 20s, Harris didn’t have an exit plan from professional running. “I had the cushion of the hospital job, but there was no ambition to continue doing that. When I was 20 or 21 I committed to myself that I was pursuing sport, and everything else was going to support that.” 

After qualifying for the Olympics in 2012, Harris committed to another four years of professional running. But by 2015, he knew that it was coming to a close. “I just didn’t have anything left. I knew in 2015, that 2016 would be it. I was fried.”

After retiring from professional running, Harris gave himself a year to figure out his plan. He knew he wanted to end up involved in sport, and it was always in the back of his mind that he would like to be involved in coaching. “I had done some program writing for masters runners. Coaching was on my radar.”

Harris feels that the Canadian model does set their athletes up for success after professional sport. “For me it certainly did. It gave me so many of the tools for life. Some athletes acquire that, and some athletes don’t. But for me personally it worked. The confidence I have from sport helped me to not panic after I was done running. I tried to apply the same lifestyle to finding a job as I did running. ”

“I lost the love for racing, but I still love running.”