Jakobs life behind the gold

maybe he likes running? wrote:

runnercp wrote:

Dude never had a normal childhood at all. Never was able to do normal things bc his whole life since birth was around running. Imagine yourself in that spot and how it takes a toll on you

How do you know? Have you talked to him about this?

He would know because they talk about it on Team Ingebrigtsen all the time. The person who talks about it most is Gjert himself. He gives the kids the same spiel when they are talking about entering into the same training life as Henrik and Filip. Nevertheless, for Jakob, who always wanted to do it, it was the ideal, and the sister, who is younger, has also said she wanted to be trained like that, and the youngest son was very much gung ho about doing the same training and beating Jakob eventually during the last couple seasons of the show. Too bad they cancelled it just as Jakob was rising to the top.

xczvzxcv wrote:

His childhood was pretty great, training trips in Spain, South Africa, Flagstaff, live-in girlfriend at maybe 16 or 17, summer training in St. Moritz, and many, many records.

So he's not a virgin incel then?

xczvzxcv wrote:

maybe he likes running? wrote:

How do you know? Have you talked to him about this?

He would know because they talk about it on Team Ingebrigtsen all the time. The person who talks about it most is Gjert himself. He gives the kids the same spiel when they are talking about entering into the same training life as Henrik and Filip. Nevertheless, for Jakob, who always wanted to do it, it was the ideal, and the sister, who is younger, has also said she wanted to be trained like that, and the youngest son was very much gung ho about doing the same training and beating Jakob eventually during the last couple seasons of the show. Too bad they cancelled it just as Jakob was rising to the top.

So he they had a much happier childhood than the OP?

There is a final season coming - the producers and the family shared regrets about Zacapo not being accredited for Tokyo in Norwegian media just today

Price to pay for Gold.

Gold and glory last forever.

Your dirty birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese, melting your brain on video games, and collecting participation trophies during your youth is forgettable.

Jakob and Greta should hook-up , when she comes of age that is. They will have those ruined childhoods to share.

True. Just less forgettable. In 50 years both will be almost equally forgettable.

His brothers' sacrificed even more than that. They should have retired their messed up bodies years ago but they kept up the regimen to serve as Jakob's training partners and watch out for him on their travels. They gave up time with their own families. However, Jakob's gold medal must have made it worthwhile.

twominutes wrote:

His brothers' sacrificed even more than that. They should have retired their messed up bodies years ago but they kept up the regimen to serve as Jakob's training partners and watch out for him on their travels. They gave up time with their own families. However, Jakob's gold medal must have made it worthwhile.

Philip ran a 3k PR this summer

Childhood is overrated. People just remember fun innocent naive times they have on playground. No lasting friendships into adulthood. Adult life is when you want to peak, especially your 20s. Young fit and healthy with ambition and drive. After your 30s, you will be have money, but be old, ugly, balding, worsening skin, grumpy, pessimistic, and bitter from all the accumulated failures in career, love, and friendship.

- 25 year old enjoying life

You must really hate gymnastics. Talk about a wasted childhood.

Haha. In my opinion the bro has lived an amazing life. Holy hell!

WTF are you smoking?

You act as though he was kept in a cage in the basement without tv between his runs. Daddy would open up the door and throw a well rounded meal, copius amounts of water and EPO down the stairs to him 3 times a day. No contact with the outside world at all. Daddy would let him off leash only when they got to the track. Then if he didn't hit the splits for the workout he'd be put on his leash, walked home and then forced to watch the RIO olympic final on repeat for 24hrs to instill the stupidity of letting the kickers win the olympics.

runnercp wrote:

Dude never had a normal childhood at all. Never was able to do normal things bc his whole life since birth was around running. Imagine yourself in that spot and how it takes a toll on you

Oh the horror! Some Norwegian should have called Children's Protection Services! Henrik, Filip, Jacob and now some younger siblings exercised under their father's tutelage. The horror! Some of them might wind up like Sebastian Coe.

Sebastian Coe graduated from university and he's smart.

Sadsadsad wrote:

Even in cases where kids believe they have chosen to "opt in" to such intense training through their own free will, they often realize later in life that they did not, or that they did it to gain a parent's approval or love. This can have a big impact that is only seen later in life.

It's very difficult to compete at such a high level and be well adjusted, even if it isn't your dad training you.

Yeah, I was trained like this from about the age of 11 to 23 years old by my parents. They took coaching positions at my school sent me to olympic training center. Told me not to date chicks. Not to drink etc. I got some decent personal bests then graduated college and finally got away from them and realized they were controlling assholes who use the word "love" as a weapon. Not blaming them, but I decided to make up for never partying in college, began smoking weed everyone, not running 10 miles everyday, doing MDMA every weekend, drinking in the morning, and now I am 30 years ago and trying to quit drugs.

Funny thing is I still miss drugs. Psychological conditioning is strong. I might be bipolar now. Who knows. All I know is every single day spare a few of my childhood was painful and stressful and "exciting". When I rarely go home and see my parents - my dad can only seem to talk about why he thinks I didn't run faster in college and still has ideas why I ran so slow. His 1500m PR is better than mine so a 3:39 apparently isn't good enough for him.

Yeah your post got me. Parents just use kids to psychologically process their own mortality and death - when it gets out of control and you have mentally abusive parents you end up working on a mushroom farm smoking weed in Vermont. It's funny now people think I'm so lazy and they don't realize I was running 18 mile long runs when I was 14 years old. idiots.

Don't worry I am happy ish now. Or whatever I want to be. LSD is one powerful drug. And like Slavoj Zizek says - happiness is for idiots - I'd rather be interesting!

My bad...* I still miss running.

gjertistheword wrote:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CSZZC4NoeBO/?utm_medium=copy_link

I mean to be completely real with all of you, is sacrificing your entitling childhood of normalcy for your father to be training you like a lab rat all worth it for a gold medal? I mean I’m not shocked he did what he did. He was trained like a professional since before he hit puberty and even had it better than his other brothers who sacrificed mistakes, error, and injury all for this perfect regime and this one moment for Jakob. Seems like Henrik got screwed over lol. Filip maybe not as much but Jakob was able to get the best training out of all them and trained like a science experiment since adolescence. Seems kinda ridiculous but I guess some people want to do that? Not my ideal childhood

Would you say this about swimmers, tennis players, gymnasts, Chess players etc? Are they science experiments?

Im pretty shocked. A guy with no training experience took a system, made it simple improved it and ended up creating a better training system than what any distance runner in the US has.

For anybody who watches the show, you realize that Gjert was fair to the boys and also ingrid. THey are doing what they wanted to do. He laid out for them what they would be missing and how difficult it would be. It was their choice, and others in the family chose another direction.

fwiw, Gjert and Tone (wife) have sacrificed a lot themselves. It is non stop parenting, training, working, cleaning, etc. Watching that show was a revelation.

high school xc coach wrote:

For anybody who watches the show, you realize that Gjert was fair to the boys and also ingrid. THey are doing what they wanted to do. He laid out for them what they would be missing and how difficult it would be. It was their choice, and others in the family chose another direction.

fwiw, Gjert and Tone (wife) have sacrificed a lot themselves. It is non stop parenting, training, working, cleaning, etc. Watching that show was a revelation.

Children want to please their parents and want to tag along and do what their older siblings do. If a 10 year old boy's father, with the mother nearby, looks him in the eye and asks if he can commit and make the necessary sacrifices otherwise don't bother, what's a child to do? Then the parents give him all that attention and spend money on him. At some point the teenager sees the investment of all that time, money, and effort spent on him and what he's had to sacrifice personally and there's pressure to make it work.

Anyway, they keep having more children so if a child passes on the family business there will be another candidate.