u/BDREISOEKN

Basically as the title suggests

We'll call best friend fred (18M)

The two of us are going college next year. He's already at a service academy (USNA/West point/Air force academy), I'm going to a large state school

I (18M) have known fred since 2nd grade, didn't really become truly best friends until senior year of high school. I was previously best friends with someone else, we had a fall out early senior year, then slowly got closer with fred

He left for his service academy about a month and a half ago

The summer you spend before freshmen year at the school (called plebe summer) as well as freshman year is notoriously difficult physically, psychologically, and academically

I've had worries from time to time since he left about the two of us staying as close as we were. He's under immense stress right now, and his life is going to take a very different trajectory than mine. I'm doing engineering; he's going into the military for a minimum 5 years on top of 4 years of service academy (college basically)

I've told myself again and again that being at this service academy has literally been a dream come true for him, as the acceptance rate is in the single digits, and he's extremely happy being there. I'm happy that he's happy. I've told myself time and time again that this is the life he wants to live, and that's okay. It's his life, and as much as I want us to be close, that can't always happen

But no matter how much I try to tell myself "he's happy, I'm happy" consciously, I subconsciously can't stray away from those thoughts of eventual distance between us

He just recently got his phone back for a couple days (you don't get your phone during plebe summer at all)

I asked him: "I'm still gonna be me", is that still true?

Him: "I'm not gonna answer that \ because i'm not sure"

Him (later): "we can talk with people from the past but it's just not encouraged \ [plebe summer] is like aging a few years in a span of 40 days"

"the past" caught me off guard

It almost feels like he's being forced into a new part of his life, forced to detach from what he's known previously, including me

I can almost guarantee that he feels a similar way, a worry/conflict about this distance. He's been overly avoidant with anything sentimental in the small handful of msgs we've been able to send

Fred said plebe summer is supposed to break you down mentally, and based on a one-minute phone call with him (the amount he was allowed), it sounded like he was enjoying it. But now I think I have an intuition as to what "breaking down" means.

He said the worst part was the psychological pain, not the physical pain (which is insane given how intense it is). That psychological pain, the "breaking you down", is most likely them forcing you to become a different person by giving up who you are.

My main worry is about how distant we'll grow / if we'll have new best friends given how busy he'll be for the next nine years (service acadamy + actual service)

The way I've grown up + the things I've experienced, I value success as much as I do close relationships. Sometimes it feels like mixing water and oil. Sometimes I don't know if we'll still be close in our 20s and beyond.

Context: 17M, used to play a lot of tennis, currently not doing it as much

Right now:

Workout (gym) 3 days a week

Run (outside) 3 days a week

1 day of corrective exercises (Muscle imbalance from tennis :( )

Running goal: I want to optimize my 2 mi running time without sacrificing gym gains too much

I used to run (kind of?). It was really inconsistent in part because I would push 100% every time which drained me way too much (i think hr of 190-200)

Now I run much more consistently because I push much more manageably

I started this consistent running about a month ago

For the first two weeks, I just did a 2 mile run every time I ran, maintaining a heart rate of <180

I noticed I wasn't really getting faster nor was my heart rate going down when running. I decided to ask deepseek. Deepseek recommended this:

mon: 8 x 400m sprints, I do about a 1:30-1:40 time maintaining a 6:xx mile time, 90-120 sec break between each

wed: 2 mi run, maintain heart rate betw 160-175, lowest time so far is a 17:28

frid: 2.5 mi endurance run, maintain heart rate betw 150-160, lowest time so far is a 27:xx (I actually have to walk at times to prevent my heart rate from going about 160)

I did this for one week and my 2 mile time dropped a whole minute, 18:31 to 17:28, heart rate was noticeably lower as well, was mainly in my endurance run hr, (from 170 to 150-160). Obv could be a coincidence/environment changes. Before I keep doing this, I wanted to ask the running community a couple things to get some insight (I wanna double check since I got this training plan from AI)

TLDR:

Gym 3x a week

Run 3x a week

I want to optimize gym gains and 2 mi run time. What is good/bad about my training plan (got it from AI)

mon: 8 x 400m sprints, I do about a 1:30-1:40 time maintaining a 6:xx mile time, 90-120 sec break between each

wed: 2 mi run, maintain heart rate betw 160-175, lowest time so far is a 17:28

frid: 2.5 mi endurance run, maintain heart rate betw 150-160, lowest time so far is a 27:xx (I actually have to walk at times to prevent my heart rate from going about 160)

Questions:

For my intended goal, what is good and bad about this plan?
Is my heart rate "too high" for any of these days?

Is there anything you want to point out that you feel needs attention?

Is there anything you want clarification on?