Former Northeastern and Oregon Duck standout Eric Jenkins has officially retired from the sport. The veteran runner who ran professionally for eight seasons, announced the news on the Citius Mag Podcast.
“I don’t think I felt 100% for a little bit,” he said in an interview with Citius Mag Podcast. “The amount of training, intensity and volume that it takes to compete at this level is just not something that my body was able to hold up. When you’re doing that every day and trying to get it up for training when you’re not feeling good – it just weighs on you and it’s exhausting. Between January and now, my heart wasn’t in it fully. I didn’t have the same fire that I had years ago.”
Jenkins finished as the runner-up in the 3000m NCAA Indoor Championships during his junior season at Northeastern, but was DQ’d after a controversial move at the end of the race. From there, he took his talents to the University of Oregon, where he earned All-American honors during his time as a Duck.
Jenkins was a member of the 2017 USATF World Championship team, competing in the 5000m.