r/CrossCountry

Hi there, very proud father of 8th grade xcross/track runner. Middle school track season is wrapping up soon and then onto summer practice for high school xcross.

My son is solid runner, wins nearly all his section events quite handily but then at the big invites he really under performs. His invite times are well under his potential or even worse he looks for excuses to skip events (sick, minor injuries). Think he gets really intimidated competing against top competitors and then self-defeats himself.

Appreciate any kind words of wisdom, have been really trying to keep things in perspective and focus on being in a good head space before races.

Thanks!

Hi all, this is my first post so I hope this is the right place to ask this. I’m starting community college soon, and unfortunately my school doesn’t have a cross country team. In high school I played tennis, but recently I’ve been training more for cross-country style running because I always planned on running in college.

I could continue playing tennis at my community college and then join cross country when I transfer to a four-year school, but I’m not sure what the better choice is. Part of me really wants to stick with running since that was my original plan, but I also don’t want to miss out on playing a sport while I’m here.

What do I do?

(Female) I’m going into my freshman year of college and will be starting xc training in a week or so. It’s d3 but I still want to perform to my best. Does anyone have any tips from going to highschool to college training? Like how much harder is it and should I be doing anything differently?

My HS sophomore gets daily calls from NCSA about getting him signed up for college recruitment. Is this a legitimate agency for help in finding a running college or a scam?

Im a sophomore and i ran an 18:21 pr the previous fall. during outdoor track i only ran the 32 once early on (11:25) but my mile was 4:59 and 800 2:13. I asked my coach to help me make a plan but they are a sprinter coach and don’t really know either. i’m pretty lost and tried to search it up but i got overwhelmed with all the plans that popped up. and i read the summer of malmö but i wasnt sure if i was competitive enough for doubles. so is sub 17 possible? if so, how? if not, what realistic goal can i set for myself

Im a freshman going to sophmore season. I want to build up to 50 miles a week this summer (peak at 50 for like a week, but really average out 40 to 45, and I know that doing 1 week of 50 miles is not that beneficial, but I want to try and hit it.)

I want to do it over 12 weeks. Most mileage I ever done was 35 to 30 during xc season for about 2 to 3 months. After that 20 to 25 mpw for indoor and outdoor track

20→ 25→ 29 → 32→ 25→ 35→ 38→ 40→ 36→ 43 > 46 > 50

Is that safe to do? Assuming all of them are basic easy miles.

The 225 is kinda the standard line where you can kinda officially call yourself strong in the gym. It’s pretty attainable for almost anyone but might take a year of consistent effort to reach. It’s nowhere near the top end of strength but it’s solidly above average. It’s also pretty rare for anyone to make it there just off of talent although it does happen occasionally.
So my question for the cross country runners here is this: what the 5k time equivalent to the 225 bench? A 5k time that’s attainable for the average person where you can solidly call yourself a fast runner and can probably beat anyone running off of talent without training. Not elite by any means but solidly above average.

Ima say sub 19 minutes but I’m curious to hear everyone’s thoughts.

F 20. So im a collegiate xc runner (d3) and i run all the time (obv). Around 3 times a year for xc, indoor, and outdoor i peak at around 50 miles a week and hold it for almost a month (about a month for xc, a little less for indoor and outdoor). This year, i got horrifically sick about 3 times that took me sooo long to get over. Im talking flu B that led to bronchitis that led to flu A (forgot to take my flu shot this year oops). Now this is not asking for any kind of doctor advice bc i know that this is a constant struggle for many distance runners. I thought i ate well; i dont EVER get injured, ever. Never ever. Never shown any signs of malnutrition, nun dat. I have a history of anemia, taking iron pills. But holy moly did all this sickness KILL my outdoor season. Man i plummeted. I missed a week to get over bronchitis and just could not come back. I get sick like this all the time it feels like. Im a sophomore and i got bronchitis last year too. What on EARTH can i do to keep this from happening? What should i prioritize? Thanks.

I'm currently a sophomore going into junior year. Last XC season, I went from 21:54 to 19:45 in the 5k, running around 15 mpw in season. This summer, I want to take training a lot more seriously.

Is sub-18 possible for me? If so, how should I train over the summer to have the best chance?

Please use this thread as the general Q&A for all one off questions, questions that only apply to you, questions that can be easily answered, etc.

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Okay, I'm in 7th grade (just turned 13) and I wanted to do cross country next year. Ive never run before and have never practiced or trained cross country and only run a mile like once lol. That mile was today and I ran a 7:29 making me the fastest girl in my grade (I go to a small school with some kinda unathletic people so wasn't hard to beat.) the girl behind me goes a 7:40 so a pretty decent gap. Do you think I have good potential to be good at cross country or should I not get my hopes up too high?

Small school coach here looking for recruiting ideas for girls teams. We have a hard time recruiting for MS and HS level. our school really pushes Softball and Volleyball for girls so they get the bulk of the girls. They also don't cut players so they have a deep bench of players that ride the bench. Most of our current girls have come from both sports once they realized they will never be the starters. Unfortunately that isn't until 10 or 11th grade but we take what we can have. I have managed to break through with recruiting boys unfortunately what works for them doesn't do it for the girls. anyway if other coaches have ideas I'm open to suggestions.

I go to a small maritime college in the US that competes at the D3 level. I study electrical engineering and have found that I need a lot of physical activity to counter the cerebral nature of my classes.

PB 4:58 mile / 30:03 8K, training for a sub 3:15 marathon. those PBs are pretty far removed from my current training block though.

I run marathons & HMs, I was “recruited” to the XC team after fumbling an opportunity to play lacrosse at the school. I’ve been in team meetings through spring and now I’m in summer training.

Should I just stick to the marathon training and move on? I’d likely be within the top 3 males runners on the team based on last year’s results, so my scoring impact is there. But I feel like the team doesnt really like having an old head (mid 20s) on the team, it doesn’t help that they’re regimented (military-like college structure) and I’m a civilian.

Any thoughts or experiences running XC as a non trad student runner?

Yesterday, I made my decision final. I resigned from coaching football and will be taking over XC coaching duties for our high school.

I have been coaching football for a long while now (I think 13 years), pop warner and then high school. It is a blast and intense, but the drama got to me last year (player and parent). It certainly was not fun. My youngest will be a junior and I spoke to him about it. His only thing was "you will still come to my games correct?"

I got voluntold to coach track and field 3 years ago now. It has been great and I love it. We are a small school and I have one assistant coach who is very knowledgeable but older (76). My boys sprint and hurdle, so I have focused on that but learning all events. I recently finished USATF Level 1 coaching.

We have had a revolving coaching door at cross country, so I decided to make the switch. I have a bunch to learn, but looking forward to building a team and hoping adding some distance to my track team.

We're rebuilding a high school cross country program that lost momentum over the past few years — low turnout, disorganized, and developed a reputation for being only for advanced runners. We're starting fresh with new coaches and a new culture.

Our immediate goals: recruit returning students who dropped out, attract beginners and multi-sport athletes who never considered XC, and make a strong impression at orientation and our first team meeting in August.

We want to communicate clearly that all levels are welcome and that we have a real program with structure, a plan, and coaches who show up.

Specific questions:

• What's worked for you at orientation or first-day recruitment?
• How do you pitch XC to kids who've never run?
• How do you reach students who had a bad experience with a previous program?
• Any advice on that first team meeting — what to say, what to show, how to hook them?

All tips appreciated!

Note: Neither of my parents are runners, my dad was forced to run the mile in high school and got DQ’d for walking it lol.

So here’s some background: I’ve had a really shitty XC season this last year because my coach has been horrible to me. My parents agreed that he’s a bad person, yet they will not stop nagging me on how to improve my times. They keep telling me I have all summer to train super hard (and I do, but in my own way). My mom constantly insists that to do well, I need to switch up my routes a bit, run more and just sprint at the end of races. This might work for some athletes, but all it does for me is burn me out.

To clarify, I run between 20-25 miles a week for XC, so I do not need to “run more.” Doing 30-35 got me injured, along with sprinting the ends of races. Plus, racing is for spreading your energy out conservatively, not just sprinting the end. That may work for some, but for me, it’s all about spreading out my energy in between different spots throughout the race. I’ve told them numerous times about what works for me, and have mention that their constant reminders of “how to be good” make me less motivated and struggle to listen. They reply with “I’m just trying to help, to be good you have to train hard.” While this is true, doing their exact suggestions has not been beneficial to me (they know this), doing my own workouts and runs at my own speed and time is what works best for me. They just seem to be piling on more and more pressure of how I need to be good in order to prove my coach wrong. I understand what they’re trying to do, but I’m already training well, and this extra pressure only makes me less motivated.

My times are solid, consistent, and fairly fast. My parents think I’m not doing enough or running fast enough. They never believed in me in high school, always making comments like, “have you been able to keep up with your teammates? I know you’re not the fastest runner on the team,” and “You’re not going to run in college, to walk on to a team, you have to actually be good.”

I am very lucky to be able to run for a D3 college currently, my parents support me a lot more now that I’ve made it to college. However, this constant nagging is driving me crazy. I understand I’m coming off as entitled and rude. But I am a good athlete, and don’t want to lose my enjoyment of the sports simply because of this.

Has anybody else felt this way about their parents? I obviously love them and appreciate their support, but constantly being told I’m not running enough and need to be faster is making me want to quit.

Please use this thread as the general Q&A for all one off questions, questions that only apply to you, questions that can be easily answered, etc.

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I’ve heard a lot that summer is just for base-building. I’m a freshman that’s going into sophomore season soon and was wondering if I should only do easy/long runs or if i should add in workouts. Sadly my coaches also suck so I can’t ask them for help or anything and i’m not going to their summer practices so i’m gonna be on my own. I just want to know if I should add in workouts in the summer and if so how many.

Please use this thread as the general Q&A for all one off questions, questions that only apply to you, questions that can be easily answered, etc.

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This thread reposts every 4 days