Help a 19 year old get back to running competitively and find a team!

are you willing to go out of state? What state are you from and where do you go to school now? Do you want to run at a particular level? For instance NCAA Division I-III, NAIA? Are you looking to go public, private?

in the midwest. money is a bit of a factor at this point. not opposed to traveling but it would be a big decision and im not completey sure. any level as long as i can find a good fit. public or private doesnt make much of a difference to me, financially theres the difference though. i have no idea what i want to study or be and im having a hard time figuring that out too

You should post some contact info. There might be a coach on here who would be interested.

it sounds harsh, but your post is filled with excuses and blame placed on anyone else but yourself. better change that attitude if you're going to really do this right.

Iowa Central, Coach Brown brown_dee@iowacentral.edu

Where did I blame anyone? The only thing I mentioned was poor tapering in high school which is the truth. Wasnt trying to make any excuses in my post. If I came across as blaming others for my current situation my apologies. I actually am angry/depressed with solely myself for letting myself get to this point...I realize I have to work on changing myself which is hard and is a somewhat separate problem I have from running right now...

one thing you may want to do is slow down the pace of some of your runs while you are in limbo of where you are going to be. 7:10s for the majority of your miles a tad fast for base building. run more miles at a slower pace so can have a wicked base when you land.

Best of luck!

i would imagine many diii programs across the country would be happy to add a guy like you, times are pretty typical for an above average diii recruit. contact coaches from schools you'd like to go

NAIA schools offer reasonable scholarships. There are coaches out there who will take you on. There are many NAIA schools throughout the Midwest. Some with really good running programs!

Look at the various conferences in NAIA see if there is one in your area or the area you would like to attend school in.

I disagree. 7:10 seems average for most high school/college athletes. The OP sounds like he's trained well for a few off seasons over high school. I know personally I was at 6:45-7:05 pace for all my aerobic runs in the summer the year I entered college

Since your in the midwest, it might be taking a look at a few GLIAC schools (DII conference in Ohio and Michigan) who could help you out in terms of scholarships. Grand Valley State in Michigan is the power school in that conference having won the XC conference title something like 12 times in a row and is a perennial top 10 at nationals. Coach Baltes is a really cool guy and he obviously is a very good coach and knows how to get the most out of his runners. Also they run a very competitive schedule running at meets like Mt.Sac and Stanford in the spring and Notre Dame in the fall. However there are plenty of other schools that produce good runners year in and year out. Ashland U in Ohio is an up and coming program and they're (relatively) new coach, Coach Mack is starting to build a program that could knock off GV in the next few seasons. This year they've got a 14:20 5k runner 2 sub 4:10 milers, 3 sub 1:50 800 guys (including an indoor natl champ) and they qualified for DII nats in XC. Malone (Akron OH)just joined the conference this year from NAIA and is a program with a storied history having achieved TONS of success under legendary coach Jack Hazen in the NAIA. They were 2nd at the conference XC meet this year had a guy win the conference title steeple chase in 9:03 this year. There are 15 teams in the GLIAC that sponsor mens XC and id say outside of the bottom 3 or 4 teams you can usually count on all of these school fielding solid teams in cross with at least 2 or 3 good individual runners on the track. Here's the GLIAC XC website with this past season's XC results and it has links to the individual schools in case you want to see what each school offers academically.

SUU, Southern Utah University would be a great fit for you. 6000 feet altitude and lots of guys to train with!

We'll gladly take you at UW Parkside! COME HERE!!!!!!

I think this is a fake. A guy who runs your times will get recruited by lots of small colleges.