Letsrun, I'm looking for some advice and perspective.
I'm just finishing up my senior year in high school as an average runner, running 4:30 for the 1600 and 9:45 for the 3200. I'm going off next year to a top tier division three program to continue running for at least three more years. I love running, unequivocally, and have been training somewhat seriously since my sophomore year. This winter I maxed out around 80 miles a week, with doubles, though that milage dropped seriously once actual track season came around. I've had good coaching and consistent, solid training since my sophomore cross country season, and I have never been injured. I did miss two seasons, one to undiagnosed anemia and one to undiagnosed mono, so while I didn't stop training I had two seasons of subpar racing efforts.
What should I be doing going forward? If I want to give 100% to training what can I hope to accomplish in college? Going forward I know two things, one that strength is my strong point, I have to think the fact that I can seemingly run a lot without ever getting injured will help me as I continue to steadily ramp my milage up in college and that two I have awful low end speed for an aspiring serious distant runner, I've never broken 2:05 for the 800 (though also rarely race it).
It's hard to be so in love with the sport and know you're training pretty seriously and still be incredibly average by any measure. Any advice? My plan this summer was to just get a really strong base for XC, not increase my milage too much but focus on running quality milage, and to add in consistent short fast hill sprints/strides/perhaps weights to work on top end speed, something I've never really trained before. Any advice, be it practical training or more philosophical would be much appreciated.