Transferring to a d3 school to run XC after a year off?

You will be able to get back into shape. Hopefully with a college coach you will be even better than in HS. Just be patient and don't try to rush it or you will end up injured.

If you think running would have that much of a positive impact on your college experience then, by all means, transfer and run.

Houghton College would be able to help you drop at least 1:30 minutes of that PR and if you consider staying a fifth year you could be DIII all American drop me an email ... you can find my email on our website.

HoughtonCoach wrote:

Houghton College would be able to help you drop at least 1:30 minutes of that PR and if you consider staying a fifth year you could be DIII all American drop me an email ... you can find my email on our website.

what he said

Hey man, coming out of high school I tried to go DI. PRs were 2:02, 4:35, 10:47 and 17:21. Knew very little about training, ran some weeks in the 40s for high school cross but by track we were usually down in the 10-20 range. Tried out for the college team of my choice and ran in the 19:50s for the time trial. Needless to say, I didn't make it. Started training harder and later that fall ran a road race that I knew the team would be working at to try and prove I was faster than I showed: ended up in the 19:20 range and didn't show much of anything.

That winter I started lifting 3 times a week pretty hard, full body, and only ran ~4 miles a day for a total of 20-28 a week. Did most of my running with hill sprints in the middle, approx. 5x200 meter hard up and jog down. Again, I had no idea what I was doing and on workout days, runs were usually done after lifting.

Come spring, I continued running after my lifts on lift days but started to increase mileage, topping out at 75 miles a week for a couple of weeks. Turned out I could handle that mileage and enjoyed it, still with sprints thrown into the middle of every run. Sometimes the runs would be in singles and sometimes doubles. Got in touch with the only coach who ever tried to recruit me (DIII school from my area) and he gave me the same workouts as what he'd been giving the guys on the team. Tried one of them once and was pretty disappointed with the times I hit (was something like 200, 400, 600, 400, 200 repeated twice) and so went back to just easy running with some sprints thrown in, and kept my 3 days lifting with dumbells and barbells upper body; smith machine and leg press for legs. Looking back, I'd just have learned how to use free weight barbells for everything, but at that point I was just learning as I went along.

That summer I took the mileage down a bit after getting pretty tired, but built back up to a week at 75 again before coming into the season. Continued lifting the whole way through again. I also got in two weeks of workouts before coming into the season, hitting 10x400 on Wednesdays in the low 70s per rep and 5 mile tempos on Saturdays hitting 29:30 the first week and 28:30 the second. That next cross season I worked up into the mid 80s, ran under 26:00 in the 8k, 15:0s that winter for the 5k, and started on what ended up being a very rewarding career as a DIII athlete, which culminated in a school and conference record in the 10k.

Tl;dr - Had similar times coming out of high school, made a successful transition from failed DI walk-on to pretty successful DIII distance runner. Hopefully you will too.

Don't bother, find a school you like and go there. Then find a coach and a couple people to run with. Screw the collegiate system find a club with a coach will look to develop you for the next 5 years.