My primary events are the 800 and 1600 in which I have PRs of 1:54.1 and 4:18.5. I also have run an open 400 in 50.2.
I'm coming into my senior cross country season having never cracked the top 100 in the state championship race, which is a very fast 3 mile course with winning times in my division (the largest division) coming in around 14:15, give or take 15 seconds depending on the year. My ultimate goal this year is to crack the top 25 (all state). The 25th place time is anywhere from 14:45-15:05 depending on the year so I obviously need to be ready for 14:40 or so. My PR on said course is 15:17 but I ran my best race ever on a moderately hilly course where I ran 15:22 just running to win with a crazy last 200.
I'm 6'2", weigh 160ish and my biggest asset is obviously my speed over shorter distance races. I've never run a 3200-5k anywhere near as competitive as my 800-1600. Whether this is due to physical or mental limitations mostly I don't know because I honestly have always been bad at judging effort in longer races (don't believe I can hold the pace, always finish very fast after a lack luster first 2.5 miles). I think one reason I have a hard time in cross country is because I don't trust my training like I do in track.
My training for cross country has mostly been lower mileage, about 45-55 a week, I believe due to my track oriented skill set I will thrive more on hard workouts with a long run and short easy runs more than straight up high mileage. I usually can't handle consistently running any faster than 7:40 pace on easy runs of I want to execute my workouts as well as I would like. I lift pretty hard 2 times a week consistently.
All this being said, I am open to new ideas about how I could optimize my training for cross country to prepare me to run 14:40ish over 3 miles and prepare me for the coming track season. I would like to hear suggestions for specific workouts, mileage progression, lifting, ways to prepare mentally and in general anything that you think would help me accomplish my goal of becoming an all state cross country runner. If you have made it this far I greatly appreciate your time and would love to hear your input!