Cross country or soccer?

cross country for sure. Building endurance in the fall will help you run fast in the spring. XC is a lot more fun anyways. Leaves chaning color, cool courses, long runs on trails.

Soccer you are stuck on a field and half the time practices are kind of boring

Do whatever is most fun.

Since you enjoy them both equally then perhaps choose the one you could be best at in the long run :). You clearly have talent at running based on what you wrote. With the right training you could probably be one of the best runners in your region, perhaps state. Are you one of the best soccer players in your region/state?

It may take a while to adapt to the longer mileage in cross country so don't be discouraged if it seems hard at first.

Cheerleader

Having gone through a similar experience I would suggest running cross country. I loved playing soccer, and really didn't want to give it up, but after my sophomore year I came to terms with the fact that I was a much stronger runner than a soccer player and the best way to further my talents was to run all year. I improved a lot more in track as a result, and I regret not giving up soccer a year earlier.

Now I love running even more, and continued running into college. Good luck and have fun

Either sport is good, and it is good to play multiple sports. Obviously your 5K time would indicate that you would be talented at cross country. That being said, if you enjoy playing soccer and are good at it, I would stick with soccer. The only concern I would have with soccer is it can be rough on your joints. A girl is 4-8 times as likely to tear an ACL as a boy playing soccer (I coach my girls' soccer team). Cross country is the safer route, but soccer is a great sport as well, just be careful of the slide tackles. Hockey is a great sport to play during the winter, and it actually helps maintain your cardio pretty well. A lot of the Severy family would either play hockey or cross country ski during the winter, and they were all outstanding runners (I don't think any of them rain indoor track). Indoor track is okay, but there are multiple ways to stay in shape during the winter, just make sure you are doing something aerobic. As for myself, I didn't focus solely on running until junior year and I ended up as a high school state champion on the track and ran 4 years of Division 1 track and cross country in college. A number of guys I ran with and against were not solely focused on running until later [one guy never ran cross country in high school (played football instead) and he ended up as an NCAA champ on the track and top 15 in cross country in college].

OP,

If only you knew as many soccer players as I do who had to quit soccer due to injury and went to cross country after that (no more lateral movement).

Even your namesake Molly Beckwith Ludlow did that.

Quit with the soccer.

Do which is most fun this year. You have a lot of potential in track as an 11th grader I would switch to XC

Flagpole wrote:

OP,

If only you knew as many soccer players as I do who had to quit soccer due to injury and went to cross country after that (no more lateral movement).

Even your namesake Molly Beckwith Ludlow did that.

Quit with the soccer.

This is a much tougher question to answer if she is really, really good at soccer and a valuable contributor to the team, because, let's face it, soccer is a heckuva lot more fun. Also, depending on her position and the formation the team plays, she will get about the equivalent conditioning she would in cross country, minus the hard intervals and races.

The answer here is to definitely run during the summer and add extra runs during the season if she chooses soccer. But, OP, your times are good enough that if you choose running year-round exclusively, you could be great and get college attention.

Molly, the fact that you came to a running website to ask this question should answer your question. Quit soccer and be a full time runner. You already want to, you just need to accept that you won't play competitive soccer anymore. To another poster, soccer isn't necessarily more fun, and XC is definitely a team sport. It's also more satisfying when you do well, because you improved yourself. With soccer, you and some other team members were better than one other team on that day. With XC, you and your team can beat out the whole state. The fact that you also play hockey shows that you aren't really invested in one sport or another. So take the advice of most of the people here and take up running full time. It'll make you a better athlete and a better person as well. FWIW runners also get better grades.

Choose the molly.

i joined XC team my junior year (had been soccer player since I was 4 yrs old) and qualified for state. it was fun to be competitive

more importantly, my times went from 4:45 mile to 4:31 and 800m went from 2:24 to 1:58.

my senior year i ran 4:23 and 1:54 and split 49 in the 4x400

cross country made me strong and I mostly did it for track despite placing well as senior a the state meet.

if you like track a lot and want to get better, run XC. my teammate ran 17:35 as his best XC time but ended up going from 1:57 to 1:53 his senior year in the 800m.

don't need a lot of miles, we were running 25-30 mpw, but it made us better

I'm a runner (obviously) but I'd recommend soccer. Games are much more fun than races.

Do the one that gets your bloodlust going.

I guess soccer?

Chikn wrote:

I'm a runner (obviously) but I'd recommend soccer. Games are much more fun than races.

Having been a former soccer player turned runner, I always thought the best case scenario would be to play soccer in the fall, then focus on running a good 800 and 1600 in track.

Of course, competitive, year-round soccer screws up this dynamic, and one needs to possess the raw speed to run a really good 800. I didn't, but I was a state level (placed) cross-country and 3200 runner.

Soccer is great conditioning for running. All it takes is a little fine tuning. Most soccer players are probably running 30 mpw, more for the ones with a really high work rate.

This is really a tough one. I was a D2-caliber soccer player (or at least, good enough to sit bench for 2+ years and then start after that) and a D1 walk-on caliber runner. I ended up sticking with soccer my 4 years, though our XC coach in high school had a reputation for making runners slower.

The pros:

1. I continued to improve in soccer

2. I can now play pickup soccer with most anyone, and dice most who didn't end up playing D1/D2 (heavy majority of players you run into). The benefit here being that you are a more versatile athlete, you have more coordination than a typical runner doing ball sports

3. I improved at running to some capacity, the soccer perhaps honing my eventual 800/1500 range

The cons:

1. I did not realize as much running potential (maybe I would have been recruited to run, instead of ended up a walk-on)

2. I was not good enough to get recruited to a serious soccer school. The soccer was largely an indulgence for high school, left to play intramural in college (under the track coach's radar as possible - injury risk frowned upon as some kid from the track team ended up tearing his ACL playing soccer - he was on scholarship until then, mind you)

So it's largely a factor of what you want. If you want to become a top tier runner, then you are more likely to get there by doing XC (also... you should do XC and indoor + outdoor track if you're really serious about it. If you'd do hockey instead of indoor track, well... to each their own). If you want to be a truly versatile athlete and don't want to run D1, then why not just do both soccer, hockey, and outdoor track - all in or nothing bro.

Maybe you're good enough at running to get into D1 while only running 2 seasons like me (or better than me), but you probably won't become the best version of your running self that way.

Godspeed.

Not so easy wrote:

Flagpole wrote:

OP,

If only you knew as many soccer players as I do who had to quit soccer due to injury and went to cross country after that (no more lateral movement).

Even your namesake Molly Beckwith Ludlow did that.

Quit with the soccer.

...let's face it, soccer is a heckuva lot more fun.

I wouldn't agree with that, and a lot of people and most runners would not agree with that.

What brings you more fun and joy? Whatever one it is - do it.