I am a HS senior who is considering taking a gap year next year for various reasons. I had decent times as a junior last spring (4:19 1600, 9:19 3200), but was injured/sick during cross and didn’t get recruited by the schools I wanted to. If I run sub 4:10ish this year, do you think coaches would be open to recruiting me and having me enroll the following year?
I mean, I guess you’ll be older by the time you’re an upperclassman, which generally means faster (look at the BYU guys). I think you should be ok, as long as you keep up with training.
The only problem with this route is that it is really easy to become unmotivated and put off runs because "the season is so far" but if you can stay motivated and stay as hungry as you are for a spot on the teams that you want right now at the end of this season I don't see why you can't. I'm not taking a gap year but I'm trying out for the team next year because I didn't want to deal with track practice everyday on top of the workload that engineering places on students in my first year
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This seems viable, not sure tho
It sounds like you are dealing with burn-out and/or you are hoping for the schools you wanted to recruit you to do so. Most coaches are going to want you to have some continuity on your training and racing (preferably with a coach and a team and a season of XC races and a season of Track races) from HS to college, and by taking a gap year you will lose fitness and take a step back on your progress as a runner. If you tell a coach this is what you are planning to do, expect no help with admissions or scholarship consideration and the coach to tell you to contact them once you get on campus about walking on the team.
Runners at BYU take time off for missions (and this is likely common at other schools as well), but they usually do this in the middle of college, not at the beginning. The school (and coaches) being LDS obviously supports this type of break. Anyone who is in this situation would need to carefully plan their 1-2 year break to continue training so that they did not lose fitness when they returned. For the coach, it doesn't matter if you were an All-American or a walk-on when you return to school to start a new season of XC or track, if you can't race well you won't have a place on the team.
Outside of competitive distance running, taking a break between HS and college to travel or work or do service work or figure out what your academic and career goals are is a good idea.
RIP: D3 All-American Frank Csorba - who ran 13:56 in March - dead
RENATO can you talk about the preparation of Emile Cairess 2:06
Running for Bowerman Track Club used to be cool now its embarrassing
Great interview with Steve Cram - says Jakob has no chance of WRs this year
Hats off to my dad. He just ran a 1:42 Half Marathon and turns 75 in 2 months!