Didn't make my college team - what the hell do I do???

So you didn't run for a week just because you got sick? This better have been a really bad sickness. Also if your first reaction to things not going your way is to throw your hands up and say "what do I do now" then this sport probably isn't for you. I wouldn't let you on my team either, you'll need to be much tougher than that to make it through several seasons of college running.

This is your first year, right? I'm assuming you could redshirt this XC season. (Ignoring another global pandemic, or if you're at BYU.)

You'd likely burn a shirt one fall anyway, so don't sweat it. Get in better shape. Run at your school's open meet. Run indoor open meets. Try out in spring track.

And yes, at least say what conference you're in. I can only think of 5-10 schools where you'd stand no chance every with your times. Everywhere else, you're in the game. Must be more here you're not revealing.

When I was in college about 10 years ago I knew a few guys like this who were offered tryouts with the team but no spot guaranteed. This was at a school that might make XC nationals each year. Most kept just ran unattached or joined our club team with scrubs like me. A few got times that would warrant a call up but hit them as upper classmen so there wasn't much point to join the team with one year left before graduating. It's still cool to be a sub 15 or sub 4 1500 guy, even if you don't have your name on a team's backpack.

Sign up unattached and beat your team so the coach sees you’re good enough

Any reasonable coach would allow you to train with the team, and run some races unattached this fall. I'd absolutely ask for that, and then show the coach you are committed and hard working by showing up to every practice, and putting the work in. Come track season, you should be healthy and fit, and ready to join the team.

Is that necessarily true now in the Title IX era. I have a nephew who could have gone to Brown and wanted to run but was not fast enough to have prayer at varsity. I asked their coach, who I knew well, if the nephew could come and train with them and the answer was no, that Brown had serious Title IX problems and could not have more than 20. maybe 22, guys showing up at anything their cross country team did.

Commit yourself to academics and focus on making a decent living wage when you graduate. Sports are for children and a successful career as a distance runner is essentially meaningless.

Do you have an academic scholarship, good financial aid, or enough AP/dual enrollment to be done with lower division classes?

If not, why are you paying for the 1st two years of college- especially at a school you had to “tryout” for? Either get a scholarship at a JC (outside CA) or go to school for free at community college (if in CA). Spend 1-2 years developing as a runner and finishing GE/lower division classes and then transfer with a scholarship to a top d-2 school or possibly solid d-1 depending on how much you actually improve.

If you’re already attending your current college for free and it’s a good academic program for you, then you might as well just train and try out again in track. If you’re in shape this XC season, just show up unattached and beat the current runners on the team.

Simple: get a job, you hobby jogger!!

Try the transfer portal...seems to work for football

Literally do this. Embarrassing some walk-ons in the home meet is by far the easiest way to get on the team. Just don't go around asking when you'll get to travel and all that. Prove you belong in a race, then prove you belong at practice, then prove you deserve to travel.

Transfer to another school that they run against often and smash his team.

Two words: Team Blitz.

Do a bunch of base training, threshold runs, long term development stuff. There are surely some people that either go to the college on a club team that can give you some company or possibly some post collegiate people who can run fairly well still to train with. Jump into a couple races this fall either road races or an open cross country race. Then for indoors enter unattached and run fast.

While you might have trouble making a top 10-20 D1 team, pretty much everyone with a scholarship available would love to have someone like you join them. You might as well stick it out for this semester, and if you are denied a spot on the track team as well, you should transfer schools. It would be a waste of talent for you to not run in college.

I'll echo what a lot of people have already said - put together an awesome block of long-term-focused training, and show up to the track tryout in incredible shape. The way I see it, cross-country and track seasons are when you get yourself ready to race (and, obviously, you race), but the offseason is when you can truly transform yourself by working on the areas of fitness that are great for long-term development, but get less emphasis during a racing season.

More specifically, build a great base of fitness, but recognize that a great base of fitness is not just mileage. It is improving your capacity at a variety of aerobic paces and your speed/mechanics/muscular power. For the aerobic side of things, do consistent long runs (weekly, every 10 days, every 2 weeks, whatever works for you), touch on aerobic and lactate threshold paces with progression runs and tempo runs/reps, and get in some fartlek or low-key interval workouts with 8k/10k pace. Incorporate strides, sprints, short hill sprints, weight training and/or plyos, but try to do so in a way that avoids the lactate bath that often comes with race-specific training.

Enjoy the opportunity to immerse yourself in building your fitness without having to race. If you do, you'll probably surprise yourself and the coach with how fit you are when Spring arrives.

This isn't the 1970s/80s anymore. Kids are faster now AND they have the super shoes. 9:10s are a dime a dozen now.