Did anyone have times in the 27-32 min range for their first cross country race?

I think I ran 26:41 for my first 5k and got down to 15:20 over 7 years later

i hope to god you mean sub 16

I started sophomore year as a guy after training during the summer leading up to it and still only managed a 26:10. I improved by a few minutes just in that first year alone and then by smaller increments as the years went on. You might be slower than a lot of people when you start, but if you stick with it you'll end up faster than nearly everyone.

My first 5K ever was somewhere in the vicinity of 24-25 minutes when I was a junior in high school, and I am a guy. I was able to drop that down to somewhere around 20-21 minutes by the end of the season, but I was still middle of the JV pack. In my senior year, I ran 19:40, and still solidly mediocre.

Since then, I have worked hard and found out that I am a mileage whore, and just this past spring ran 16:00 on the track for 5000m. I have ran a full marathon faster than my 5K race pace from high school. So while I too was quite slow when I started out, I'd like to think I've come a long way. I'm still nowhere near elite, but I can win a lot of local races, which is good enough for me. I strongly feel that if you have any sort of affinity for running, you can improve an incredible amount if you keep at it and work hard.

I'm female. When I started HS it was difficult to run 2 miles at all! Really. I couldn't finish 2 miles.

But who cares? If you enjoy it, running is the best sport to do because you can do it for the rest of your life, unlike a lot of sports. I'm 38, been running since I couldn't even finish those 2 miles.

Thanks to everyone for sharing your stories.

There were plenty of men on my HS team who started out Freshman year in the 25+ minute range. Most ended up being sub 20 minute guys with a few each year getting into the low 17's. Most of the guys who were sub 17 minute guys started out with an athletic background and started in the 20 minute range.

jesus. is this for real?

i thought you were asking about 8k times in college.

I ran a 5k road race in around 28:00 before my freshman year, so I decided not to go out for XC. I did run indoor and outdoor track. My best 800m in indoor was a 3:07. By the end of outdoor, I got it down to 2:45. I stuck with it, joined cross country, and a few years later I was running 2:14/4:59 in track and high 18:00- low 19:00 in XC. Track really is a sport where hard work and dedication can bring massive improvements.

I didn't do XC in HS I did soccer and ran the 800.

When I got to college I had to do XC so my first race was 27:48 (8k)

Not many HS girls run 18 min for 5k xc so don't be so down. 18 min for boys that is a different story. You will likely go under 25 pretty quickly with some training. Just have fun and forget about the time initially.

this thread is awesome wrote:

Thanks to everyone for sharing your stories.

+1 I just read this thread to my daughter.

i know im a dick, the original wrote:

jesus. is this for real?

i thought you were asking about 8k times in college.

There's a big difference between 13 and 26.

I'm a dude. my first XC race in high school was 27+ (and only gone down to 23-something my first year). by the end of college I had run sub-15 several times. it can happen.