I don’t want to run in college

Wow, I was scrolling thru the entire thread, wondering why DIII was not mentioned. Maybe other that a few of the top-tier (XC) DIII schools, there is much less demand on your time and overall stress to perform for your team. Since there are no scholarships, coaches cannot 'command' study halls and the like. You might have more fun too.

Maybe other DIII'ers can chime in on how their college live was when running for a team.

Not great. I paid $200k for an education that was worse than I could have gotten at my state school for $80k.

A power 5 school will likely have a fairly competitive club running team which could be better than lots of mid-major D1 teams. You can still run but more so on your own terms. People i know who ran on club teams at P5 schools had a great time, trained at a high level and could experience a little more balance. There's no pressure to compete but you can still enjoy the camaraderie of being on a team. Unless the financial benefit of the aid package you could get by running on the D1 team is make or break, I wouldn't run if I felt the way you do.

I am voice to texting this response so roast someone else about grammar or spelling:

This thread is full of people who don’t exactly know what they’re talking about, but there are a few people who demonstrate some maturity. Whether or not you will enjoy running in college is completely going to depend on who your coach is, how much funding they have, and how much of an jerk they are.

if you enjoy running and enjoy becoming more fit, but you feel a little burned out by the racing aspect, that may just be temporary. I’ve had plenty of athletes go through that and come back to run better than ever and really enjoy competing and racing, but I’ve also had the opposite. You won’t know the answer to that and neither will anyone else here until you actually go through it, that’s the harsh reality.

Personally, I have witnessed people party in college and also run really well. It is very difficult to balance these things and you will obviously still tilt more towards a responsible lifestyle than a frat life. The many people here commenting about what they were missing out on in college life are usually limited by their circumstances and their own brains and thought processes. There is time for everything, and every semester you don’t have to knock out of the park. Obviously we don’t know what kind of student you are and how much you will need to study or how much you struggle academically. This may get you stuck in study Hall if you are not very good and that will also change your experience.

you also have the option of going somewhere and continuing to train on your own if you truly do like running. I would like to take this moment to say that I hope you really do like running. Far too many people run only for extrinsic Reasons and never really find their own love for the sport, which usually leads to them not having good lifelong habits. If you know what you’re doing and you like what you’re doing, it doesn’t really matter so much what the environment is. I trained on my own and coached middle school and high school track for a while before eventually transferring after getting recruited just by competing unattached and some college races. It was a great decision I got to train and get faster on my own for a few years and then I got to have a really awesome team experience. That is obviously not even close to the average experience, but I encourage you to really think outside the box and consider every possibility that you could pursue and not just give up.

One of the other posters mentioned that they decided to “grow up”. I don’t think that was a good characterization of what they chose to do so I don’t want to throw shade. But you are in a situation right now where you are maturing and it is quite possible that if you just let people push you around and give into expectations or give into the allure of some college life that you may not even end up living or enjoying, that it may set other precedences and color your college and life experiences going forward. Really take this opportunity to examine yourself, think about what will be healthy for you both physically and mentally in the future even if you choose not to run For a college team, and think beyond what you are feeling just this week or just these last few months and think about what sort of future you can build and how you may condition yourself to think about it in the future. Best of luck.

Agreed, wish I would have gone DIII, unfortunately I never explored financial opportunities to attend the Private ones and didn't have reciprocity with the neighboring state that had many successful DIII Schools.

My college coach told me a long time ago, "If you have to ask the question you already know the answer." I wrestled with this for a long time. Do yourself a favor and move on and be happy.

I like this take. In the end, it's your choice and you'll live with the results/consequences both good and/or bad. But that's life. You choose option A, then other options may or may not get eliminated or put on hold. I earned a full scholarship (between academic/athletic) at several in-state mid-level D1 schools but turned them down to go to a small junior college in the mountains because I loved the mountains more than the thought of being on a D1 team. Didn't run as well as I hoped (and transferred into a D1 school after that jr college), but life moved me on into other things. I fought it for a while because I was trying to base my self-worth on how I performed or what my PR's were. Don't do that! But eventually just took a breath and let running go. Still stayed in shape and used that discipline to pursue other things, so for the 13 years I ran I'm glad I got to for that reason alone...discipline to try other things with that same focus. I hope the best for you, and this may sound trite or like a worn-out platitude, but "it'll be okay; it'll work out."

DIII

definitely good was able to join a frat and still be on the team, ended up paying right around what state school would've costed after academic scholarships and grants

I had some fun, made some good friends, and met my wife. So from a social perspective it was the time of my life. Running-wise I squandered the experience through a combination of picking a program on the downswing (bad coach had started 2 or 3 years before I got there) and my own headcase issues. As far as time commitment you certainly won't have anything like that football homecoming thing or the study halls someone else described. However, you will still lose large chunks of your Saturdays sitting on coach buses and/or outrageously long track meets. It's crazy to see how far D3 has come since I graduated. I ran in a pretty competitive conference where if you broke 26:00 in XC you were a stud. Now that's become pretty common. Makes me feel more slow than I already did!

Don't run if you don't want to. My sister was runner up in the state and recruited. She did not run. She had other interests and gifts and did lots of other interesting things in college.

I was in the same boat as you. I even practiced with the team for a month my first month of school before ghosting.

Here are my thoughts:

- I really needed that break at the time, but I ended up regretting it later

- If I could do it over again maybe I would have tried to take off a year then get back into it, I don't know.

- Eventually because I missed competition and the constant improvement that comes from running, I got back into it after college until about age 33 and eventually set new pr's. You can do this even as a middle distance runner, which I was, getting down to 1:53 which is not world beating but I was pushing age 30 by then so I was proud.

- But I'll always wonder what I could have run if I stuck it out, had a team to train with, had a good coach, had a training staff to work on my injuries, had the recovery abilities of a 20 year old instead of a 30 year old

So my recommendation is take the time off that you need. Stay in shape! You don't need to be running 60 mpw, I stayed in shape by playing lots of college intramural sports - soccer, flag football, everything. It was fun and I stayed in shape then when I came back to running I could get back below 17:00 for 5k after 6-9 months of training.

Maybe you'll come back to running, maybe not. If you think you might, it would be great to do it while you're young and your body can handle the training load. But either way stay in shape to give yourself options.

Then don’t

nothing worse than people who were good half as$ing it cause they don’t wNt to anymore

If you don't want to run, don't run period. More importantly, don't be like Claudia Lane and use your running to get into a college you wouldn't get into on academics, then half ass a college season and then quit. That becomes your legacy, not what you did in high school.

I had the opportunity to run in college because I had some decently impressive times junior year, but didn’t run senior year because of injuries. That pretty much killed my opportunities to run somewhere that I wanted, but I still had coaches calling and sending letters. Getting hurt senior year of track killed any motivation to run in college. So kind of similar to you.

My advice is to try it. You can always quit, but you will never have the opportunity to run in college again (most likely). A change of scenery can do amazing things for your perspective on certain aspects of your life. New coach, new teammates, new environment etc. All the time I hear about guys who were about my talent level who went on to far exceed expectations. A lot of people on here who ran in college are saying they couldn’t take the intensity of the lifestyle but my roommate ran for a P5 D1 school and she loved it and so did all of her teammates. Even neglecting the scholarship, being a college athlete will open opportunities you’ll never get anywhere else. Do it. If you don’t like it just quit after a year.

I feel sorry for youngsters who are facing college and have no idea what direction they want to go. Don't feel you have to go to college. It is good to try and find work and give yourself time to figure out some direction. I would consider finding other ways to challenge yourself. Make running fun through different kinds of races. Focusing on winning and times both have their downsides. Run a trail half-marathon and the time means nothing. Surround yourself with friends you like to run with. You have plenty of time to figure out if you want to go to college and you can still run if you want. Run for yourself.

I'll be the 8th person here to chime in for DIII. Whatever your geographic, academic, athletic, and financial constraints/interests are, chances are good that there is a DIII program that could be a good fit for you.

Socially I would say most DIII programs it can be the biggest part of your social life, or it can be something you do for two hours every day for practice and then meets on Saturday.

JUCO is the better bet. Save some money ad see if you want to run. People make decisions without regard to cost and then they complain how many loans they have.

I ran at a D1 school in the 1980s. Did not run more than 40 mpw in high school and did not work had in school. First year was hard getting used to the more intense workouts and amount for time on schoolwork. Running made me become more organized - spent 5 nights a week in the library for 4 hour stretches. Also have you an instant group of friends. We did party every Saturday night (most Saturdays had a meet or hard workout) and you tended to go out with other athletes because my college’s biggest party nights were Thursdays then Fridays. I really enjoyed being on a D1 team and still keep in touch with a few teammates. My daughter was a much better student than I was in high school and went to an Ivy League school and decided not to run there. She did many things I did not do in college and had a different experience. Neither of us would change our choice. If your heart is not into the intensity of runnging in a D1 school, think about D3 or don’t run with a tean at all.