FLAGSTAFF GAP YEAR

Good luck - hope you go for it. There's a lot of institutionalised americans commenting who are terrified of anything outside of the pipeline they know.

I'm european and what you're describing is completely normal and encouraged here.

Edit to add: please be careful with training and get/keep a coach. you're still young and your biggest risk is ramping up too quickly and getting injured/burning out - especially given how driven you sound.

If you're going all in, do make sure you go all in on rest, recovery and nutrition as well

I also feel like it'd be easy to get lost mentally taking a 'gap year'. Usually you're training for the upcoming season, and competing for your team and training with your team and you're fully in a system with everything designed to help you run faster. Taking a year off away from that and doing your own thing, I don't see that going well. I'm surprised by all the support of this decision on the thread.

It speaks volumes that you have so slowly revealed key factors of your story. It comes off like you are trying to hide something or making it up as you go along. In the real world you lay everything on the table at the start - so you are not wasting people’s time.

This thread is a capital B number 8 - B8.

there is next to no physical or institutional infrastructure here for what you describe. for good or bad US soccer increasingly mimics europe, with kids playing club or for pro academies, and weaker kids in HS teams. i say for good or bad because i think the U17 residency in FL -- everyone special in one place -- used to be a strength of US soccer (landon, beasley, etc.).

the problem with what you suggest for TF is we don't really have much built up outside of schools here. the schools generally build the tracks. generally the schools have the best athletes and times. the meets for kids are generally school events. we have some scattered clubs but they don't seem much coverage and well organized. and they tend to be youth, U18 oriented. they use school tracks to train. they run a handful of state/regional/national meets. then back with the school team.

anyhow, point being, if this isn't a troll, if you skip the school system, there is very little outside it. in soccer i can play year round and never set foot on a school field, not play for or against a school team, and be in a highly competitive, "college coaches watch" setting where i get scouted and recruited just playing my league, state playoffs, and tournaments.

but since there is little of this in existence here, what's your point? the whole deal is there is barely any club track here and no real thorough U20 setup, just a U20 championship that parasitizes off college. as such, trying to avoid HS and college leaves one with few meets to run and little coaching.

your best suggestion as opposed to stirring the pot would be tell the kid instead of flagstaff and no meets, go travel to europe through december, join a club, and get some coaching and meets.

Why not go to Europe, go to altitude there, enroll in intensive language courses, find groups that will let you train with them, race different competition and race a lot - coaches will value that.

OP writes far too adult to be a high schooler. This whole thread reads like jamin or Greg pulling online cosplay college athlete for interaction.

If not the430miler

Rojo are you starting to think you may want to hear the HS coache’s side of the story, before following through with the coaching commitments?

There are genetic predispositions to high altitude. You could do a 23andMe or some other sequencing service and see what you high-altitude gene is.

I like this way of thinking, as long as it's within the means of the individual to do so.

I think many student-athletes should take this approach more often. Too often, men and women take the first D1 opportunity that they get when it is actually a crappy situation that will not actually help them grow athletically, is a below-average academic situation AND financially, there is no scholarship funds available. So they'd rather take that "preferred walk-on" spot, rather than working on themselves for another year where they then can get more scholarships, more "playing time", and have better team opportunities.

By taking a year, working a side job, focusing on training and racing unattached at quality meets, student-athletes not only can save up more money for their education but open up more doors to become part of a better program where they not only will be able grow as an athlete more, but will also be able to contribute at a higher impact level.

The Juco route is another viable way to do a "gap year". I get that there's a stigma around it, but a lot of that is due to the miseducation of what junior college track can offer individuals, especially in the distance side of things.

This would be for the individual that is on the fringes of going D1/D2 (has the talent), but would fall into the "preferred walk-on"/low scholarship athlete category. By going just one year at a juco, you will be developed much more than sitting on the sidelines at a D1 program that doesn't see you as a "contributor". Then, you will have much more opportunities at a D1/D2 program that will actually develop you + might give you more scholarship opportunities.

i am skeptical any of this is real but if true IMO what he has done is shoot himself in the foot, banged himself with a spiked stick, you choose the metaphor. he would have been nearing D1 type times. then gets in a coaching spat and makes sure that doesn't happen. then does nothing for his senior year when recruitment happens. then wants to go to flagstaff, presumably on the theory that if he is seen working so hard around the town, top program NAU will ignore the track record and walk him right on behind nico young and the kenyans.

the OP, if not trolling, fails to grasp that someone with his issues needs to be laying down times someplace to be recruited, and on a timescale where he could either run college next school year or the one after that. so this spring or fall. a plan to explode onto the scene next spring will likely be too late for the following school year, too. you have out-clevered yourself.

my suggestions

beg back onto the track team now and see what you can lay down before the season ends

at minimum register to run some of the state/regional/national youth meets (and/or all comers or unattached) where you are an actual track athlete, with some times you can tell a coach for senior year, and not a poseur

research juco/naia/d3 with fairly open and late admissions and fairly open roster track team policies, and take what you can get next year, lay down some times, and then adjust from there by transfer (the deal being, D1 is gone unless you manifest something someplace, and you might apply to a D1 and get in academically, but you overrate your ability to just walk up and walk on)

go to prep school and lay down some 5th year times and show you can be coached

only failing all that, you might as well make use of the time you have given yourself, and, whacking at you with a sledgehammer RUN ACTUAL MEETS AND LAY DOWN ACTUAL TIMES

this whole thesis neglects that the average kid his age, dumped in a new city alone, without some sort of coaching structure, likely either overtrains from boredom or conversely parties away the year

the basic thesis here is "i'll show them." like the last year and change since he told off his coach? he's moving further away from the goal and not closer. quit doubling down. do something structured and honest about it.

if you're thinking of starting classes while on supposed gap year, you may very well burn a year of eligibility.

Bolded this. If you are taking a gap year you darn sure don't want your eligibility clock to start.

Idea here is to take a class here or there as a part time student, not fully enrolled. Also in most cases you can't just transfer them in.

But if you do something like calc 1-3, or foreign language, you can either test out of the entry level at school, start at a higher level, or take the CLEP test to get credit.

A few classes keep your mind in the game and if you start your new school with Calc 3, and language 201 you have more flexibility later to take classes you want, double major etc.

As someone who happily lives in Flagstaff, I'm not sure it's most financially sensible place to train at altitude, unless you already have dialed in a cheap room in a house or something. Housing prices are crazy high here not only because of student housing, but also second homes for wealthy Phoenicians, and way too many short term rentals for tourists. Particularly if you don't have any specific plans on a training group and may end up training on your own anyway, you may look elsewhere. If you want to have a "Bruce Denton" experience by just secluding yourself and getting a massive aerobic base during a gap year, you can do that in way cheaper high altitude locations. Monticello Utah, Dixon NM, and other random towns you've probably never heard of will be a lot cheaper.

(If you don't get the Bruce Denton reference, read Once a Runner during your gap year)

College coaches only recognize race results, not Strava data. This "alleged" kid needs somewhere with a thriving all-comer meet set-up. Somewhere with a thriving track club.

Better yet - stay at home.

Yeah, I think this is a good point. Flagstaff isn't going to have good options for this unless you count the few indoor track meets in the dome. I think OP would be better off walking on to a team Freshman year at a University that suits him (athletics and academics), and either be happy with that for 4 years, or transfer if he thinks he can run fast enough to attract the attention of a big time school.

You do understand he has already missed college application deadlines for 24/25? Are you saying he should stay home for a year and walk on for 25/26 at a University that suits him?