I was wondering: how much more difficult is high school cross country compared to college cross country? I believe a lot of high school runners quit before they compete in college, but I may be wrong.
I was wondering: how much more difficult is high school cross country compared to college cross country? I believe a lot of high school runners quit before they compete in college, but I may be wrong.
it's very difficult. my HS coach wouldn't let me practice on the days I skipped school, but my collegiate coach didn't bat an eye if I missed a week of classes.
HS is much harder. You have 7 hours of class and then the coach makes you run 10 miles. In college, you have 3 hours of class and then the coach sends you off to run whatever distance you want.
Your high school coach must be very grouchy!
College XC is much more difficult due to the training load. It's much more competitive as well. You may have been a "star" at your high school but in college you may very well just be another horse in the barn.
I won state, and a year later, was redshirting.
At a club meet I narrowly beat a senior who had won state in my state four years earlier, and we were both back a few dozen spots. I went through the 5K nearly a minute faster than I'd run a year earlier in winning.
My eyes were open that day.
This is Jim Kiler wrote:
I won state, and a year later, was redshirting.
At a club meet I narrowly beat a senior who had won state in my state four years earlier, and we were both back a few dozen spots. I went through the 5K nearly a minute faster than I'd run a year earlier in winning.
My eyes were open that day.
That's for sure.
I never even thought about running 10k in college.
75 MPW in high school to run 4:10 after going to school for an entire day. 70 MPW in college to run 13:55 after going to class for 3 hours. College was much easier.
It all depends on the particular programs.
How intense was your high school program? We’re you a wolf with a bunch of sheep?
In college it’s typically always intense. In college there’s always wolves that want your scholarship (if you have one). In college you’re suppose to be working on your future career. Also it’s easy to get pulled into the social party scene. So balancing all that with a time consuming sport is not easy.
High school is just much simpler. You go to school and show up to practice at x time. College is more of a juggling act,
Let's say runner is 15:30 for 5k CC in HS.
College CC will likely be very difficult at D1, but not so bad at D2 or D3, unless the D2 or D3 school has strong CC teams.
If the runner was 15 for 5k CC in HS,
then D1 CC will likely be difficult, unless the school's team is not good.
But D2 or D3 can be easy by comparison.
I ran an open 10k CC race my senior year in 32:33, and that is just under 5:15 per mile.
I'd already run a 4-mile road race (flat course) at just over 20 min, so about 5:01 per mile.
If I had gone D3, CC would have been a joke to me. Most of the very good D3 CC runners average between 5 and 5:05 for 5 mile courses (8k). Not much, if any, difference in D2 CC.
As I mentioned on my earlier post, I never thought of running CC at D1.
This is Jim Kiler wrote:
I won state, and a year later, was redshirting.
At a club meet I narrowly beat a senior who had won state in my state four years earlier, and we were both back a few dozen spots. I went through the 5K nearly a minute faster than I'd run a year earlier in winning.
My eyes were open that day.
This. My first college CC meet was a 4 miler. I ran a 50 sec 5K PR en route in that race and finished 10th on my team, barely top 50 in the meet. In HS, I was a top 25 state guy.
I liked college better because we ran father. I'd rather race 8k and 10k than 5k.
Of course college is more difficult. In HS if you go to an invitational with 300 kids in the race, you know you are really only racing 15-30 of those kids. The biggest part of the field aren't guys you would consider competitive at all. Once you go to college, everyone (well just about everyone) is very competitive and talented.
EZ10Miler wrote:
I liked college better because we ran father. I'd rather race 8k and 10k than 5k.
Of course college is more difficult. In HS if you go to an invitational with 300 kids in the race, you know you are really only racing 15-30 of those kids. The biggest part of the field aren't guys you would consider competitive at all. Once you go to college, everyone (well just about everyone) is very competitive and talented.
That was my experience. I was in the top ten in XC in my HS section and a mid-packer in college. It was hard to stay motivated after going from pretty good, to mediocre and there is little chance of closing the gap on the top runners. I met guys guys that had run 9:20 in HS that didn't think it was worth their time to try to run in college.
If you're a 16 flat high school kid, you'll be right in the thick of things at nearly every D2 and D3.
If you go reputable D1, you're going to be surrounded by state champions, nationals qualifiers, foreigners who race summers in Europe, and a few you hear are on the team, but you never see them.
"Workouts" will kill you. You'll do what are essentially 10K races every week or so, in trainers, on crazy courses, and get buried. Other days you'll be left to your own devices, and notice everyone else running 15 or 18 miles, while you struggle to put in 30 minutes.
If you tough it out three or four years, stay mostly not injured, and manage to avoid all the state champs who are incoming, you might run at pre-Nats and push a few other team runners back.
If you are more of a 800 mile type you may be surprised how much less effective you are in the 8k or 10k compared to the 5k (assuming you are a male)
At the high school level you will see 800 and mile guys do pretty decent in XC because the races are not that long. When you get to the college level it becomes abundantly clear who is a mid distance runner and who is better suited for long distance.
You wont see a really fast 800 or mile guy excel on the XC course like they were able to do in high school. On the flip side though, a XC specialist will now do poorly in a lot of middle distance races. Some will do good in the mile but most of them will have to stick to the 3k and 5k, and you wont see any good XC runners have the wheels to run really good 800 times. Baring some freaks of nature that are good at every distance, in college you will quickly find out what type of runner you are and where your strengths lie.
I don’t understand why there’s a question here. In HS you can be a D1 recruit with a 15:00 5k. In college you have to run that , or marginally slower, and then hang on for another two or 3 miles. You basically have to be twice as good as you were in HS
^ Exponentially three or more times better, but agreed.
Funny, I saw college as the chance to race against the best. I guess I knew going in I wasn't ever going to be an All American or go to the Olympics, so I just wanted to see how I could do vs my peers.
I guess if guys can't handle not winning they can hit the local road races and run vs a field of soccer moms, little kids, and old masters runners 25 past their prime.
One year at the Aztec XC Invitational, by chance, I was right next to Thom Hunt at the starting line. He ran the 1st mile in 4:20 and it would have been physically impossible for me to have kept up with him much farther than the first half mile and he ended up beating me by about 2:30. We were in the same race but we weren't racing each other.
At the WAC track championships, and also by chance, I was right next to Michael Musyoki at the starting line for the 10000. He had already run his 27:41 PR and would later win a Bronze Medal in the 84 Olympics. We were running at 5600' and I got lapped probably 3 times.
"Racing" against those guys was about as rewarding as trying to bat against Gerrit Cole.
There have already been some good replies.
I would say that the biggest difference between high school and a reputable D1 xc program is the practices, or to be more specific, the workouts.
The easy days, steady state runs, and even the tempos are generally doable for your "average" 15:00-15:30 hs xc walk on at a solid D1 program.
What gets tough are the 8 x 1k on 1 minute rest, 6 x mile and 3 x 2 mile workouts. At the program I was at, the coach basically wrote down a top 7 time standard and a scrub time standard. If you wanted to travel, you better hit the top 7 time standard for every repeat.
Looking back, this wasn't the best system for myself and I think more programs individualize and bring runners along slowly than back in the old days. That said every coach knows if he makes it to mid November with 5 really fast guys, 2 solid guys and 5 injured/ burnt out guys he's better off than having 2 really fast guys and 10 solid guys.
Also, an 8k race takes a lot more out of you than a 5k. An all out 10k is even worse. Because of this, most programs have cut back the number of races over the past 20 years which is generally helpful to developing runners.
One other notable difference is the need to be able to consistently run in traffic. A 24:30 8k runner at a competitive program will basically run shoulder to shoulder with a dozen other runners every step of their entire race season. The best national class runners typically negatively split their races but that is a whole different deal.
In terms of picking a school, I would not worry too much about D1 vs DIII or P5 vs mid- major. If the team will let you on, you like the coach, are comfortable with the other runners on the team, and would consider going to the school even if you weren't running then that's the school for you.