How much is "room for growth" factored into decision by recruiters at elite college XC programs?

No.

As usual, "it depends"--but a recruiter is more likely to go with the proven performer.

Don Sage trained his eyeballs out in high school, still improved modestly in college, and won an NCAA title.

The thing is, you can't be sure that the 50-70mpw guy is going to be able to handle a step up in training volume (or intensity, for that matter).

All that said: If the "bit slower" kid is a 4:06 guy, he's still going to hear from *plenty* of colleges.

You are correct. But the OP asked about a 13:30 high school runner. That is a once in a lifetime guy. The question is silly.

Please rephrase the question with normal speeds and mileage for HS recruits.

bartholomew_maxwell wrote:

Consider a scenario where a kid has high school times of 4:00(full mile), 8:40, 13:30 and some major TF and XC wins. But say the mileage the kid is doing it 90 mpw to 100 mpw at peak while in high school. Would the recruiter think this kid has less growth potential and offer the scholarship to a kid who is a bit slower but running 70 mpw at most?

What HS recruit has ever come in with these times? No school would ever choose ANY recruit over your hypothetical kid.

people on here are so dumb wrote:

bartholomew_maxwell wrote:

Consider a scenario where a kid has high school times of 4:00(full mile), 8:40, 13:30 and some major TF and XC wins. But say the mileage the kid is doing it 90 mpw to 100 mpw at peak while in high school. Would the recruiter think this kid has less growth potential and offer the scholarship to a kid who is a bit slower but running 70 mpw at most?

What HS recruit has ever come in with these times? No school would ever choose ANY recruit over your hypothetical kid.

It is a hypothetical duh.

Here’s the thing.

Mileage says literally nothing about potential.

Some 800 runners can’t tap into their potential until they are running over 70 mpw. Some 800 runners are world beaters with 35 mpw.

Some 8k-10k runners can’t run more than 70 without suffering injury or burnout. Some equally fast 8k-10k runners lose fitness if they stay under 70 mpw.

I know this is nit-picky and not the point of the post, but we live in an age where we’ve come to realize slamming mileage isn’t always the best, and mileage is just one factor of many.

Me and a teammate from highschool and now college both were picked over faster runners to have a spot on the team. The reason for this being that we both were significantly faster than anyone from our HS team currently or from past years, while those runners from the other teams were pretty average.

I guess what I’m saying is that a sub 4:30 guy looks better than a sub 4:25 guy when the 4:30 guy is 30 seconds faster than anyone on his team, and the 4:25 guy is barely top 5. Time wise, both have a place in collegiate running, but one shows a well trained athlete while another shows a quite possibly poorly trained athlete that can still produce almost the same times.

Even with just under a year of actually smart (not necessarily higher mileage) training, I’ve gotten a lot faster than the guys that were on my level in highschool, and caught up to the guys I used to think were untouchable.

That being said, if the margin is bigger, say 4:10 vs 4:25, obviously you’d want to take the 4:10 guy. Even if the 4:25 guy has a ton of potential, that’ll still probably look like 4:00-4:05 vs 4:10-4:15 in a couple of years.

I take the 100 miler, make him a 50 miler, and make him a 3:40 miler. 120 bpm. Magic.

~ Sham ~

The golden goose is the 1:55 800 kid who runs 30 miles a week, and has good form.

Any kid running epic 1600 or 3200 meter times off 80+ miles a week will get interest from the school who needs them for their fifth man alternate that fall.