How hard is it for a former HS varsity runner to finish mid-pack in a college XC meet?

Don't do it.

Almost 33 wrote:

one of my former teammates who ran XC in college jokingly asked whether I was finally "man enough" to run an XC race this fall (he knew that I still kept running after graduation).

Typo fixed.

I guess the obvious answer would be "it depends on the meet", but assuming typical times for lower-tier meets, how realistic of a goal is this? I found a meet where a 29 minute 8K would get you in the top half, but I don't know how achievable that goal is, since I almost never raced distances longer than one mile:

0% chance. Not even D3.

I ran XC and track for a decent D2 program. In HS I was a 4:19/9:35 guy. I usually was in the top 10%-20% of finishers in big XC invitationals. I would estimate that the guys finishing in the top half of XC fields were a lot closer to 4:30 HS guys than 4:59. The slowest guy's HS 1600 on our XC squad during my 4 years was 4:39.

Seems like it would depend on the meet. That said... you would be lucky to be breaking 30 minutes for 8k so your chances don't look great.

I was only D2 wrote:

I ran XC and track for a decent D2 program. In HS I was a 4:19/9:35 guy. I usually was in the top 10%-20% of finishers in big XC invitationals. I would estimate that the guys finishing in the top half of XC fields were a lot closer to 4:30 HS guys than 4:59. The slowest guy's HS 1600 on our XC squad during my 4 years was 4:39.

Thanks for the data. I'm pretty sure I could break my 4:59 HS PR by fall if I started training seriously, but 4:30 is out of reach.

If I had to bet money, I would bet no. You never will know unless you try though. I say go for it

Almost 33 wrote:

I was only D2 wrote:

I ran XC and track for a decent D2 program. In HS I was a 4:19/9:35 guy. I usually was in the top 10%-20% of finishers in big XC invitationals. I would estimate that the guys finishing in the top half of XC fields were a lot closer to 4:30 HS guys than 4:59. The slowest guy's HS 1600 on our XC squad during my 4 years was 4:39.

Thanks for the data. I'm pretty sure I could break my 4:59 HS PR by fall if I started training seriously, but 4:30 is out of reach.

I just looked up results from one of the XC invites we ran. There were 190 men (mostly D2 schools). The course is a fairly flat dirt trails 8k. The 95th place time was 27:58.5 (5:37.6/mi).

Almost 33 wrote:

Thanks for the data. I'm pretty sure I could break my 4:59 HS PR by fall if I started training seriously, but 4:30 is out of reach.

Goals that motivate are the best: if you want to go after the XC thing, go for it. If it were me, going (back) under 5 at 33 would be a more fun target.

Almost 33 wrote:

Thanks for the data. I'm pretty sure I could break my 4:59 HS PR by fall if I started training seriously, but 4:30 is out of reach.

Goals that motivate are the best: if you want to go after the XC thing, go for it. If it were me, going (back) under 5 at 33 would be a more fun target.

Fall is a long ways away so you have time to train. If you were at exactly the same fitness you were in hs, you'd finish near the back in most college xc races, but probably beat some people (maybe 2 or 3 )in almost every race.

guy who knows wrote:

Almost 33 wrote:

Thanks for the data. I'm pretty sure I could break my 4:59 HS PR by fall if I started training seriously, but 4:30 is out of reach.

Goals that motivate are the best: if you want to go after the XC thing, go for it. If it were me, going (back) under 5 at 33 would be a more fun target.

Based on the 3:43 1200m solo time trial that I ran earlier this month, I don't think I'm that far off from a 4:59. I guess another thing I could do is run that XC race when I'm in 4:59 shape, but setting a more modest goal of finishing in the top two-third instead of the top half.

I was only D2 wrote:

Almost 33 wrote:

Thanks for the data. I'm pretty sure I could break my 4:59 HS PR by fall if I started training seriously, but 4:30 is out of reach.

I just looked up results from one of the XC invites we ran. There were 190 men (mostly D2 schools). The course is a fairly flat dirt trails 8k. The 95th place time was 27:58.5 (5:37.6/mi).

highhoppingworm wrote:

you would be lucky to be breaking 30 minutes for 8k so your chances don't look great.

I'm guessing I might be able to break 30 by fall, but sub 28 minutes is out of the question. Looks like I'll have to find a really slow meet out there.

Kvothe wrote:

If you were at exactly the same fitness you were in hs, you'd finish near the back in most college xc races, but probably beat some people (maybe 2 or 3 )in almost every race.

Ouch. It'll feel weird going from being one of the best guys in the team to being one of the slowest guys in a race. I don't remember HS track that clearly, but IIRC, I was always a lot closer to the front in all of my races than I was to the back (the vast majority of my HS races were dual meets).

Appreciate the honesty, though.

Dual? The smallest meet our team ran last fall included 10 teams. Most were 30-40 teams.

Coach of high guys wrote:

Dual? The smallest meet our team ran last fall included 10 teams. Most were 30-40 teams.

Yup. 4-5 meets were dual meets, one was a league meet, another was a preliminary state qualifying meet (if you won the league meet or ran a really fast time in the league meet), and 1-2 meets were small invitationals.

I don't think I've ever competed in a meet that had more than 15 teams participating.

That is bizarre. We usually compete in 4 states also. I assume that you didn't travel much for dual meets. Our largest actually included 80 teams last fall.

Coach of high guys wrote:

That is bizarre. We usually compete in 4 states also. I assume that you didn't travel much for dual meets. Our largest actually included 80 teams last fall.

IIRC, the furthest meet I travelled to was within a two-hours drive from school.