I am just finishing up my Freshman year of cross country. I am very disappointed about how well I ran after working so hard for months.
Background: I have been running since I was 9 years old. From 9-14 I mostly ran 3 days a week probably between 6-12 miles per week. Sometimes I didn't run for weeks or months and sometimes I ran a little more. The last 1 1/2 years I didn't run as much because of the pandemic and there being no road races to train for.
When I was 11-12 before the pandemic I ran local 5Ks, some 10ks, and did some track. My fastest 5k was at 12 at a 19:03. It was downhill road race. Track I ran a 11:19 3000m at 12 years old and 5:27 1500 at 11 years old.
For high school cross country I ran 6-7 times a week averaging 30-35 miles a week. I know the courses with grass and dirt are harder than road, but not all were grass and my fastest time was only 1 sec faster than my PR as a 12 year old. I also didn't get any faster from beginning to end of the season. I thought I would get faster just from training more and consistently, but I did not really get much faster. Is this normal? Is it the training? I grew up just running fast all the time, but with high school we ran mostly easy runs.