Have I wasted my HS running career? Do I just give it up?

You’re probably not out of shape just lack of muscle tension makes running feel weird for a little as you get back

it’s worth it if you decide it is, you’re a soph so you can turn things around. Go run and compete man.

Thanks for the encouragement, I appreciate it :) But unfortunately heart rate doesn’t lie. I have to go a lot slower than my original easy pace to get my heart rate in the easy zone. It’s embarrassing.

No don't give up. You haven't even been running for 2 full years!! There are about a million other paths to success and/or reaching your full potential other than being recruited by your dream school.

Eyes on the prize: Cross country, fall 2023. You have a history of getting injured when you do too much, too soon, so stop doing that.

Don't let the slow pace get to you now. You'll be back in shape quickly. Too quickly, actually - that's the point where you have to force yourself to keep progressing gradually instead of going for broke.

Oh buddy heart rate lies

Forget the f*cking watch and feel your kung fu, don't think it

11 weeks ago I came back from an injury and I had been using the elliptical, but my HR was high. I went back to some slightly slower easy paces and dealt with high 170s-180s on my runs but I didn't care, HR won't settle for 4-8 weeks of training at least, and wrist HR is inaccurate too.

I just kept stacking and doing little things to stay healthy, I'm on week 11 now, after two years of up and down training, injuries, and sickness. You didn't waste time, it just took you a while to get to this point.

"Don't waste good time" - John Ngugi

I was chronically injured all of highschool due to bad training choices by my coach and bad training choices by an uneducated me trying to negate my coaches training. Throw horrible sleep and high cortisol due to poor mental health and mediocre at best nutrition and there’s no wonder in hindsight why that was.

I also was so passionate about the sport despite it never going my way that I didn’t give up after highschool, was able to research training and nutrition better, take good care of my brain, and walk on a year after graduation and have ran 49 and 1:49 so far.

Theres a few points I’m making here:

Your running career isn’t highschool. Yes the top dogs in college were often top dogs in highschool, BUT SO MANY WERENT. A friend of mine was a 55 2:0x 4:4x guy in highschool, did a similar thing to me by training with his club team and is now a 48, 1:47 guy as an academic soph, and I believe he ran the #1 DMR 800m leg at NCAAs this past indoors.

Its also significantly harder to overtrain than it is to underfuel. You should be supplementing iron, calcium, and magnesium heavily if you’re getting injured, along with shooting for 100g+ of protein a day. Also hydration, it’s so easy to underhydrate with a HS schedule, but if you show up dehydrated on a track ready to run hard you are putting your tendons and muscles at risk.

You should also take a look at what puberty does to you over the next couple of years. Your body will naturally become more resilient as your bone and muscle density increase with puberty, and increased testosterone will help you recover better.

If running is something you love, don’t quit! Doesn’t matter how good or bad you are at it, if you love it, keep doing it. One day your body really won’t let you run anymore, regardless of how you train or eat. Figure out what’s going wrong, and fix it, this may take a couple years, and that’s okay! Enjoy the journey and try not to be upset about the things you cannot control.

Calling BS on this story. You write too well.

What? Not everywhere is Oklahoma or Mississippi dude. In some places, secondary education is actually decent.

When I read OP, I'm reading that every time you come back from an injury, you're trying to compensate for all the time off any "do it all" in one season. This is causing you to overtrain, put unnecessary stress on yourself, and ultimately leads you into another injury problem.

Running is a long-distance journey. It might be fun to hang pace with Kipchoge on the 1st mile of a marathon, but if you aren't ready to run 2:01:09, you better slow down. Train at an intensity and volume that is fitting for you. You might not see results in one season...but month after month, year after year of training stacks on top of the last one, and eventually you'll be achieving things you didn't think were possible.

In terms of colleges... No one can say for sure whether you'll get into your "dream school". You say you are talented, but that is obviously subjective and you don't give us any numbers to reference.

My first rule is this: college is firstly an academic decision. The vast majority of student-athletes come out of college with significant student debt. Before you automatically decide to go to college, consider whether this is what you want. If it is, then pick your schools by academics first. This isn't just making sure they have your major--is the school academically prestigious? Does the specific program have any prestige? Will you get personal attention from professors, etc. etc. After you've sorted all that out, then consider athletics.

I would also say this: if your goal is to make it onto NAU's team or something like that, it is very possible you don't make it. Running is a hard sport, in the sense that 99% of the time numbers are numbers and coaches will live and die by them. If you don't have the numbers, you oftentimes won't get into the places you wanna go. Still, there's absolutely no shame in going to a d2, d3, or NAIA school with a coach that sees your potential and wants to invest in you. In fact, that's probably better than going to a huge d1 where the coach couldn't care less about you. Don't pick your athletic program based on name recognition--pick the program you'll thrive in.

Best of luck to you.

Thank you guys for the answers :) Makes me feel a little better. To the person who said that I keep getting injured and coming back trying to “make it up” by rushing myself back into things, you’re definitely right. I’ve learned (finally) that you need to take it slow and build volume back up first before you start doing full workouts!!

To the people who say that there can be more running outside of HS, I know, but I want to use running to help me get unto a certain school (this is NOT the only reason I run, I actually love to run obviously). I’m not aiming for NAU or anything that running huge, I want to go to an Ivy League because literally my entire family has gone to one (siblings, parents, extended family, everyone). My parents have told me it would be totally fine if I went somewhere else but I actually want to go to an Ivy League. My grades are good but not perfect like all the Ivy League applicants. I’m probably not good enough academically and I don’t have any insane extracurriculars and positions like all of them do. But with good times, pretty good grades and test score (have yet to take a real one), and all the connections I think I could. But…I can never run and time is running out so basically this whole idea is very likely down the drain.

My times:

- 5k XC 19:20

- 2 mile indoor 11:32

I know those times aren’t nearly good enough. The 2 mile was off only crosstraining. The XC 5k I trained for. I ran 20-25 mpw in XC 21 and 20-30 mpw when in XC 22. Those were my only two real seasons with actual training and those events above are the only ones I’ve ever run. Again I know those aren’t amazing and just seem like ok times/way off Ivy League standards, but I know I can go faster with solid training.

So I’m getting really worried because it’s looking like I’m just gonna have to give up my Ivy League dream and ruin the family tradition. I want to run in college if possible no matter what though, so I would try to go D3 if I can’t go Ivy League/but can still run.

Thanks again:))

So, you're only in 10th grade right now?

I didn't start running track until 11th grade.

I got pretty good in 12th grade. Walked onto a college with a real good track team. Eventually earned a scholarship and ran in the Olympic Trials 4 years after college.

I hope you overcome the injuries. Then you have a chance.

Are you aiming to get into a specific ivy league school, or just any of them?

When it comes to using running as an "asset" in college applications, I would typically say you ability has to go above and beyond simply "getting on the team"... The coach has to be convinced that you would be an asset to the team, either in the short term or in the future, and therefore be willing to work the "system" to get you accepted--even if your test scores/extracurriculars/etc. aren't up to snuff of the average accepted student.

Not to be rude, but your current PRs are not in the range of what it takes to get an ivy league coach to get you accepted. I'm not saying you couldn't get them to that place, but as of now they aren't. There's absolutely no shame in that, though... Every athlete on an ivy league team possesses a rare amount of talent that got them into that position. It's not like every person could be expected to meet that criteria.

Still, if you are deadset on trying to get your PRs into ivy league range, I would start by looking at the rosters of the lower-end schools. Brown, for example, has a few guys running in the 26:00-27:00s for 8k in their top 7. At Princeton or Harvard, however, the top 7 is under 25 minutes. So, it would make sense to target Brown as the most achievable school for you.

This would require a lot of training and a significant jump in your results. 19:20 5k to 27:00 8k is a pretty big leap. And, as we've agreed, trying to reach for the stars in training doesn't help if it just ends up with an injury.

If you were to ask for my personal opinion, I would probably say it isn't likely you get into the ivy league by merit of your running alone. Grades and extracurriculars help. If you're white and male that sets you back a bit, too. Is your family well off? Even if all else fails, ivy leagues do somehow make room for families who... are "supportive" of their institutions, if you know what I mean...

By the way, I want to reiterate that there's no shame in running for a d2, d3, NAIA or junior college team. You say you love the sport--if you truly love it and don't care about the "clout" or being at a big or important school, I think you'll find a positive experience wherever you go. Running is a personal journey that's best enjoyed with a bit of hard work and a lot of humility. Don't worry about other people who are faster or slower than you-- just run as fast as you can and enjoy the ride.

I’m a girl!

Sorry I should have mentioned I’m a girl, not a boy!! I didn’t realize I never said that. I am white, and I want to go most to Princeton. My parents donate and are very connected to Princeton. Most of my extended family ties back to Harvard.

Since now you know I’m a girl, does it seem more doable now??

You seem to be bit fragile, hence I think you should go for a quality over quantity training programme ! Dont worry many former greats trained like that, just focus on quality instead of Volumen.

2-3 x Days of intervalls/Tempo/hills/fast longrun with long warm up and long cool down with some Bodyweight exercises (lunges etc) and some good 20 min of stretching in the evening.

The next day is just 30min easy running or cross training or off. If you still have problems, cut them out.

1 day of foam rolling / total rest per week.

The most important thing is to get 2-3 solid workouts in per week, so Cut out everything else and only add slowly more if you don't progress and don't get injured.

It sounds like you know what you need to do to stay healthy. Now you just have to stick with that plan and don't get in a hurry. Keep up the cross training while building the running back. If you have done a ton of cross training then you aren't out of shape but more out of running "rhythm" and it takes time to get that back. If you train smart you will see your fitness in another week or so.

I didn't get "good" until much later then you are in life. Stick with it. Also you need to open up your college options. I know you're stuck on "Ivy" or nothing. But you need to have some fall backs that you will still be happy with as well. If your family loves you then they only care about your happiness.

Yeah, I did crosstrain 7-8 hours a week but I didn’t do any high heart rate stuff. I always have done hard crosstrain workouts, but this time I wanted to heal ASAP and lessen the stress on my body so I just kept it simple with 60-80 minutes of easy (150-155 avg hr) everyday. I’m still doing some crosstraining.

But since I never did any workouts, I don’t think it really kept me in shape.

Also - I agree. Something needs to change in my training plan. I could just be fragile, or more likely I’m just doing something wrong (I already know I come back way too quickly which is hugely wrong!), or both. My parents have said it’d be okay if I didn’t go to an Ivy, but I genuinely want to and I a small part of me just feels like it would ruin the trend in my family.

What do you guys think of the times? I’m not exactly sure of the Princeton women’s recruit times, but if (big if!!) I stay healthy could I drop my PRs by that much??

Thanks:)