FLAGSTAFF GAP YEAR

I have thought about for many years. Ditch the jobs and internships and live out of the back of your car. Stay the entire summer and and you will be a local legend in the area

But isn't most recruiting done by senior year fall at the latest?

there's no reason he couldn't contact coaches with links to his race times after h.s.

that being said, I think it's a good idea, but it wouldn't work for every athlete. Are you training by yourself? I would imagine most people need that coaching/team environment to stay motivated. Not to mention, doing hard workouts by yourself would be difficult.

Do you plan on joining some running club in Flagstaff?

Just go to college. You are absolutely killing your recruiting chances. The little meets that you’ll get into you’ll get destroyed by collegiates.

Altitude is a massive bait imo. Benefits tend to be short term unless you grew up in it, and there are far more important things like having a good coach and runner partners that are not worth sacrificing for it. One year of of good training at altitude is not as good as one year of great training at sea level.

• In many cases, once you're removed from HS the standard for "great" times gets substantially faster. To get a meaningful scholarship coming straight from HS you just have to show strong potential, to get a meaningful scholarship after a gap year you probably need to be at an instant impact level.
• Getting into good heats in good meets where you can actually run these fast track times is not trivial for a mid-level unattached runner. Without some sort of connections, no meet manager is going to let a random unproven guy into fast races over all the guys that already have fast times or someone advocating for them.
• Do you have a clear development plan to make this big improvement in your training? Clear low-hanging fruit in certain aspects of ability? Access to good coaching?
• Do you have any experience with how well you respond to altitude?
• Are you good at training solo? Obviously, there's a lot of people in training Flagstaff but the overlap of people who are doing the exact type of training you need to be doing and will allow a random guy to tag along may be small/non-existent at times.
• Are you good at independently managing all the lifestyle factors required to adapt from hard training? (Sleep, nutrition, stress-management, etc)
• Regardless of if this works out or not is this an experience that excites you?

A big bet on yourself is good when you can control the parameters for success, which in this case is mostly true, but there is also a high chance you do not meaningfully improve your college options. The average high school runner would not successfully navigate this, so you're going to need to be un-average in a lot of ways.

Recruiting should still be pretty straightforward -run fast and email coaches.

You finnna be bussin tables at the rich people's from Phoenix brewery?

I disagree with this.

Key here is how young you are for your class. Since recruiting is generally over already by sr yr November, most athletes can't use their sr yr ind and outdoor track times. You can.

I'm not sure what xc meets you can run, but the USA U20 meet, and the club xc champ would be 2 good ones.

I'm not sure what your academic goals are, but you should also do something with your gap yr that makes an academic story in addition to running. Ie. knock out calc 1-3, or Spanish 101/102 at local college, volunteer at hospital, soup kitchen, blah blah. Like AP, there are also CLEP exams that give you full college credit for knowledge you gain. Don't enroll as a full time student though, just take 1 class part time.

You will also have to manage your own recruitment. Reach out in May to your top schools, let them know your plan, hopefully you have some pb track times in outdoor.

For sure contact NAU since you are there, you can for sure do a team visit, maybe even run with team a bit. Coaches there may have some ideas how you could get into some local races, or time trial some track times.

Good luck.

I would recommend

There is so much you are not telling us. That tells me you are not good school material.

I question your "close counselors." Going this route will throw up a red flag that's hard to explain and thus rule you out for any P5 program as well as any decent G5 program. Most if not all of those coaches and recruiters want someone who's intent to be a student straight away. If you're okay going to a JUCO, D2, or NAIA program once you do finally matriculate, then this could work out for you.

You are 66 seconds behind the best in the world at your 2 mile distance, very close to getting lapped. How much do you really think you can improve?

I have always wondered why more US runners don't take a gap year. Nearly all southern hemisphere recruits take at least 9 months, since the academic year ends in Nov/Dec downunder. I personally took 1.5 years before coming to the US. This was a huge advantage for me, not just for physical development, but emotional maturity.

My advice would be to have a strong racing calendar in place ahead of time. Think meets that have guaranteed entry like the BU indoor meets. Heck, maybe just plan to base yourself in Boston for the indoor season and knock out 3-4 races. Then you have something specific to work towards.

Here's a few random thoughts. Talk to your HS coach and an academic counselor about this idea. It will be very hard for you to duplicate the training environment you will get in a first year on a college team on your own (coaching, workouts, teammates, racing opportunities). If you don't take classes for a year, your study skills will atrophy. This happens to HS kids who have a "light" senior year of classes, and then find college classes to be like skipping a grade in school. This is especially true with taking a year off from math and hard science classes. You should have plenty of recruiting options as a 9 minute 2-mile runner. You are at an advantage by not being "over-developed" or "over-trained", where lots of college coaches will think that there aren't more opportunities to develop you as a runner. Look for coaches who are good at developing HS runners with these times into All-American runners after 4-5 years of college running.

I'm glad Nick popped in here with some support.

There's lots of nonsense negativity associated with gap time. It's perfectly normal elsewhere. Many kids do 2 years of military service before college. Foreign language is important in Europe, so kids will do say a year in us, a year in France and a year in Italy - and then roll into Oxford. Think au pair program. Mormons do a 2yr mission, then we complain that's unfair. You don't lose your academic abilities.

This guy is a 9 minute 2 miler, (good enough to be 63rd at Arcadia🥴) he can probably train himself if necessary.

If he has to compete in NCAA against 19-25yr olds, why would he want to be there at 17-20?

Say he runs 4:10 8:50 this May/June, he can now be recruited off those times next Fall. I think it's very smart what he's doing.

yeah but then ur stuck in flagstaff for a year. what are you gonna do, go to walmart? best restaurant is sizzler don't @ me u know its true

hypothetically, it is a good idea. maybe even a great idea. but you are gonna have to go above and beyond to contact college programs you are interested in, because most of them probably don't know how to look for kids outside of the traditional system.

do you have programs you are very interested in? does scholarship money matter to you? im guessing money is not a huge issue since you can afford to base in Flagstaff for a year.

Any offers already? ff

And think about getting started with online schooling to get ahead of the game and keep in the routine of learning and producing work. even if it's just 3-9 credits per semester.

Why not go all in and move to Kenya for 15 months…

These days what is the point of this? If you get good next year, you transfer. Unless you are trying to max out as a NCAA is serves no purpose. Our OP is a very good runner. But the gap between that and someone who should be optimizing for a procareer is huge.

Hey guys, here’s more information about me. I’m turning 18 in September, so definitely young for my class. I’m probably one of the most intrinsically motivated people around (saying this for reference because discipline is not going to be an issue). Last summer, I spent 6 weeks in Flagstaff and dropped my mile PR from 4:28 in the mile (May) to all the sudden running 6:41 for 1.5 miles at a team time trial in September. I am unattached and don’t have any quality XC times to reference. I already train alone and handle it well, doing hard workouts solo isn’t an issue. I’ve been able to consistently bang out ~65 mile weeks for the winter so my fitness is at an all-time high. Even if I do run times fast enough, most scholarship money is already gone so it’s worth it to me to just develop into an immediate impact for any program. Keep the discussion going and thanks Nick for the insight!