I played volleyball in hs, but decided to go out for track at the end of my senior year for kicks, since I ran occasionally to keep in shape anyway. I ran about 30 mpw at about 8:00 pace throughout the winter, and about 20 mpw during season. Finished the season with a 5:21 1600 and 12:04 3200. I'm female obviously.
I decided to go to a small, private liberal arts school, and didn't wanna run track or play volleyball at school my freshman year. I got bored, started running again throughout the summer, and decided to go out for the cross country team my sophomore year. Our team sucks even for d3 so I easily kept up with the other girls.
Throughout the year I usually did 40-50mpw at 7:30-7:45 pace. I ran about a 25:00 8k in xc, and it took me throughout all winter and spring track to get back down to my hs track times (4:57 1500 and 11:09 3000).
Why did it take so much more time and training to return to the form it only took me a few months to reach the first time around?