HS XC people: What was your slowest 5K time?

True story:

When I was 12 I "ran" a 40 something minute 5k. My first xc 5k was well over 30 minutes. I didn't break 20 until my junior year of high school. My senior year I was in the 17s.

I went on to run 13:52 for an xc 5k.

I was a chubby late bloomer and probably not normal, but it doesn't matter. I had just as much fun in high school running in the 20s as I did running faster. We had other kids on our team in the 30s. The beauty of running is that it doesn't matter. If you want to join the team, join. Have fun. If anyone gives you a hard time about it, fart on their water bottle.

In my first XC season (9th grade), about 6 months after I started running, my best 5k time was 23:17. Now I'm a junior, and yesterday morning I ran a 19:19 3-mile, which equates to about a 20:00 5k. But there's a few kids on my XC team with 5k times above 25 minutes, so don't despair. Once you start running XC, your times should go down pretty quickly.

I'm a guy btw

My 1 mile time:13:05 2 mile time 29:86 (i stoped running for a few months and have lost most of my original speed) My new 1mile time: 19:45 My new 2 mile time 37:53 ( I have athsma and am kinda chubby as well as a very slow matabolism) my 3 mile time :( 54:09 my 5k time: 1 hr 38 mins (factoring in I have all the above problems as well as double D's and the fact that I have very flat feet) that still sucks I usually kinda almost jogging at my normal pase whist my full speed is still only about a jog for most and I can only run this fast for maybe 10 seconds at best. I am often past up by people twice my own size. ( I'm a 5"9 225 pound 23 year old, used to be 175 before I stopped working out for 8 months) now when I even jog for 2-3 on a slow jog I have to come to a complete stop to catch my breath so I can walk/jog again. I made the fatal mistake of buying a bunch of walking shoes for running and now I can't even keep up with my old friends who speed walk. I'm very unathletic and I don't run buy pushing of my toes I just use the palm of my foot and probably can't run a sub 1hr 5k ever. Almost everyone is home by the time I'm almost at the finish line and Seem to get slower everyday. I try to push myself but I ALWAYS give up because even running half a mile probably takes 17 mins plus as of today. I stopped running for 8 months and now the doctor says I'll never sprint again. It sucks but there, do u feel better now?

1 hr59 minutes

Tya wrote:

1 hr59 minutes

this is slower than 2 MPH. that is literally half of the average walking pace for a human.

2/10 unrealistically slow.

When I started running my freshman year of high school (track only, no XC), I had never run before and I had only done one sport: swimming, the previous winter season. I was equally slow at everything so they just put me in distance for the hell of it. I think my first 3200 was 17:18 (so 8:39 pace, which is significantly slower than my current easy run pace). When I ran XC the following fall (my sophomore year) I was definitely one of the slowest on the team. My debut 5K was 30:33 and I walked at least half a mile of it. I dropped my time down to 26:22. Unfortunately I got injured before the conference meet and ended up crawling home in 31:19 (my all-time slowest 5K). After track that year, I started really buying into running and I started dropping time left and right. Here's my progression:

Freshman track: 3:09 800, 17:02 3200

Sophomore XC: 26:22 5K

Sophomore track: 3:01 800, 6:50 1600, 15:55 3200

Junior XC: 22:17 5K

Junior track: 2:40 800, 5:51 1600, 12:46 3200

Senior XC: 20:22 5K

Senior track: 2:40 800 5:49 1600 12:27 3200

Freshman college XC: 24:44 6K

Freshman college track: 5:49 mile 11:33 3K 20:21 5K 12:39 steeple

Sophomore year XC: 23:28 6K

Sophomore year track: 5:34 mile 10:54 3K 19:29 5K

Junior year XC: 23:21 6K

Junior year track: 5:47 mile 10:56 3K 18:25 5K 11:38 steeple

Now I'm going into my senior year with big goals.

TL;DR: Just go for it. Don't worry about how slow or fast you are because you'll inevitably improve, maybe even a lot. So far I've dropped my 5K time by 42% (or 12 minutes and 54 seconds).

HSSRXCTF wrote:

My first XC 5k.. freshman year.. a scrimmage meet in the preseason i ran a 19:40. PR'd with a 17:04 by the end of the year.

What part of the OP's request about not posting if one's time is under 33 min do you not understand?

mwwwin wrote:

HSSRXCTF wrote:

My first XC 5k.. freshman year.. a scrimmage meet in the preseason i ran a 19:40. PR'd with a 17:04 by the end of the year.

What part of the OP's request about not posting if one's time is under 33 min do you not understand?

I meant 24 min...

38 minutes. 4 years later I'm down to 24:30.. Still slow.

mwwwin wrote:

HSSRXCTF wrote:

My first XC 5k.. freshman year.. a scrimmage meet in the preseason i ran a 19:40. PR'd with a 17:04 by the end of the year.

What part of the OP's request about not posting if one's time is under 33 min do you not understand?

20:51 in my first race summer before fourth grade. Never ran before. Sadly, I didn't live up to any good standards, ended up with a 15:55 5k and 4:31 mile in HS off of maybe 45 mpw in xc and 20ish during track. I find it hard to believe that with any sort of decent training for 4 years or so 95% of people would break 18 for a 5k.

Believe me. Your time is not that bad for starting off. I'm a freshman right now and I started out running 21.30's. By now, I can run a 20:00 min 5k. There was a kid on my team who was a sophomore and was running 30:00 min 5k's, so you're not doing bad at all. You just have to train. Taking the opportunity to train during the offseason will strengthen your aerobic base. This will then turn out in you running WAYyyyy faster when the XC season starts again.

(Btw, I think the first sentence I said didn't make sense, but what the heck). lol

Hi ma’am I run a whopping 5:34 every 5k I do. I make sure to slow down at the end because they always mess up my time. I think you can do whatever you set your mind to! Just remember, I’m amazing and you will never beat me!

Enjoyed reading your story even though the plot was obvious the whole time. Please use more paragraphical separation though. :)

futurexcrunner wrote:

Thanks for the story :) Cutting your time in HALF is really impressive. I'll see if I can get my time down to ~30:00 by the start of xc, and just have fun this season & see how much I can improve. Maybe I can look forward to being competitive next season :)

I have a kid who ran 32:xx this year, and has improved to under 25:00 with two weeks to go. You can do it.

My slowest 5k time is a staggering 32:28, that’s at my worst.

my best is a 26:36. Which sucks but is fine.

Slowest times: 29:19 (freshman) to 17:36 (senior). Admittedly, it's a hard course, but I was very slow.

Fastest times: 20:44 to 15:55.

Ran a 21:50 4K at Manhattan... got sorta hurt mid race and dropped a solid 100 spots. Most mentally painful finish.

My worst race was 15:58... freaking hilly course. went out too hard tho 4:48...

21 something as a freshmen. Hot day in early September.

Ran low 16s as a senior. Cool day in late October.