Hello everyone! I am a senior and in the process of picking a college to run for. One of the colleges I am considering is a D1 school that has a cross country team but no track. They still run in 5 track meets but do not run at conference. I was wondering if anyone has experience this and whether it was positive or negative? Any input would help!
Thanks!
I ran at a school with no track team and did the whole "unofficial, distance-only" track squad. Going to a school with an unofficially recognized track team has its pluses and minuses. For example, you don't get to travel a lot in the spring and enjoy the large team atmosphere during meets. On the plus side you don't usually have to sit through 40 heats of the 60 meter dash, you can just show up an hour or two before your race and take off when your race is done.
For me I enjoyed getting to try different training strategies with little or no risk. After my freshman year I loaded up my spring with miles (which I didn't know if I could handle or not). It gave me a lot of confidence going into my sophomore cross season knowing how to better train and more importantly, how my body would react to higher mileage.
I'm at one of those schools now. Coming in I thought it was going to suck, but its actually not that bad at all. At least for us, we still go to quite a few meets so its not even like we're missing out on that much. Also, it makes your spring a lot more relaxed and you can really do what you want with it.
Always loved Cross-Country-hated track. This would be ideal.
that sounds awful i love being on a track team some of my best friends are sprinters and throwers
I coach for a college that has a cross country program but no indoor or outdoor track teams. The benefit is that if you are not a year round runner, you don't have to worry about running track. Because of this we only get 2-3 true competitive runners each year and fill teams with "participant" athletes. And some of these athletes improve quite a bit over the course of the xc season and really contribute to the team, but then take the winter and spring off from serious training and then have a repeat of the previous year. If your heart is really into running, go somewhere with a track program. You are on the road almost every weekend but the team becomes your social network and most colleges travel to some unique sites.
snooooop dog wrote:
that sounds awful i love being on a track team some of my best friends are sprinters and throwers
sure they are.......