Poll-- do you like track or cross country more and why?

I like cross country more for sure. I am better at it than at track and cross country teams are more tightly-knit in my experience because everyone is focusing on the same thing.

It's funny because you mention comparing times being easier in track, which is surely true most of the time, but I like how after every xc race, you know the order of the team because everyone runs the same race - or at least the same course.

I also really enjoy the summer base-building that comes before an xc season. I have great memories of summers where I hardly did anything but train and chill. Kids, cherish these experiences while they last; they won't be there forever!

Track>cross country

To me it feels more organised and official.

Lets put it this way I would rather become an all American in track running then xc if I had to pick one

In high school I liked xc a lot more mainly because the girls run, the guys run, maybe you stay for a short awards ceremony, and you're done. In track you'd have so much down time that meets became their own little social events, which isn't good when you're just trying to focus on a race. In college though my favorite was indoor. It's a pretty relaxed atmosphere because nobody's really in great shape yet. We were a purely distance team so our coach would put everyone in the same one or two events so we wouldn't be there all that long. Also we would usually get plastered on the way back from the meet.

Track, because I'm better at it. Also, I liked all the other types of athletes being around.

Oh, man, XC without a doubt. Running hills, mud flying in my face, the cold air in my lungs. Fall is my time. This is when I run my best. No contest.

Nothing, nothing... nothing. Absolutely nothing is more exciting than track. XC is constantly frustrating for athletes as no times mean anything ever. If you run fast the conditions were better than last year. If you run slow they were worse than last year. On the track the time is the time and hasn't changed since Jim Ryun was running 3:59. Track is beyond compare.

In high school I would've said cross country, but after college gotta go with track. I love the steeplechase and 10k for xc is a bit out of my range.

Absolutely XC. So much more interesting than running around an oval again. And again. And again. Still ran track, but never loved it like I did XC. Plus everyone is pushing for a goal in the same event. So many good memories. Although I understand the alternative point of view. My best friend Hated XC because he couldn't take the hills, but could blow me away on the track, and loved it.

Love the hills. Love the heat. Love the smog. Loved the dirt and dust. Cross country for sure!!!

I was better at track, but loved XC. Going back to HS, very few of my teammates cared about track and the majority half-assed it. XC was always a tight knit group of roughly a dozen committed runners.

Things I loved:

-Hills

-Trails

-Team tactics

-Atmosphere

-Individuality of courses

-People screaming at runners down narrow chutes

I like cross country more because of the atmosphere, hills, the fact that everyone does the same race, and most of all the teams. Everyone runs their hardest at X-C not just the leaders. Its brings people together

track.

i'm better at xc, but only because the races are longer.

i prefer track because you can run fast at every race, not just when the course dictates it.

i also am a rhythm runner and xc screws up my pacing. i'd rather do all my races on a 400m track because i can focus on splits and be efficient.

and those things combined makes me a 10000m guy.

Cross country for many of the reason that have already been mentioned.

More free-form: mud, hills, wind, rain, turns, trails, fields, soft surface, uneven surface. Plus the distances (4 mile to 12K) are longer than anything but the 10k. Time is only relative to the day and on that course.

We have the track and roads to go for times.

There were aspects about both that I preferred.

XC - everyone on the team doing the same thing, training towards the same goals. XC courses tend to be prettier and more than than track ovals.

Track - Liked being able to chase times, and running fast. Also liked getting to know people doing different events, cheering for the 4 x 400 team to pull out a dual meet, a bigger "team" feel.

Track for sure. In high school I liked indoor the best. During 4x4s it always got so loud in the little field houses, especially during championship season.

I loved the small tracks, and how it feels like you've been shot out of a cannon coming off the banked turns.

I like outdoor a lot too. I'm a big fan of track as a sport, so I love to follow the throwing, jumping, and sprinting events just as much as distance.

I like XC as well, specifically the team aspect. But, being an 800/1500 guy, Im just not as cut out for it. Also, like someone else mentioned, im a rhythm guy as well, so I do much better on a track when I can split my race into 200m/400m segments.

I find them both attractive for different reasons. In Track I like the smaller races. I am a middle of the pack XC guy so I always feel lost moving from pack to pack and it is difficult for me to identify specific people who I am racing against. Track feels more like a competition to me than XC, and I have always liked competition.

If I had to choose though, I would only run XC. I value the team atmosphere, the tactics discussion, how more than just the top one or two guys matter and the course-to-course variation more than the competitiveness of track.

In HS, I loved XC and track, but probably was better at XC. In College, I never ran great in XC but excelled in track. Don't really know why. In 4 NCAA XC championships I never placed better than 96th. But I placed in the top 10 twice in the outdoor 10K and top 6 in the indoor 3M twice - best finish was 3rd in the Indoor 3M - top American.

That all being said, I absolutely LOVE XC. And always will.

Great question!

In HS i loved XC! Mostly due to the fact that I was better at XC than I was track (i've always been a distance guy). But i always thought it was cool that each and every XC race was its own beast. It was the first to the finish line. Had nothing to do with anything else. Those of us who have been to races on off weather days know that everything about a course can change between a 9am race and a 10am race! At the end of the day, its the place that matters, not the time.

Now (as a late 20's dude), I still secretly love XC, but look forward to TF. The availability of running PR's on the track is priceless. I've cherry picked enough local 5k's in my life that at this point i'd rather run a PR on the track and finish dead last to bunch of yougin's than finish well in a random XC or road race.

XC. Each course layout has its own unique character with a variety of surfaces from hard to soft.