What was your first ever XC 5k time?

Biscut wrote:

As a weak, sitting-on-your-ass-all-day freshman, mine was a 23:50.

Mine was about the same, actually.

18:23 in sophomore XC season after soccer and sprinting in track

19:45 but i had run a couple seasons of track before that.

17:58 - Freshman year cross country, but I ran all through middle school. It was a JV race. I was happy with the time, but I got outkicked for the win.

21:40 my freshman year.

About 21:30 for me, it was noon and about 100 degrees when I did this race; I heard the course was a bit long, but have idea if that is true. Went 19:18 a week later on like a 100% flat course. This was my first xc season and I was a sophomore.

Ran xc and played football as an 8th grader, but the courses were all 2k-3k in length. Played soccer as a freshman. Didn't run xc in high school until my sophomore year, and by then I had already had 3 track seasons under my belt (7-9th grades). First race was a 2 mile, 2nd race was canceled because of 9/11, and I think I finally ran my first 5k xc in about 18:36ish.

Mine wasn't until I was a junior in high school because before that in Ohio the distance was 2.5 miles.

So, first 5,000 in cross country as a junior was 17:25.

Probably ran ~9 miles a week in the summer and didn't run anything over 5 miles all through high school. That's just the way it was in the mid 80s for a lot of high school kids...less is more was the main philosophy. Man.

18:33, but I ran XC in middle school. First XC race was 9:20 on a "1.5 mile" course in 6th grade.

22:30 I believe. Sophomore year circa 2001.

20:02 as an 8th grader. Pancake flat course.

I had never run a step really in my life before joining cross country as a sophomore. Did a summer road race in 20:40, and then about 6 weeks later ran 18:45 on an xc course. Then, each week from that point, went:

18:14

17:31

17:04

16:58

and settled in around there. I remember being really upset that I didn't keep dropping huge chunks of time after that. Looking back, I realize that what I did is not normal.

I'd have to go back and look for sure but if memory serves it was 18 something but not with "no training". It was after first season of XC training. We only raced 2 miles back then. Race was at a Kinney Regional meet (you didnt have to qualify for it).

18:44 sophomore year, after first doing the mile in outdoor track at the end of freshman year.

I know I did a 5k as an 8th grader, before starting high school. It was under 20min for sure, I want to say 19:47.

My first high school 5k as a freshman I got pointed in the wrong direction by some clueless course official while leading the jv race, ran an extra loop before somehow finding my way back onto the course. I think I finished in the 23's officially.

2nd high school 5k I did a 17:35

14 years of age, had the flu and threw up in the middle. 23:05.

Just some random runner wrote:

I had never run a step really in my life before joining cross country as a sophomore. Did a summer road race in 20:40, and then about 6 weeks later ran 18:45 on an xc course. Then, each week from that point, went:

18:14

17:31

17:04

16:58

and settled in around there. I remember being really upset that I didn't keep dropping huge chunks of time after that. Looking back, I realize that what I did is not normal.

I've seen that kind of thing happen before. Freshman boy with some talent on the local HS team last year didn't run all summer. Then he does this (1 week of mandatory practice) - 18:50s, 18:40s, 18:10s, 17:50s, 18:00s (very hilly), 16:56, INJURED. Took about 6 weeks for him to get under 17, and then he's out the rest of the season. Too bad because he has some talent. I've seen other big drops during the season from guys who didn't train as they should have in the summer. One guy ran over 19 in the first meet and got down into the 16:20s.

I have a slightly different story than most. I would run our school's course solo as an 8th grader and was hitting times in the low 18's, which would have put me in contention to be varsity. When I finally got to high school I ran my first two races badly, I don't think I broke 20 minutes and was about somewhere around 5th best JV. But those were scrimmages in the August heat and I was going out with folks who were going way too fast.

The first official race of the season I got it together and ran in the 18s and was somewhere around 6th for the team (it was varsity and JV together, thankfully). I held my spot pretty much the rest of the year, scoring for our regional championship team and running at states.

17:11