Just an average guy here wondering how much better you got from one cross country season to the next years xc, or one track season to the next?
Just an average guy here wondering how much better you got from one cross country season to the next years xc, or one track season to the next?
And maybe what you attribute to your faster times? Even if it's just consistency or confidence.
from freshman year with a 15:35 5k and about a 27 min 8k xc to sophomore year with a 14:49 5k and 25:45 8kxc (on the same course).
I guess it was a bum from 50 miles a week to around 70 (consistenly).
quit running the next year lol. Too much work for too little improvement. I didn't want to waste my 20's with life consuming training to mabye run a still a considerably slow low 14 5k.
During my collegiate career I had a big jump from Junior to Senior year.
4:03 to 3:47
15:16 to 14:35
Year after
3:47 to 3:46
14:35 to 14:03
Freshman to sopjmore, 4th year to senior year were both big.
15:41 to 15:02
14:32 to 14:10
Our home cross country course was six miles. As a sophomore my best time on it was 38:00 on the nose. As a junior I ran it in 33:31. Can't remember times from other courses. In those days things weren't standardized and we ran on courses of odd distances, 5.2 miles, 4.7 miles, etc.
There was no secret to the improvement. I just ran a bit more and did it more consistently during the summer before my junior year than I'd ever done before. I'd probably been averaging around 40 mpw until the end of my sophomore year but got to 50-60 for the summer before I was a junior with a couple weeks at 70 with some doubles toward the end of that summer. The next summer I got up to 100 mpw for a while and took another 1:02 off my time as a senior.
Frosh to Soph:
800: 2:02 - 1:58
1 mi: 4:39-4:23 (ran 4:31 1600 in HS)
Didn't make much improvement after that. Ran a faster 800 junior year in a 4x8. Got too caught up in college life, probably drank too much and din't take care of myself and got hurt. Also did a co-op which greatly hindered my training junior year.
Well I'm only a junior right now. But. My 800 went from 1:58 freshman year to 1:53 sophmore, and 4:27 mile to 4:18. I think consistency and a change in my diet really helped...
Junior year xc: 27:58 at conference
senior year xc: 26:34 at conference
5k track PR is 16:38. My goal is to break 16
My sophomore year I went from a 26:36 freshman to 25:14 in 8k on the same course.
A couple of things: my mileage went way up, I started off a little slower, so passing other runners as they fell off was a HUGE mental boost. Then I turned it into a game of how close to 5 minute per mile could I get in that race.