This is my first year in XC and I'm a JR this year. I decided to join after a fairly successful first track season this spring. Currently my 5k PR is 18:14. Is it too late to be running low 17s by my senior year? Is that kind of improvement possible in such a short time frame?
Definitely possible. If you're at 18 in your first season, there is a lot of room for improvement. Who knows, you might reach low 17s this season.
You might be able to run low 17s this year if you train properly. You should improve quickly in your first year of xc.
only way is to try wrote:
Definitely possible. If you're at 18 in your first season, there is a lot of room for improvement. Who knows, you might reach low 17s this season.
Agree. I know it seems far off, but not slacking off next summer will be very important. Low 17s is definitely be possible.
Its not unheard of, I started XC my frosh year but slacked off until JR Track where I put full effort over the winter and during the season and managed to drop my 5k PR from 18:11 to 16:42 in that one season.
Heck, it's not unheard of for people to start running senior year and win the state meet.
It is more than possible. Likely even. If you care enough and focus on it you could hit mid to low 17s this year, if you're talented maybe even high 16s. By next year you could definitely be under 17 if you work at it. Well under 17. I started running my freshman year and I didn't really start training until my junior year. Going into jr track season my 3200 was 11:16 and I finished out the year with a 10:44. My senior year I ran 9:58 and won league championships. So it's all really a question of how much you want to run.
I went 18:05 Junior year to 16:55 Senior year. Didn't even run that hard during the summer, just got good workouts in during the season and paced races the right way.