Sophomore XC goal times.

If you actually manage to run that much consistent mileage, I'd say 17:45 as an end season goal.

With that mileage?? That would drop him around 2 1/2 minutes... but of course he would get injured and/or burn out. 0/10

OP, do not do 60/70 mpw. Build up to that over the course of several years in order to gain the benefits from each progressive level

Actual high school sophomore here- At this point in the school year I'm getting good at it (So good they're upgrading me to a junior next year), so I have some authority to speak on this.

My freshman year of xc I started out embarrassingly slowly having not run more than I did in soccer practice since the 5th grade gym mile. I won't tell you how slow I was at the beginning, but at the end of the season I won "Most Improved" with a 20:20 PB.

2 1/2 months later I beat our xc captain in a mile where we both had about 20 minutes after the 4x8 (I was subbing in for someone who was sick), qualifying myself for our regional competition (I got the last spot. He was pissed.) I went on to run a 5:09 PB that season.

In outdoor I though I was going to run a 4:45. Instead, I got a change of coaches (good to bad), ran 3 1/10s of a second slower than I did indoors and lost a month of my season to a knee injury. I also ran 11:04 and 2:14.

In the summer I was determined to become good for xc. I'll spare you most of the gory details, but I injured myself, and subsequently tried aqua running at the beach-stepped on a sharp rock. Missed about two weeks, came back to town and it was 95-105 with about 80% humidity. Did not do a lot of running. Overall I got about 250 miles for a 10 week summer.

In the XC season I was solidly on varsity with mid to low 18s times. At our state qualifying race I had a mini breakthrough and ran just under 17:50 for 5000m to be our number 2 guy. We missed states, but so did our rivals (Schadenfreude, as they say).

This year in indoor things were dreary. I was under the terrible coach from outdoor, and I had cold that lasted for weeks. Ran 5:04.

Now in outdoor I have made a strong commitment to solve my own problems and train on my own outside of practice, and have run 4:50, 2:12.

The point is- you can run ok even with sucky coaching, injuries, and few team mates to push you. So relax, have fun, scald dogs occasionally, and become a legend in your own time.

Piece of advice: don't suck as bad as this guy.

I am a currently a sophomore and I ran 16:26 in the 5k off of 40 mpw over the summer. My advice is to not run over 50 mpw but do more interval type/fartleks/tempo workouts to maintain a good pace and train for the right pace for a 5k.

I don't know about you, but at least for me, fartleks and mile repeats are the main reason I ran a 16:26.

how long for long runs, and at what pace should my tempos be?

you should not be running that much as a sophomore because it is going to really hurt you legs in the long run i would defiantly suggest running 35 to 45 mpw and on Wednesdays you should do speed days where you do a 4 mile run then do 3 400m , 3 300m , 3 200m , 3 100m to improve on the final stretch of the corse

You made an account to respond to a 5 year old post

This kid is in college now haha