I came into the season with a pr of 17:15, and two races in I've worked my way down to 16:13. Since I'm only a couple races into the season, I think I could run like 15:55ish by the end. Would that get me noticed by colleges and/or interested in me after I reached out to them?
It depends on the college. You would attract the interest of any d3 school, but probably not any of the top d1 programs. Some schools in between would be interested and you may even get a little money at a d2 or low level d1 school if you run fast on some of the well known courses (such as stanford, mt sac, woodward park, to name specific california courses).
I am assuming you mean xc, not a track 5k.
Your junior year track times can also be used to attract interest from some schools.
I mean xc. I'm not in cal, but would placing high in the New Englands meet be get me somewhere?
We have a junior running low 16s that is getting some looks... but he is also running sub 4:20 and sub 2:00 on the track.
Most coaches care more about track times than XC times due to the variance among courses. All 5k golf courses were not created equally :-)
Yeah, I definitely need to work on my track times. I think I've made a big jump this year, and I'm hoping to run fast in track. The people that I've been running with/beating in track are mostly 4:30/2:00 guys, so I'm hoping to go under both of those this track season.
How much longer until the end of your season? If you are running 16:13 now I'd think that sub 15:30 would be a better goal.
would placing high in the New Englands meet be get me somewhere?"
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It get you letters if they are interested in you as a recruited-walkon. REcruiters
don't get real interested until you break 9min for 2m.
I'm only two weeks in, and my season ends early November. I don't know about 15:30, that seems insanely fast. It's worth noting that it was a fast course, fairly flat with the exception of a 200m incline that we ran on twice.