Earning All-American in Cross Country or Track & Field - Which is harder?

Track is much harder. Lots of XC all-Americans will not be all-American on the track. Almost all Steeple/5k/10k all-Americans will garner the honor in XC as well.

DIII_DeezNuts wrote:

Proposed this argument to a teammate the other day after practice, thought it would be interesting to hear peoples thoughts.

Although there are more AA spots in xc, there are a lot more people you're competing against to even grab a spot to nationals. Once you have punched your ticket, now you're competing with 55 other individuals ( not mentioning the runners who qualified as part of a team ) for one of the 35 AA spots.

In track, there are only 8 spots for AA, but the field is much, much smaller. Making it to Nationals as an individual for track is arguably harder than cross, but earning a spot on the podium is also an easier feat than in xc.

Pretty sure it's top 40 in XC and top 16 in track. In track 1-8 is First Team AA and 9-16 is Second Team. Correct me if I'm wrong.

But to answer the question, getting AA in track is more difficult. How many of the 30th through 40th place guys at NCAA XC even qualify for NCAA Indoor/Outdoor?

I think it really comes down to the style of runner that you are. The relative number of spots available is a little misleading as you have three or four races to compete in on the track (1500m, 3000sc, 5000m, 10,000m). Maybe the 1500m is a stretch to include, and there will certainly be some overlap in the 1500m and steeple, and the 5000m and 10,000m, but no matter how you cut it, there are more than just 8 spots available on the track.

I can see the cross country argument, but I was a two time D3 All American in track, and a 0 time All American in cross country (but that was back in the early 90s when it was top 25 - I finished in the top 35 twice). On the other hand, one of my teammates never broke 31:00 and barely broke 15:00 (I was :40 faster than him in both events) and he was a cross country D3 All American. Some of that can be attributed to me having a big breakthrough at the end of my college career, but more of it was attributable to his strength oriented running style as compared to my long striding rhythmic running style that was simply better suited for the track.