Running at a college level: Can I do it?

You can already run at D3 with those times, just keep doing what you're doing, try to improve your 5k cross country by doing mileage in the summer if you haven't been doing that already.

You need to improve a lot more to go to a "good" d3 school for running. Just focus on having the best outdoor season you can and then focus on steadily increasing mileage over the summer. I didn't start running until my junior year and improved a lot just with mileage the last summer and ran at a good d2 school. Anything's possible. Just run....

Don't bother with the 2 and 4. Your 400 vs 1600 suggests you have more potential for longer distances. Work on safely taking as many miles as you can with exactly the kind of workouts/running you described. Getting up to 50/week would be good if you can build there comfortably. If you run the times you listed you should be able to run for a mid-low end D3 program. Good luck.

My first thought was “Are you a miler?” because your mile looks the strongest in my opinion. You could run in college, but you’d be weak on a D3 team. If you increase your speed and then up your mileage then I don’t see why you couldn’t make it but you HAVE to put in the work consistently because although you have some natural speed, it doesn’t look like you have heaps of natural speed based on that 400.

Your times don't point to college running. That doesn't mean you can't run in college. What are your academics like? Pick a college based on academics, and then see how it would work to run there. That might mean working out with the club team. It might mean running on your own. Some D3 colleges will have teams where you would fit right in.

But don't pick a college just so you can run there. That's a route to diminished career options and/or unnecessary debt.

My academics are okay. I have a gpa of a 3.3 at the moment, and I'm shooting for a 1350 SAT, Ive gotten a 1240 on my part. I'm still not even close to deciding where I want to go but academics are not a non factor at all. I'd just love to run for a college team as well.

My idea was that if I could improve my speed, then I can improve the speed at which I can hold a pace or kick at the end of a race. I just wanted to improve my speed foundation.

Not really how it works. You can improve your race times by training for your race times quicker. A quicker 400 may help your 800, but for the mile it doesn't matter as much. I would focus on mileage and good smart workouts. You appear to be primarily slow twitch (not a bad thing, just means you have more endurance than speed) so it's important you have lots of good tempo work (progression runs, tempos, cruise intervals, moderate paced long runs, etc) 2-3 times/week and short hard stuff like strides only 2-3 times/week.

Being slower twitch can also be good for you, it makes it harder to over train doing more mileage, allows a better conversion of race times (like a 5 flat mile to a 10:20 2 mile slow twich vs a 5 flat mile and a 11 flat 2 mile fast twitch).

My Recommendation:

Build a large Aerobic base and work anaerobically sparingly, it will help you a lot less than aerobic work will.

This. Strength is what you want, not speed.

Thank you for the advice, I'll talk to my coach about maintaining a higher mileage, and focusing mainly on the 1600, 3200, and a few 800s thrown it at practice meets.

FelixSprock wrote:

My academics are okay. I have a gpa of a 3.3 at the moment, and I'm shooting for a 1350 SAT, Ive gotten a 1240 on my part. I'm still not even close to deciding where I want to go but academics are not a non factor at all. I'd just love to run for a college team as well.

I thought the SAT was based on a maximum of 2400 now. Am I wrong?

Sally Vix wrote:

FelixSprock wrote:

My academics are okay. I have a gpa of a 3.3 at the moment, and I'm shooting for a 1350 SAT, Ive gotten a 1240 on my part. I'm still not even close to deciding where I want to go but academics are not a non factor at all. I'd just love to run for a college team as well.

I thought the SAT was based on a maximum of 2400 now. Am I wrong?

No, the maximum total of points is a 1600.