cross-country runners not running track

I've known D3 runners who loved cross country and hated track. I've heard of coaches practically mandating running track as well as cross country when the runners didn't want to do it. I think that most runners would go along with being forced to run track because they feel that they will be treated poorly in cross country if they don't.

If they dislike track then they will probably quit both track and cross country or maybe they will wait until senior year cross country is over to quit track. Face it, they're college kids. The reason that they are running D3 cross country is that they really want to do it. If you make them not want to do it anymore, then they can still get a degree and have a lot more free time.

If the XC Team does some training on track, they might be more amenable to racing it.

Base training year round. Good strategy for XC. Spend most of the year on building strength than race like crazy for XC.

Do you go to Bethany? This sounds like Bethany College

I'm middle-aged and thought probably around the age of most coaches these days, but the most recent waves of new coaches are probably younger than me and don't really remember the running boom and the generations of runners at that time. What I can tell you is that this was once normal in high school. I realized it's unheard of now, as the kids who do a actually run all year, consciously train to get better, etc, run both. So from that viewpoint, it is strange that current college-aged kids would do as you describe. Didn't every one of them run both like the year before last in high school?

Anyway, from the perspective of an enthusiastic teenage runner: the distance crowd back in the late '70s didn't run for the school track team. On of my training partners (probably the main one, if there was such a thing) approached the track coach senior year and was turned down for joining the team. Why this suddenly happened 2 months before graduating when he didn't previous years I couldn't tell you. But I can tell you this: I ran the most miles per year of anyone at that school, and this guy was next.

So, even though this guy ran cross for 2 months each year (so did another of my main group, so I was more on my own in September and October) it's not like he was out of shape. We ran all year, did a marathon occasionally, and didn't need any prompting to stay in shape. To contrast, the guys who ran track - I knew just a couple, so maybe am going out on a limb very slightly with generalizations - did not run very much year-round. They needed the motivation of team, coach, and organized practices to get out the door.

The takeaway is that in my experience those who ran for the official school team during every available season were the least good distance runners at school. I believe I had the school 10k record (still might) and the track team crowd didn't come close to the 4 or 5 best guys in my group. So, come cross season, who would you prefer? The guys who showed up for track on day 1 but hasn't run a mile since that season ended? Or the guys who ran a Spring marathon and figured they'd do cross for a change of pace.

I'm just saying: don't confuse not participating in something you organized with laziness or lack of fitness. Getting distance runners to run for you for even 1 season should be a victory. They could just run on their own all year and the school/you get none of the glory. Discouraging what they're doing now will just turn them away from your programs in general.

they've gotta do it so you can practice with them throughout the spring, but maybe you can nudge them in by saying it will be similar to cross training with little expectations for peak type performance during track season.

i know of sprinters in d3 who join the cross team and jog one race, just so they can say they are on the team, and give the coach, trainers, etc. access to them for year round training.

You might lose some kids, but if you are trying to build something, it's probably a risk you need to take.

This is what I did.

They are separate sports even though they are extremely similar. It's D3 so I'm assuming there are no athletic scholarships. Therefore, there is no compelling reason why they have to do both sports. I think you stand more chance of losing your XC runners by forcing them to run track.

D3, has no athletic scholarships so it would be tough to force them to run track. I agree with the previous poster, you have a better chance of losing your cross country runners if you force them to run track. For these runners, I would use the Winter-spring building base and highly encourage them all to run a competitive 1/2 marathon in late March early April. Then maybe a 10K in May. This will keep them motivated. Hopefully there is one fairly close to where you are located / like you said, they are not super serious distancecrunners as virtually any serious runner runs track - good luck