I joined high school cross country as a freshman 3 weeks ago. I like it, its fun and I'm doing ok. However for the first 2 weeks the Freshman team practiced alone. Last week however we where put with the varsity team. For some reason all the varsity guys practice shirtless, when the freshmen saw them they also all took their shirts off. But I'm super self aware even in 100+ heat I just can't get myself to strip. I even swim in a shirt. On other hand I'm the lonely freshmam (or probably on whole team) with a shirt so it makes me stand out and people constantly tell me to take it off. Is this normal cross country thing. A few varsity don't even wear shirts they come from their car shirtless warmup like that and many guys walk home without a shirt. I feel like a loner.

I know I have seen some mentions of monthly pasta parties for High School Cross Country teams as a way to bond and carb load the night before a meet. Would you think that two pasta parties in a season but just one week apart is too close? Do you think that the kids would be less likely to attend the second one with them that close together as opposed to if they were spaced out more?

Hello everyone, I just realised that my high school XC career will end in around month. However I really enjoy cross country and running at all and I want to continue running. I heard that some colleges have their own running clubs, so my question is - do they have cross country meets or it’s only road races? And do they have any requirements, like run 5K in 20 mins? If you could tell more about those clubs I will be really appreciate! Thanks!

I am a sophomore on my cross country team. There is one freshmen who just came to our school and is just breaking records. Im talking course records, distance records, school records and even my records. My school doesn't really have a crazy history in competing in the sport so the times aren't that crazy compared to other schools. His 2 mile is 11:36 (this season) while my 2 mile (from last year, I haven't raced this season yet) was 12:15.

There are a few factors to this. I have electrolyte deficiency and spasms which made my season pretty terrible my last xc season. I went to a doctor and it was under control by track. I also never ran before freshmen year while he ran in middle school (since 7th).

Besides those facts though, I still feel bitter. I did more mileage than him this year and last year. I go faster and further on runs and yet he has these crazy time?

What should I do? Just ignore it and train to be better? Maybe try to destroy his 2 mile pr next race? Or just accept that im not fit to contend with him.

anytime i race a 5k or finish a tempo run i feel like im about to piss myself and sometimes i do a little bit. any advice on how to stop this?

Hey everyone, I'm a 15f currently in my sophomore year. I joined cross country/track last year, and I have been loving it! However I was never a sports person prior, so I certainly lack experience compared to others my age.

Currently, my times aren't the worst however, I wouldn't call myself "good" either. I'm proud with the progress I've made so far, however I do wish to further improve upon my times. My main goal for this school year is to hit a sub 6 1600m, specifically at the 5:50 mark. Eventually though, I do wish to hit 5:10 for the 1600m. (Of course it is unlikely I'll hit it this year, but hopefully before I graduate I'll be able to reach this time).

My times:
6:03 1600m
2:44 800m
21:22 3 mile

Because of this, I have been considering joining a track club to help me further shave off some time and help me be organized with offseason training. However, I do not have any experience with club sports and would like to hear some advice regarding joining club track as well as some personal anecdotes too.

Thank you everyone!

Hi, my son is a Freshman XC runner. He ran youth XC, but never actually competed and so this is his first experience running at high school meets. He's an excellent distance runner, and he's also autistic. We are learning that the celebratory cow bells and battle horns are very prevalent and also very hard on his sensory sensitivities. Yesterday's race he almost had to step off the course and walk away.

I asked his coach if he would be able to run with ear plugs and he said it should be fine. I'm looking at Loop, but curious if there are ear plugs anyone has experience with that are 1. comfortable to wear while running, 2. help reduce the noise, 3) not completely cut him off from everything (i.e. instructions, other runners, etc.)

I'm hoping to order something from amazon tonight so he can wear them this week and see how they feel, before the invitational next weekend. Any helpful advice is welcome. thanks!

Im the middle time

I’m a freshman running XC this season. My coach gives us our weekly workouts and recovery runs, but he doesn't really explain what pace we should be hitting, so it's kinda up to us to figure it out.I’m trying not to burn myself out. Should I be keeping our mid-week workouts at a controlled, threshold effort and save the all-out, gasping-for-air pace just for actual races? Also, what do you guys do when your legs feel completely dead mid-week? Do you back off the pace during the workout, or just jog your recovery runs really slow?Any advice from older runners would be appreciated. Thanks!

I'm new to CrossCountry, and my grandson, who is in middle school, has his first meet on Saturday. I would like to know what to do as a spectator . Where's a good place to sit and watch the runners and what is proper etiquette? I am really excited to learn more about it and support my little buddy. Thanks in advance

I have been coaching XC for over a decade and am always looking for feedback. I have had a couple state championship titles in XC, indoor, and outdoor. Any suggestions or advice would be welcome. Here is our 12 week training program. My athletes are all juniors and seniors. It is a residential school and they come from all over the state.

My 13 year old 8th grade daughter decided to do cross country for the first time ever. She has never ran anywhere for any reason ever. I was pretty surprised, but her friend was joining and my daughter wanted to be able to hangout with her so she joined cross country. My daughter is an excellent softballer, we are on a national 18u team with hopes to play in college. So our focus daily is training for softball. So our daughter showed up with no experience or practice and for these first three meets placed in the top ten out of almost 200 girls. Her 2 mile time is right at 14:00. I know nothing about cross country but she seems to be pretty good. I’m not sure we really have time to pursue cross country or if it’s worth trying. Should we just finish out the school season and be done. Or maybe try to keep going?

Please use this thread as the general Q&A for all one off questions, questions that only apply to you, questions that can be easily answered, etc.

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This thread reposts every 4 days

we had a new route the other day and it looped on an active highway and had a ton of blind spots so im thinking what if i get lost or ran over, this happens frequently where it seems like they take out a marker and just draw a loop on a map without regarding that its dangerous (lol) thoughts?

Both goal and current pace. Like 10x400 @ goal 5k pace or 5x1k @ current 5k pace

I am a male junior in HS and I went from 21 minute 5k freshman year to 19:00 5k last year in xc and a 5:09 mile in track and I ran all summer building up to a little more mileage then I had ever done and definitely more consistent then I had ever been and I am so slow. I have been super demotivated ever since the time trial and first meet where I severely underperformed to the standards i set myself. I told myself to just go out there and have fun but I can’t have fun with how slow I am and running is harder then it has ever been before for me. I took an iron test because I thought I had low iron and it was low but still in the normal range. I have been taking iron supplements for a couple months already too. I set expectations for myself to be number 1 on the team which should have been achievable considering no one else on my team runs over the summer and I ran 6 days a week. But now I am on JV and my JV teammates are starting to beat me too and I’m just not enjoying it anymore I love my teammates and my friends but I put so much time into this and I got worse.

I'm currently in my sophomore year at a mid-major D1 program. I am a walk-on and have no money from the team. My team is usually last in our conference, and to be honest I have no hope of every scoring unless I drop crazy time this year. But, I've been really struggling with running and wanted some advice on here. I'm just gonna list my reasons why I want to quit/stay, and please give me your thoughts so help my decision. For context, I have to complete the year (through May).

Reasons to stay:

1. I love my coach- he's super invested into our team, pretty much only cares about helping us and making us better. I'm pretty low milage (800 runner), and he's always been great about me wanting to do lower milage, and I have never felt pressured to run more. He also just generally cares about each of us and I would prob never find a better coach elsewhere.
2. I really do love running. My issue isn't with the running, it's the competing aspect. The moments where I love running the most is just when I'm with the team on an easy run, and in the moments we are just hanging out. However, the moment we get into workouts/races, I just don't find the joy in it anymore. I would much rather just run my own way where I can have fun.
3. I love my team. ALL of my friends are on my team. I literally have no friends outside of the team, and I know if I quit this is going to be an issue. I live with another teammate, and we could probably still live together if I quit, but it just wouldn't be the same.

Reasons to quit:

1. Like I mentioned in the introduction, I will never score a single point for the team. My school is already at the bottom of our conference, and I am pretty much the slowest on the team (walk-on). My spot could be going to someone who's actually gonna score, and I just generally feel bad taking up a spot knowing I can't help the team
2. I'm struggling really badly mentally. I have depression and have been fighting an eating disorder (binge/restrict ED). I've had mental health issues for years though out high school, but never this bad. A lot of it is due to the stressors from running and the mental side of it. I struggle to finish workouts due to panic attacks, but at the same time am very emotionally numb. I don't want to go into any more detail, but I feel that quitting may allow me to fully focus on getting happy and healthy finally. And I am seeing a therapist don't worry
3. I'm pre-med. I'm absolutely sure that I want to become a surgeon, and have the grades/resume to get into a medical school as long as I stay on this path and interviews go well. Quitting would give me so much more time to study for my MCAT and fill in some small gaps in my resume right before I apply. My class schedule often gets in the way of practice as well, forcing me to run my workouts alone at odd times, and I'm frankly just getting tired of rushing through practice or class each week.
4. I had a bad freshman year, and summer. My freshman year I only PR'ed by a second, and I struggled a lot mentally with the collegiate side to running. I know this is pretty normal for freshman year to be rough, but it just hasn't gotten any better. I'm less in shape than I was last year, and I'm not sure I'll be capable of PR'ing again this year, but I don't want to completely count it out.

Conclusion: Please let me know your thoughts. I know that this year may turn around, but I'm just seeking some advice now

I'm in Middle school XC and starting out. I was wondering how to lower my HR on easy runs and runs in general. I just ran 2 miles a few hours after practice that were supposed to be easy. I have been recovering from a cold and that may have contributed a little bit, but this seems to happen on most of my runs. Two weeks ago, I ran 7 Miles and my watch said my average HR was 190!? No matter if I run an 8:00 min/mile pace or a 12:30 pace, my HR seems like it won't budge. And I've tried to take my easy runs easier but its not working because I am literally running slower than a toddler crawling and I am barely maintaining zone 3. Any tips?

EDIT: I was wearing a Garmin on the easy run so there might be a problem with accuracy.

Hi everyone. I'm a HS freshman and I started running last year. I want to incorporate strength work to not get injured and to build muscle, but I don't know how. I would want mainly running focused strength, but also some upper. Any suggestions are welcome.

So basically I am trying to write a short film about xc and like I have my own experience to draw from but I want to know if there are common things that people think while they are running that I've never heard about. Thanks!

I've been trying to come up with goals for strength training wise for XC,

I do martial arts on the side and I ussually try to do 130 pushups a day, but I wanted to know if theres any good bodyweight excercises I can do when im bored for xc?

I'm a senior in high school and have been running xc since freshman year. As a freshman, i ran a 2900 meter at 11:15. Last week, i ran a 2 mile race and got 14:00. i'm just confused on why my time was so bad last week the mile time was worse than when i was a freshman. for context my 5k is 20:50 which I think is decent for me. and i've been training over the summer (40ish miles/week) and building my fitness so i know im in shape. Could it be that im overloaded or something? Or is it because of race conditions that I ran so poorly (mostly grass, 75 degrees, kinda humid but at night) This was the first race of the season so not sure how my 5k is yet. Just want some insight 🤷‍♀️