<p>Long story short: I will do anything to run DI XC and track in college.</p>
<p>I'm in my junior year and I'm in a bad position. I've been depressed ever since entering high school which severely affected my performance in XC and track. Basically:</p>
<p>9th: 22:47
10th: 21:27</p>
<p>I'm in the middle of my junior year XC. So far my time is 19:54 and I hope to break 19:00 by the end of the season.</p>
<p>Now I don't to type up a big long story or post any of my track stuff just to get replies like "sorry you won't be able to run DI but try DIII cause that's all you can ever do."</p>
<p>I bet that's the case, but hopefully not.</p>
<p>Oh and some important information about me: I love running.</p>
<p>I'm not one of those people that join XC and track "just because." I'm very loyal to my team and such and I love and am very grateful of my team. I work hard and push myself. I'm more concerned about beating people than focusing on times. If I get a PR, that's great, but what's more important is if I beat as much people in the race as I possibly could.</p>
<p>Depends on where you go. Oregon/Stanford? .000001%</p>
<p>Florida International, University of Miami (yes their long distance program is absolutely terrible)? then there’s a much better chance. It also depends on how developed you are no homo, if you haven’t really hit your growth spurt yet it’s possible you can drop a big chunk of your time after a growth spurt. </p>
<p>Just keep putting those miles in, build up and see how good your times are when you’re running 40+ mpw (quality), you never know–you might just have a breakout race and blow people away!</p>
<p>Depression became a big deal when it “severely affected” your performance.
Schedule a checkup with your doctor and talk about how your mood is impacting your athletic performance.</p>
<p>Are you a boy or a girl? A girl with those times and continued improvement throughout Jr. and Sr. year may be able to walk-on at <em>some</em> D1 programs. If you are a boy you’ve got a LOT of work to do to get up to the D1 level.</p>
<p>to run at a good d1 college on a scholarship (oregon, stanford, wisconsin, etc) you probably need to be around 4:08ish.</p>
<p>my best friend marco bertolotti ran a 4:11 last year and is going to stanford and almsot missed the cut. (but he managed to walkon)</p>
<p>However, there are some really crappy d1 schools, but still you need to get your time down. </p>
<p>a lot of the small d1 schools that i am interested in (like virginia tech) have walk on standards of about 9:25ish, and thats with no scholarship.</p>
<p>From looking at schools with my S who’s pr was 17:30 (5k) and 4:50 (mile) only d3’s would talk to him about running but interestingly enough, he ended up being recruited for ivy crew (lightweight) with NO experience. Apparently distance runners with the right (small/lean) body do great with crew. Ultimately, he decided to go with the academics at an ivy (opted out of crew) rather than running at a school that didn’t have the strength of program. You can run for the rest of your life and enjoy every single mile without competing in a single meet. My advice would be to concentrate on what school meets your academic needs.</p>
<p>Crest1…Based on your post earlier this year, you stated that you have no money for college. Cross country is not going to help you get any scholarships. Maybe your grades/test scores combined with your need can get you some money. It’s time to set some real priorities. “Wanting” to run cross country should be the least of your worries right now.</p>
<p>Sorry for not posting, but anyways… today I had a terrible race and got 20:17 which is awful because I was really hoping to impress my coach since every week someone gets the “team award” and I got it on Friday night, but I did awful.</p>
<p>But next week the course we’re going to is flat so I’ll break 19:00 for sure. This whole week I’m going to get 8 hours of sleep each night and do all my homework on time.</p>
<p>And my sucky-awful track times:
800m = 2:39
1600m = 5:51
3200m = 13:13 I think? I forget I think it’s faster, but I hate the 3200.</p>
<p>Me: My coach has never put me in a relay race
DI Coach: Good for you.</p>
<p>Yeah, hopefully DII will take me if not DI.</p>
<p>^ a lot of DIII XC and track programs do not cut … you may not get into many meets other than home dual meets but odds are pretty good you could be on some DIII teams … when you have a list of schools contact the coaches and see if they allow walk-ons and if they have cuts or not. Unfortuanately given your current times any team with cuts might be tough for you to make.</p>
<p>OK I just learned about red-shirting. Will that help me at all? Could I take a year off to get better? I probably want to do something in the medical field, so I’ll probably be spending more than 4 years at college.</p>
<p>Oh and I don’t really care about money anymore, let’s forget that!</p>
<p>You can’t just forget about money for college. Is there a money tree in your front yard that will pay for school? Red shirting is fine but you would still have to get good enough to be recruited before then. They don’t offer scholarships to runners betting that you might get better during a red shirt year.</p>
<p>crest … people are being helpful and very nice in responding to you but you are not hearing the message.</p>
<p>Track scholarships go to the very top runners in the country … the best few in each state … and even then the money tends to get split up among many runners. Your current times are no where in the league of a D1 scholarship runner (or even a D1 walk-on runner if they have any cuts). If up to this point you have run any mileage at all to get to your times then it wold be a miracle if you improve enough to get to scholarship level. </p>
<p>I was going to add that if you have not been running many miles at all that maybe with solid training you might make an amazing breakthrough … but I doubt that is likely also. I ran a 5:01 mile as a freshmen on a junior high team running about 5 miles a week training … then in HS got serious and got to 4:29 as a junior and got hurt as a senior but probably would have run about 4:24 if I had not got hurt … and I got some sniffs to be a D1 recruited walk-on (a few coaches said we’d like to have me if I got admitted on my own). You are a couple grades older than I was when I ran 5:01 with virtually no training and I did not have D1 level talent.</p>
<p>Running in college might be possible at a D3 school but even that is probably a stretch … please focus on academics and finding a school that works for you … and if the running thing works out that’s great but please stop focusing on it being some sort of admissions strategy because it is not happening. </p>
<p>I apologize for being so harsh but you need to start working on realistic college plans. (Heck I wanted to play in the NBA and wasn’t even good enough to play for my high school … for me that was my time to move on from that dream)</p>
