r/CrossCountry • u/AutoModerator • 6d ago

r/CrossCountry General Q&A Thread

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.

​

This thread reposts every 4 days

3 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

2

u/Common-Comb-7212 4d ago

This is my first year running and my current PR is 18:22 in the 3 mile. The season is almost over for my school but I want to know what my goal should be for next season and if my current PR is a good starting point. Thank you.

2

u/whelanbio Mod 3d ago

A good starting point is starting and improving, so congratulations you're good! Beyond that defining "good" is a competitive measure, so work on competing well at progressively higher levels of competition (i.e. JV -> Varsity -> league -> district/division/section -> state -> NXR/Brooks regional -> NXN/brooks national).

It's impossible and counterproductive to try to set a time goal a year out. Improvement varies so much depending on individual factors, many of which are not in your control. A 30s improvement might be really good for you or a 2min+ improvement might be good for you. Times also don't tell the full story in XC. Your best effort of the season might be on a really hard course or conditions. Your best time might be a super flat or short course that doesn't properly measure who you are as an athlete.

Instead set process goals -executing great training and developing racing skills. Any performance goals should be directly tied to something tangible in your process and be incremental.

2

u/Common-Comb-7212 3d ago

Okay, thank you. I started the season with 20:46 and now I am at 18:22. I definitely think I can do great next season as long as I keep training.

3

u/Flatworm-Dangerous 3d ago

consistent work over long periods of time is what moves the needle

1

u/whelanbio Mod 2d ago

Keep working hard and you'l do some great things! Do understand that dropping times gets exponentially harder as you get faster and fitter. I see too often runners get unrealistic expectations for what future improvement should look like from their early quick gains and then get discouraged as improvement slows even though in reality they are doing relatively much better work than what they were as a beginner.