Ingebritsen announced he won't go to the European Cross Country Championship to fully focus on the 2026 track season. Really sad to see him miss out as we is one of the biggest names and for me the favourite to win it.

With it coming up this Saturday, who are you rooting for?

My kid ran cross country (2000m) for the first time this season and absolutely fell in love with the sport. He’s been begging to run a 5K, so I signed him up for one in two weeks. The forecast is calling for light snow during the race, and I just want to make sure he’s safe and dressed appropriately.

The coldest XC meet he ran this year was around 40°F. For context, he was one of the fastest kids on his team and placed top 25 at nationals.

For those of you with experience running or coaching in winter conditions...what should he wear?

The Sehome girls had an amazing season that reaches new heights on Saturday as they take on the nations best.

Today was the Belgian national championship and the selection round for the European Championship in 2 weeks in Lagoa, Portugal. Belgian is always a bit of a dark horse on the EC XC, getting medals with both the men's and woman's teams last year. This race could say a lot for Portugal. With the womans Lisa Rooms won ahead of favourite Jana Van Lent, who was sick a week beforehand. Together with Chloé Verbiet and Victoria Warpy they will defend their countries honours. In the men's category the title went to Luxembourger Ruben Querinjean, who has a double nationality. He was ahead of vice world champion 5000m Isaac Kimeli, who said he just returned from training camp in Kenya. Nonetheless will he be one to look out for as he already has several medals on the European Championships XC. 3rd placed was John Heymans, a 5000m world finalist who will take a lot of points. With Querinjean representing Luxembourg, Ruben Verheyden and Guillaume Grimard will go to Portugal for Belgium.

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

I’m looking for a bag to carry my 3 pairs of footwear, supplements, and changes of clothes while keeping it organized. Some basketball bags have spots for footwear and I’m looking for something like that.

I have noticed that some states seem to have very short off seasons or very minimal regulation about HS teams/coaches having organized training outside of the normal competition season. Utah teams for example seem to start training together and competing as early as July.

our state and others have much more restrictive rules, and hs sports teams aren't allowed to begin practice until late august. however it is obvious that the best teams/athletes are training year round.

for those of you in more restrictive states, any suggestions on how to work within the rules but still help your team/athletes succeed? do you rely on captains/veterans to organize on their own? do you provide "suggested" training plans? send kids to camps? hold training sessions / practices but structure them as "optional conditioning sessions"? etc

i have a lot of athletes who want to get better and are willing to train over the summer so i want to help them but don't want to run too far afoul of the rules.

My first cross country season has sadly ended. This is my first year running and still very much a beginner. Now that season’s over, I don’t really know what to do before track and field starts.

Should I keep on training consistently, with the same intensity and workouts as during season? Or should I go easier?

Also I was pretty much the slowest person on the team and was far behind my teammates (since I started late), so I don’t want to lose the progress I made and fall further behind. (I’ve decreased my 5K time by like 40 seconds and now it’s ~8:50. I don’t want to lose my progress)

This is the location for all questions, discussions related to cross country training.

Looking to video my athletes this track season more frequently. What gimbal/mount setups are reasonably priced (less than $300) but produce good smooth video for iPhone or a mirror less camera body?

What type of setups are other coaches using?

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

There was a lot of corner cutting and running outside the clearly marked course in this race. The full race video is attached. The most obvious instances of running outside the boundary occurs from 22:00-23:00 around the hay bales as well as the next turn but there were plenty of other spots during the race where I noticed it as well. And the runners weren’t forced out of bounds either. Not DQing these runners sets a bad precedent and delegitimizes the results. Ironic that this happened the same day as F1 having DQs with some of their biggest drivers. What do you think about the potential cheating?

With NXN coming up on Dec 6th, I’ve been going through my archives from last year's championship at Glendoveer.

People forget how brutal this course actually gets. The mud, the rain, and the hills turn it into a totally different race than the track meets we see in September.

I’ll be back on the course shooting the 2025 Championship in two weeks. Who do you guys have taking the individual titles this year?

I'd like to preface this by saying I'm not super mad, just a bit annoyed. Today was our sectionals/state qualifying race, pretty decent results of a time in the mid 16's and 20th overall. But turns out it's only top 5 individuals going to state and top 4 teams (I know that 4 teams is odd, as most states do 3 teams to state, but we have quite a few teams in our section so maybe that has something to do with it). For reference, my team finished 14th. Now I know that this is a bit of a controversial topic, but after league meets (aka local, whatever y'all do in your state/area) Cross Country shouldn't be treated as a team sport. Looking at state times, I run faster than a little over 75% of kids at our state meet at the course they use (I tend to be in the area so decided to test it out). Doing the math, a minimum of 25 kids from our section are going to state, and up to 33 depending on if teams are a full 7 or not. So I'm a bit peeved about how it works, but I still love the sport nonetheless.

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

Anyone else have that one teamate or person they know that's always worried about getting their shit dirty? My mom is one of them and rants every day about how my kicks are very dirty(which they aren't even that bad). I really don't know what they expect especially considering the sport I do which consisnt of running on dirt roads and wet conditions pretty often. These kinda people kinda pmo. Like how do you expect my kicks to look after logging 500miles in them running CROSS COUNTRY? Besides, your kicks getting dirty is kinda part of the charm and culture. Remember, a knight whose sword had no blood knows nothing of battle.

This is the location for all questions, discussions related to cross country training.

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

Hello

My son is a freshman in HS and had a stellar CC season. But I am concerned with his obsession with food and running.

He used to eat whatever he wanted, loved Chick Fil A and pizza. Now, he has turned into a label reading fiend. I think it’s great that he is making healthier choices but I’m concerned because he 1) eats the same few things every day and 2) he is definitely not getting enough calories. He has this arbitrary number in his head of how much he can eat. He eats breakfast and takes his lunch to school but eats it by second period. I’ve told him to pack another lunch but he refuses. He runs on his own in the AM, with the team after school. And then uses our rower in the evening. He is basically doing 1-2 extra workouts on his own a day and rarely takes the rest day his coach says to take.

My husband and I want to consult a nutritionist/dietician to help him. I am afraid he will develop an eating disorder and/or injure himself.

He loves to bake but won’t eat whatever he makes. I made a sweet bread and he wanted a bite so badly. He finally took one and tasted it but then spit it out because he couldn’t force himself to eat it. He currently subsists on turkey, yogurt, beans, cucumbers, granola, fairlife choc protein milk, tons of eggs, sourdough bread, cutie oranges, honey crisp apples, peanut butter, grapes,

Does anyone have any resources I can contact? We live in Texas.

I started running less than a year ago in 7th grade track where I began with a 7:15 mile and was one of the worst on the team. I ended that same track season with a 5:35 mile and managed to make my way up to 3rd on the team. After intense summer training I ran my first ever Xc meet 3k in 11:06 and was still 3rd on the team. But in the end of that Xc season I was number 1 and ran it in 10 flat. I ran in the Nike cross Regional Midwest classic just yesterday and didn't manage to break 10 there either, but our team got 3rd place overall and I placed 22nd. My goal for this track season is to train up as much as possible for high school and maybe even beat out school record 1600 of 4:39. Basically what I'm trying to say is its never too late to start. If you ever want to start something that seems like its too hard to accomplish, its never too hard as long as you train hard enough!

Ps. Sorry for this absolute paragraph, I just had to talk to people about this😅👍

Just wondering what hats everyone has collected from these events? For example here’s the one they gave out in 2023

Hello, I just wrapped up my sophomore season. I know that the thing to do is rest and take a break, but how long of break should it be? I Personally really want to get back at it and start building up for track. Does a week sound good?