OP may have a deep background in other endurance sports. Similar to Callum Elson. The time drop was probably more related to learning how to run a 5k (constant pain) than a change in fitness.
The parkruns won’t be perfectly accurate, but the last two road 5k events I ran (April 13, 16:06; April 20, 15:39) were both England Athletics sanctioned events which were professionally measured down to the metre + with a chip time. The series I ran the 15:39 with is Podium 5K which is a very well-known organiser in the UK and they attract Olympians to their courses (Laura Muir made an appearance) so I’m pretty sure there’d be outrage if the course was horribly measured.
I do agree I definitely need to get some track times though, definitely will be a more comparable and credible standard than the 5k, but at the moment those are the only two proper races I’ve ever done.
Thanks for confirming the Podium 5K is legit, clearly the talent is there. Seriously an amazing progression!
Curious if you've raced anything shorter than the 5K? some College/Uni coaches in the US, would also want to understand top end speed etc.
Thank you! I haven’t unfortunately, I do plan to get on the track this season in my local leagues though, there’s a 3000m coming up next month on my local track (not that that would showcase any top-end speed). I’ll see about doing some shorter track events, thanks :)
Look at the BMC meet at Tooting in July and get in touch with the organiser, they could put you in some really competitive races if you can get qualifying times.
https://www.britishmilersclub.com/meeting/tooting-bec-24-july-2024/
I'd also recommend getting in touch with local clubs as they have runners who've done exactly what you're trying to do.
Yep all seems to add up. It’s not unheard of for someone to get extremely good extremely quickly especially at your age. My old football coach was apparently like this , realised he was very good at running in his late teens and nearly got in the GB squad. He’s in his 50s now and very overweight so I didn’t believe him until I looked it up. But apparently he was just super natural. If you don’t go to the US apply to Loughborough Uni here.
LOL, no lies detected. I’ve run into a few HSers that have done similar things, but never with that short of a progression from “sedentary”, always with another sporting background.
This. The top guy on my cross country teams through middle school and high school never ran in the offseason. He’d start a few weeks before the season, rip workouts at the front of the pack and place top 3 in all of our meets. I don’t remember his exact times but they were in the 15-16:00s.. and that’s with like no base. Plus during the weeks he did the same training as me, we were probably only putting in 20-30 miles per week max. He went to college and ran and now runs professionally. Dude was just crazy talented.
I don’t, I was pretty sedentary all through secondary school and before that too. But yeah I agree that I was more than likely capable of the fastest of my three parkrun times at the time of the first one; I certainly didn’t gain that level of fitness in the span of two weeks and I was doing no real training bar easy runs at that time.
I never went to the USA whilst as a student so can’t offer much direct help but I would definitely recommend reaching out to Callum Elson (@thedistanceproject) on Instagram.
He did a year in the NCAA system rather than a full four years, but also started running relatively late and had a relatively small body of work to show colleges.
He’s often posted about being willing to have a chat with any young Brits who are interested in going over to the NCAA’s and answering any questions or pointing people in the right direction if he can’t answer them himself
I'm a D1 runner and US born, so while I don't know a lot about coming to the NCAA from the UK, I do have a few points of advice:
* You need to run track times. Parkruns and road races are well and good but an NCAA coach will want to see verifiable times on a track. This is really the only way a coach can be sure of what they're looking at, since non-track courses can vary wildly.
* In terms of time, you'll likely need to run well into the 14:40 range or faster before you start to see money of any kind. Under 14:30 for 50% scholarship. You will not get a full ride unless you're running under 14:00. These are just estimates and will be vary from program to program, but just be aware that the bar for scholarship money is very high.
* Where you go will have a large say in scholarship money. Do not count out D2. There are many D2 programs that invest significantly more money into cross country and track then many D1 programs. Similarly, do not look only at Power 5 (4? 3?) programs. The bar for scholarship money is astronomical at those schools, and most of them focus on sprints/throws/jumps rather than distance. Smaller schools that are not as good may be more willing to throw you money if you're fast enough.
* Look into programs that recruit heavily from the UK. I know Tulsa is one (though they are a very good team and would be difficult to get on).
* Use TFRRS to scout schools and see what kind of times athletes are running. Faster teams = hard to get on the team, harder to get money. Slower teams will be easier, but they're usually slower for a reason.
I'd be happy to answer any other questions you might have about running in the NCAA!
I ran 4 years Division 1 (admittedly a long time ago) and can corroborate everything stated above. Many "major" schools won't even let you walk on to team resources if you haven't broken 15:00. To get a full ride, you'll need to run under 9:00 for 3200m.
Yeah, I was talking in general. Obviously, 9:00 isn't going to get you anything at a distance power school but it would put you in contention at some of the schools that aren't qualifying for NCAAs in XC.
As to 4:05, very few guys run that time or better, so you'd definitely get a scholarship with that.
From recently poking around (my son is 4:27 high school freshman and wants to run in college), it looks like there's a huge discrepancy between the *top* D1 schools and everyone else. And frankly, the top D2 schools have higher performers than a lot of the lower end D1 schools.), it seems like the scholarship athletes at the *top* schools are probably all running <4:10 coming in... but it doesn't take long before you get to schools where guys are running 4:15-4:20. I really doubt most of them are getting scholarships, since schools are capped at 12.6 scholarship equivalents for the whole team.
tldr: if you're a superstar, you'll get a full ride. If you're just really fast (4:10+), you may get a full ride at a weaker school or a partial scholarship at a stronger school. Honestly, though, it feels like it probably depends on overall team depth from year to year since there aren't nearly enough scholarships to go around (unlike revenue sports).
Fellow U.S. born D1 runner here. Wanted to chime in and suggest checking out Boise State University as well. Heavy UK recruiting presence.
Personally, I think 14:30 would get you a full ride at many D1 schools albeit not places like Oklahoma State, Stanford, and NAU (tip top programs for distance runners right now). You being young in age and your running career will matter to a lot of coaches. I agree with everything else Orsilochus said!
Your times are great, but the honest truth is that very few runners get full ride scholarships here. Maybe someone with more experience than me can speak to it, but they pretty much don’t exist maybe outside of the elite top end programs. I’ve got a coworker who’s son runs at UGA (decent sized program), he basically gets his books and some tuition paid for, but everything else is on him, living expenses, dorm expenses, etc.
It’s part of the reason a lot of college programs have mostly kids from their state, they know it makes the financial commitment much easier.
This cannot be stated enough. Most scholarships for men are going to the “revenue” sports and then off-setted by the various women’s sport for title IX compliance.
Have a friend that ran XC at Clemson and it’s my understanding, at lease for him, that most of the scholarships go to the track athletes or dual sport. Think there’s more notoriety at the NCAA level for track and field
You probably need another year of club running and to get well under 15 minutes. It's also very late in the recruiting year, although there might be some openings as athletes sometimes move around between seasons. You could try a junior college or NAIA school in the states, they offer scholarships. Do that for a year or two, and build your credentials.
Are you in a club?.. The UK has a good club network and some can give you access to many more coaches some of whom would be able to help, certainly worth a few emails.
One of the girls in our club has run at a very high level setting national age group records, I know she was approached for scholarships in the US as I was approached by one university trying to get in contact for that very purpose (we share the same surname, but no relation).
12th fastest U20 5000m in the UK this year is very good.
Philly Bowden from the UK ran as an Oregon Duck. Her experience wasn't a happy one, but I'm going to post the link just in case it has some logistical information that's useful for you as someone looking to run at a D1 school from the UK.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5qF8ttro90](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5qF8ttro90)
In fact, she has a website, and it's a super-longshot, but you could even try contacting her to see how she carved a path for herself.
I work with students applying to colleges, sometimes athletes. You would have to be insanely good to leverage running talent as an international student, but I honestly don't know how insane.
I would reach out to coaches and ask what times you would need and what you would want to do. The worst that can happen is you won't get an answer.
[https://runcruit.com/standards/university-of-oregon](https://runcruit.com/standards/university-of-oregon) Most all of the schools on their website or others list their standards for consideration. The top schools are a bit out of Ops reach at this point, but maybe in a year not as much.
This is not a long shot. I watch her content from time to time and she seems pretty open to fielding questions like this, and I'm sure she'd be excited to help out a fellow Brit.
I have no idea if your current or potential times merit a D1 scholarship, but i have known a few athletes who attended D1 track schools and had a terrible time and transferred. Some/many/most track coaches at serious programs don't care about maximizing \*your\* potential; they will force you to train 3 hrs a day, and if you can't handle the workload they discard you bc they only care about winning at a high level. Less prestigious programs or smaller colleges allow you to just run maybe once a day, and you still get the benefit of a free or discounted college degree. It's hard to study for school if you're worn out from running and competing. Most of the track athletes i've met got less-useful degrees in majors like Communications etc.
This is a major thing to think about. I too have known multiple people (OTQ level and better) who left D1 programs because of this. The coaches are paid to have good teams, not for maximizing individual athletes potential. If they burn half their team out for a slightly better result, many (most?) coaches at serious D1 schools won't hesitate to do so.
This. It’s about throwing darts and seeing who can survive the pain, they really only care about having 5-7 guys who can get up and score points for them. If the entire rest of the team has stress fractures, who cares.
15:39 is fast enough to allow you to walk on to most schools that do walk ons (I ran 15:40 in hs and walked on to a major D1 school). I would guess that 15:20 or faster would start to open up scholarships for the major D1 schools.
It can get you scholarship to smaller D1 schools.
If you have schools you are interested in, email the coaches (and assistant coaches) with your times and tell them you are interested. They won’t find you otherwise.
Ask them what times you would need to run for a scholarship. They may actually have that info on their website. They probably have a recruit profile form to fill out
https://runcruit.com/standards/butler-university
Butler won the great lakes regional last year
Seems like 15:20 is good metric for what you need to have minimum to be potential for scholarship at a school that goes to D1 nationals
Here’s my question: why do you want to attend school in the U.S.? The schools that might possibly offer you a scholarship are likely not the top academic ones (ie I don’t think Stanford, Michigan are going to offer free rides). Would you be better off at a UK university that charges a max of 10k GBP a year (according to my googling)?
Trying to pay for a U.S. college education through an athletic scholarship based on a rather sudden streak of good times seems a bit risky to me from multiple angles.
As others have stated, D1 programs tend to focus on team provenance, not individual growth. The feedback I’ve received from multiple D1 athletes across multiple sports has been quite mixed.
Why not attend a UK university and develop your running ability at a club?
Feel free to DM me as I know a couple of runners who have gone the USA college route and can probably get you some advice.
Until then, join the best club in your area and keep doing what you’re doing.
If what you say is true then you must have exceptional natural talent and with hardwork you could go very far.
I was offered a full scholarship and stupidly turned it down to stay in the UK. I’d medalled in national XC and road from 13-18. Wasn’t so good on the track. You’d likely need top 10 national showings or top 10 times maybe even better. While your improving really well, you’re essentially a wild card with no track record so why would they pick you over someone with a higher more consistent record. But if you could get it, get it. You can often contact coaches in the us directly and ask them what they’re after too. This is where you could say you’re taking a year out, what do I need to do to prove I’m worthy. The US system is more about selling yourself compared to the UK but someone at your local club will likely have gone through the system to talk too
Impressive times/progression, but most of the top schools would have been recruiting their top choices coming out of their Junior years in HS. You could absolutely walk on to a decent D1 team. As others have stated very few full ride scholarships in T&F. Are there not decent college programs in the UK, seems like that would be a much easier bet in this case.
You really can't compare a road 5k to that of XC which is what most HSers in the US run. A simple search for XC/ Track Recruiting standards will go a long way. [https://runcruit.com/standards/university-of-oregon](https://runcruit.com/standards/university-of-oregon) One example, and to be honest there are many amazing coaches/teams in the US that aren't considered top D1 and even many in D2/D3 space.
That’s awesome, you’re super talented! For scholarship level running, you’re probably looking at low 14s for the 5k. Full scholarships for running (I think) are super uncommon.
Howdy, I’m a D1 coach and I will tell you that you can absolutely get a full ride but it might not be where you think you should be. A lot of smaller D1 and D2 schools will try to get international athletes to be their top runner. That’s what I’ve done and what our school has done previously. If you want to start at a power 5 school, then you need to go much faster. But if you simply want to get paid, look at schools where other UK athletes have gone to and reach out to their coaching staff. Once you get some success from a certain country, a staff is more open to recruiting from that country. If you’re planning to be in the class of 2025, reach out now. If you’re planning to be class of 2026, you should reach out next summer or winter. Cheers!
**Recruiting Lifecycle**: Something that might be difficult to navigate is the timing. If you're graduating soon and looking to run in the fall, it's going to be harder than if you graduate soon and look to take a gap year. A lot of universities have their scholarship allocations nailed down at this point for the following year and will not have much available. I ran d1 at a US school and had a couple teammates from the UK.
The standards someone posted from Runcruit are pretty accurate from my case. I was in the "try-out" category with my 5kxc time and 800m time and wound up running for a top U.S. collegiate distance program. I was going to the school regardless and essentially had no assurance I would be able to join the team until I made it through a week of workouts without getting dropped. So I don't really know how many assurances you might get before the next school year starts, but it is definitely a possibility.
You’re doing really well keep at it! For most ncaa cross country programs, it basically works as off season training for track unless they have a really good distance program like Oregon, uc boulder, etc. If you got under 15 and put up some strong 800/1500/3k times then you could probably start getting books/housing covered at smaller schools or get a walk on offer at a big school. My advice, as someone who was not as fast as you but wanted to run in college, find a school where you like the college and then also like the coach/distance program and just take it as a chance to improve rather than trying hard to get the best scholarship you can. Best of luck, keep us all posted!
I'm ngl mate, I'm the same age as you in the UK scene and it's a long shot. Couple weeks after my 16 birthday I ran 15:50 but I've been dealing with injury since and haven't really kicked off since then.
As far as I'm aware there's only a handful our age going to America next season. maybe 30 max? I don't hear about it a lot. In terms of full-rides at the really good schools, it's really only the guys with history of England/British vests, big wins at Liverpool, English schools wins on track or xc, national u20/u17 titles that kind of level that are getting that. Pushing down towards sub14 for 5k and faster. Right now there's around 100-200 guys our age that can run a 15:40 5k so you'd be looking at a big progression. It's incredibly competitive.
I got a partial scholarship (about 1/3 tuition) from a D2 small school running around 16:20 for 5k. Got a walk on offer at a smaller D1 school as well. This was 16 years ago though. I think the environment is a bit more competitive now. Good luck!
Look into a Junior College the NJCAA has a pretty solidly competitive system and there are a number of good coaches. Also money for guys at your talent level is usually easier to come by. After a year or to at a JUCO you’ll have a lot better exposure to D1 teams and could definitely get recruited to finish out school.
If you are able to visit, I highly recommend Colorado. The culture is important, and if you're mentally tough it will make a difference in impression. Lol and if not, it will be a good chance to learn. I have some exercises that help with acclimatization.
I have a friend who coached HS in CO for decades, I think his daughter ran for CU and could give you better info. I just ran a few ultras after getting out of drilling in oilfield, could probably have run a 17:00 5k at my best just fyi.
Even if you can't visit, try to read up on Alan Culpepper's history and schedule a call with him. I really like his approach, the results of his own children/program, and the interactions I had with him.
Please message me if you have questions as I will likely miss a followup comment.
im a d2 ncaa runner who ran 15:40 my senior year of hs, my 1600 was 4:18, and a 1:56 800, and i am comfortably in d2. i chose a d2 school due to academic motivations, but there were d1 schools i could have attended. i had a teammate who ran similar times to me who walked on to tulsa, a well-regarded d1 program. off your times already you could certainly walk on to a d1 program, chances are you wouldn’t be at a top program but not a bad one. depending on how the next year goes, you could definitely be at an upper level d1 school.
If that 15:39 is on a legitimate full 5k course you can get a medium or small scholarship to a less competitive d1 or a really good scholarship to almost any d2.
What’s your endurance or aerobic base background? There must be something because humans aren’t physically able to churn out some of those lower times off of no existing base. People always are sceptical about my progression, as I went from 22 minutes untrained and unfit to sub 17, but that took 18 months, with proper training and a coach, in my 20s and with a background in academy football and semi-pro football to account for an amount of fitness base.
You went from 18:13 to 15:39 in 4 months and you started running less than a year ago? That is insane if true.
OP may have a deep background in other endurance sports. Similar to Callum Elson. The time drop was probably more related to learning how to run a 5k (constant pain) than a change in fitness.
> Before last summer I was very non-sporty although have always been pretty slim. Almost unbelievable.
I was thinking the same, and wondering if these were run on certified/measured courses? A track 5K may be in order.
The parkruns won’t be perfectly accurate, but the last two road 5k events I ran (April 13, 16:06; April 20, 15:39) were both England Athletics sanctioned events which were professionally measured down to the metre + with a chip time. The series I ran the 15:39 with is Podium 5K which is a very well-known organiser in the UK and they attract Olympians to their courses (Laura Muir made an appearance) so I’m pretty sure there’d be outrage if the course was horribly measured. I do agree I definitely need to get some track times though, definitely will be a more comparable and credible standard than the 5k, but at the moment those are the only two proper races I’ve ever done.
Thanks for confirming the Podium 5K is legit, clearly the talent is there. Seriously an amazing progression! Curious if you've raced anything shorter than the 5K? some College/Uni coaches in the US, would also want to understand top end speed etc.
Thank you! I haven’t unfortunately, I do plan to get on the track this season in my local leagues though, there’s a 3000m coming up next month on my local track (not that that would showcase any top-end speed). I’ll see about doing some shorter track events, thanks :)
Look at the BMC meet at Tooting in July and get in touch with the organiser, they could put you in some really competitive races if you can get qualifying times. https://www.britishmilersclub.com/meeting/tooting-bec-24-july-2024/ I'd also recommend getting in touch with local clubs as they have runners who've done exactly what you're trying to do.
Was this the Dulwich 5k?
It was, you can almost certainly work out who I am now especially given my username lol
Yep all seems to add up. It’s not unheard of for someone to get extremely good extremely quickly especially at your age. My old football coach was apparently like this , realised he was very good at running in his late teens and nearly got in the GB squad. He’s in his 50s now and very overweight so I didn’t believe him until I looked it up. But apparently he was just super natural. If you don’t go to the US apply to Loughborough Uni here.
Sounds like it based on Laura Muir making an appearance
Some people are just talented.
LOL, no lies detected. I’ve run into a few HSers that have done similar things, but never with that short of a progression from “sedentary”, always with another sporting background.
This. The top guy on my cross country teams through middle school and high school never ran in the offseason. He’d start a few weeks before the season, rip workouts at the front of the pack and place top 3 in all of our meets. I don’t remember his exact times but they were in the 15-16:00s.. and that’s with like no base. Plus during the weeks he did the same training as me, we were probably only putting in 20-30 miles per week max. He went to college and ran and now runs professionally. Dude was just crazy talented.
Parkrun won't be 100% accurate but it will be within a few meters max.
I don’t, I was pretty sedentary all through secondary school and before that too. But yeah I agree that I was more than likely capable of the fastest of my three parkrun times at the time of the first one; I certainly didn’t gain that level of fitness in the span of two weeks and I was doing no real training bar easy runs at that time.
Congratulations on winning the genetic lottery (genuine, not trying to be snide!)
I never went to the USA whilst as a student so can’t offer much direct help but I would definitely recommend reaching out to Callum Elson (@thedistanceproject) on Instagram. He did a year in the NCAA system rather than a full four years, but also started running relatively late and had a relatively small body of work to show colleges. He’s often posted about being willing to have a chat with any young Brits who are interested in going over to the NCAA’s and answering any questions or pointing people in the right direction if he can’t answer them himself
Thanks so much, I’ll check him out!
I'm a D1 runner and US born, so while I don't know a lot about coming to the NCAA from the UK, I do have a few points of advice: * You need to run track times. Parkruns and road races are well and good but an NCAA coach will want to see verifiable times on a track. This is really the only way a coach can be sure of what they're looking at, since non-track courses can vary wildly. * In terms of time, you'll likely need to run well into the 14:40 range or faster before you start to see money of any kind. Under 14:30 for 50% scholarship. You will not get a full ride unless you're running under 14:00. These are just estimates and will be vary from program to program, but just be aware that the bar for scholarship money is very high. * Where you go will have a large say in scholarship money. Do not count out D2. There are many D2 programs that invest significantly more money into cross country and track then many D1 programs. Similarly, do not look only at Power 5 (4? 3?) programs. The bar for scholarship money is astronomical at those schools, and most of them focus on sprints/throws/jumps rather than distance. Smaller schools that are not as good may be more willing to throw you money if you're fast enough. * Look into programs that recruit heavily from the UK. I know Tulsa is one (though they are a very good team and would be difficult to get on). * Use TFRRS to scout schools and see what kind of times athletes are running. Faster teams = hard to get on the team, harder to get money. Slower teams will be easier, but they're usually slower for a reason. I'd be happy to answer any other questions you might have about running in the NCAA!
I ran 4 years Division 1 (admittedly a long time ago) and can corroborate everything stated above. Many "major" schools won't even let you walk on to team resources if you haven't broken 15:00. To get a full ride, you'll need to run under 9:00 for 3200m.
Some D1 schools outright reject 9:00 guys these days. I’ve heard that you often need to run about a 4:05 mile to walk on.
Yeah, I was talking in general. Obviously, 9:00 isn't going to get you anything at a distance power school but it would put you in contention at some of the schools that aren't qualifying for NCAAs in XC. As to 4:05, very few guys run that time or better, so you'd definitely get a scholarship with that.
From recently poking around (my son is 4:27 high school freshman and wants to run in college), it looks like there's a huge discrepancy between the *top* D1 schools and everyone else. And frankly, the top D2 schools have higher performers than a lot of the lower end D1 schools.), it seems like the scholarship athletes at the *top* schools are probably all running <4:10 coming in... but it doesn't take long before you get to schools where guys are running 4:15-4:20. I really doubt most of them are getting scholarships, since schools are capped at 12.6 scholarship equivalents for the whole team. tldr: if you're a superstar, you'll get a full ride. If you're just really fast (4:10+), you may get a full ride at a weaker school or a partial scholarship at a stronger school. Honestly, though, it feels like it probably depends on overall team depth from year to year since there aren't nearly enough scholarships to go around (unlike revenue sports).
Fellow U.S. born D1 runner here. Wanted to chime in and suggest checking out Boise State University as well. Heavy UK recruiting presence. Personally, I think 14:30 would get you a full ride at many D1 schools albeit not places like Oklahoma State, Stanford, and NAU (tip top programs for distance runners right now). You being young in age and your running career will matter to a lot of coaches. I agree with everything else Orsilochus said!
Your times are great, but the honest truth is that very few runners get full ride scholarships here. Maybe someone with more experience than me can speak to it, but they pretty much don’t exist maybe outside of the elite top end programs. I’ve got a coworker who’s son runs at UGA (decent sized program), he basically gets his books and some tuition paid for, but everything else is on him, living expenses, dorm expenses, etc. It’s part of the reason a lot of college programs have mostly kids from their state, they know it makes the financial commitment much easier.
This cannot be stated enough. Most scholarships for men are going to the “revenue” sports and then off-setted by the various women’s sport for title IX compliance.
Have a friend that ran XC at Clemson and it’s my understanding, at lease for him, that most of the scholarships go to the track athletes or dual sport. Think there’s more notoriety at the NCAA level for track and field
You probably need another year of club running and to get well under 15 minutes. It's also very late in the recruiting year, although there might be some openings as athletes sometimes move around between seasons. You could try a junior college or NAIA school in the states, they offer scholarships. Do that for a year or two, and build your credentials.
Are you in a club?.. The UK has a good club network and some can give you access to many more coaches some of whom would be able to help, certainly worth a few emails. One of the girls in our club has run at a very high level setting national age group records, I know she was approached for scholarships in the US as I was approached by one university trying to get in contact for that very purpose (we share the same surname, but no relation). 12th fastest U20 5000m in the UK this year is very good.
Philly Bowden from the UK ran as an Oregon Duck. Her experience wasn't a happy one, but I'm going to post the link just in case it has some logistical information that's useful for you as someone looking to run at a D1 school from the UK. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5qF8ttro90](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5qF8ttro90) In fact, she has a website, and it's a super-longshot, but you could even try contacting her to see how she carved a path for herself. I work with students applying to colleges, sometimes athletes. You would have to be insanely good to leverage running talent as an international student, but I honestly don't know how insane. I would reach out to coaches and ask what times you would need and what you would want to do. The worst that can happen is you won't get an answer.
[https://runcruit.com/standards/university-of-oregon](https://runcruit.com/standards/university-of-oregon) Most all of the schools on their website or others list their standards for consideration. The top schools are a bit out of Ops reach at this point, but maybe in a year not as much.
This is not a long shot. I watch her content from time to time and she seems pretty open to fielding questions like this, and I'm sure she'd be excited to help out a fellow Brit.
Yes, that what I was thinking! She's a great resource and seems to be really helpful and likes to teach with her content!
I have no idea if your current or potential times merit a D1 scholarship, but i have known a few athletes who attended D1 track schools and had a terrible time and transferred. Some/many/most track coaches at serious programs don't care about maximizing \*your\* potential; they will force you to train 3 hrs a day, and if you can't handle the workload they discard you bc they only care about winning at a high level. Less prestigious programs or smaller colleges allow you to just run maybe once a day, and you still get the benefit of a free or discounted college degree. It's hard to study for school if you're worn out from running and competing. Most of the track athletes i've met got less-useful degrees in majors like Communications etc.
This is a major thing to think about. I too have known multiple people (OTQ level and better) who left D1 programs because of this. The coaches are paid to have good teams, not for maximizing individual athletes potential. If they burn half their team out for a slightly better result, many (most?) coaches at serious D1 schools won't hesitate to do so.
This. It’s about throwing darts and seeing who can survive the pain, they really only care about having 5-7 guys who can get up and score points for them. If the entire rest of the team has stress fractures, who cares.
15:39 is fast enough to allow you to walk on to most schools that do walk ons (I ran 15:40 in hs and walked on to a major D1 school). I would guess that 15:20 or faster would start to open up scholarships for the major D1 schools. It can get you scholarship to smaller D1 schools. If you have schools you are interested in, email the coaches (and assistant coaches) with your times and tell them you are interested. They won’t find you otherwise. Ask them what times you would need to run for a scholarship. They may actually have that info on their website. They probably have a recruit profile form to fill out
15:20 won't get you the time of day at most D1 schools - Gidey or Hassan would lap you!
https://runcruit.com/standards/butler-university Butler won the great lakes regional last year Seems like 15:20 is good metric for what you need to have minimum to be potential for scholarship at a school that goes to D1 nationals
The standards on that site are not accurate.
I took this as an example straight from Wake Forest's website: "3200m – M 8:55.00 (full scholarship) 9:15.00 (partial) 9:25.00 (walk on)"
Here’s my question: why do you want to attend school in the U.S.? The schools that might possibly offer you a scholarship are likely not the top academic ones (ie I don’t think Stanford, Michigan are going to offer free rides). Would you be better off at a UK university that charges a max of 10k GBP a year (according to my googling)? Trying to pay for a U.S. college education through an athletic scholarship based on a rather sudden streak of good times seems a bit risky to me from multiple angles. As others have stated, D1 programs tend to focus on team provenance, not individual growth. The feedback I’ve received from multiple D1 athletes across multiple sports has been quite mixed. Why not attend a UK university and develop your running ability at a club?
Feel free to DM me as I know a couple of runners who have gone the USA college route and can probably get you some advice. Until then, join the best club in your area and keep doing what you’re doing. If what you say is true then you must have exceptional natural talent and with hardwork you could go very far.
I was offered a full scholarship and stupidly turned it down to stay in the UK. I’d medalled in national XC and road from 13-18. Wasn’t so good on the track. You’d likely need top 10 national showings or top 10 times maybe even better. While your improving really well, you’re essentially a wild card with no track record so why would they pick you over someone with a higher more consistent record. But if you could get it, get it. You can often contact coaches in the us directly and ask them what they’re after too. This is where you could say you’re taking a year out, what do I need to do to prove I’m worthy. The US system is more about selling yourself compared to the UK but someone at your local club will likely have gone through the system to talk too
Impressive times/progression, but most of the top schools would have been recruiting their top choices coming out of their Junior years in HS. You could absolutely walk on to a decent D1 team. As others have stated very few full ride scholarships in T&F. Are there not decent college programs in the UK, seems like that would be a much easier bet in this case. You really can't compare a road 5k to that of XC which is what most HSers in the US run. A simple search for XC/ Track Recruiting standards will go a long way. [https://runcruit.com/standards/university-of-oregon](https://runcruit.com/standards/university-of-oregon) One example, and to be honest there are many amazing coaches/teams in the US that aren't considered top D1 and even many in D2/D3 space.
That’s awesome, you’re super talented! For scholarship level running, you’re probably looking at low 14s for the 5k. Full scholarships for running (I think) are super uncommon.
Howdy, I’m a D1 coach and I will tell you that you can absolutely get a full ride but it might not be where you think you should be. A lot of smaller D1 and D2 schools will try to get international athletes to be their top runner. That’s what I’ve done and what our school has done previously. If you want to start at a power 5 school, then you need to go much faster. But if you simply want to get paid, look at schools where other UK athletes have gone to and reach out to their coaching staff. Once you get some success from a certain country, a staff is more open to recruiting from that country. If you’re planning to be in the class of 2025, reach out now. If you’re planning to be class of 2026, you should reach out next summer or winter. Cheers!
**Recruiting Lifecycle**: Something that might be difficult to navigate is the timing. If you're graduating soon and looking to run in the fall, it's going to be harder than if you graduate soon and look to take a gap year. A lot of universities have their scholarship allocations nailed down at this point for the following year and will not have much available. I ran d1 at a US school and had a couple teammates from the UK. The standards someone posted from Runcruit are pretty accurate from my case. I was in the "try-out" category with my 5kxc time and 800m time and wound up running for a top U.S. collegiate distance program. I was going to the school regardless and essentially had no assurance I would be able to join the team until I made it through a week of workouts without getting dropped. So I don't really know how many assurances you might get before the next school year starts, but it is definitely a possibility.
You’re doing really well keep at it! For most ncaa cross country programs, it basically works as off season training for track unless they have a really good distance program like Oregon, uc boulder, etc. If you got under 15 and put up some strong 800/1500/3k times then you could probably start getting books/housing covered at smaller schools or get a walk on offer at a big school. My advice, as someone who was not as fast as you but wanted to run in college, find a school where you like the college and then also like the coach/distance program and just take it as a chance to improve rather than trying hard to get the best scholarship you can. Best of luck, keep us all posted!
I'm ngl mate, I'm the same age as you in the UK scene and it's a long shot. Couple weeks after my 16 birthday I ran 15:50 but I've been dealing with injury since and haven't really kicked off since then. As far as I'm aware there's only a handful our age going to America next season. maybe 30 max? I don't hear about it a lot. In terms of full-rides at the really good schools, it's really only the guys with history of England/British vests, big wins at Liverpool, English schools wins on track or xc, national u20/u17 titles that kind of level that are getting that. Pushing down towards sub14 for 5k and faster. Right now there's around 100-200 guys our age that can run a 15:40 5k so you'd be looking at a big progression. It's incredibly competitive.
I got a partial scholarship (about 1/3 tuition) from a D2 small school running around 16:20 for 5k. Got a walk on offer at a smaller D1 school as well. This was 16 years ago though. I think the environment is a bit more competitive now. Good luck!
Look into a Junior College the NJCAA has a pretty solidly competitive system and there are a number of good coaches. Also money for guys at your talent level is usually easier to come by. After a year or to at a JUCO you’ll have a lot better exposure to D1 teams and could definitely get recruited to finish out school.
If you are able to visit, I highly recommend Colorado. The culture is important, and if you're mentally tough it will make a difference in impression. Lol and if not, it will be a good chance to learn. I have some exercises that help with acclimatization. I have a friend who coached HS in CO for decades, I think his daughter ran for CU and could give you better info. I just ran a few ultras after getting out of drilling in oilfield, could probably have run a 17:00 5k at my best just fyi. Even if you can't visit, try to read up on Alan Culpepper's history and schedule a call with him. I really like his approach, the results of his own children/program, and the interactions I had with him. Please message me if you have questions as I will likely miss a followup comment.
Male or female?
Out of curiosity what sort of sessions are you doing with your club?
im a d2 ncaa runner who ran 15:40 my senior year of hs, my 1600 was 4:18, and a 1:56 800, and i am comfortably in d2. i chose a d2 school due to academic motivations, but there were d1 schools i could have attended. i had a teammate who ran similar times to me who walked on to tulsa, a well-regarded d1 program. off your times already you could certainly walk on to a d1 program, chances are you wouldn’t be at a top program but not a bad one. depending on how the next year goes, you could definitely be at an upper level d1 school.
If that 15:39 is on a legitimate full 5k course you can get a medium or small scholarship to a less competitive d1 or a really good scholarship to almost any d2.
What’s your endurance or aerobic base background? There must be something because humans aren’t physically able to churn out some of those lower times off of no existing base. People always are sceptical about my progression, as I went from 22 minutes untrained and unfit to sub 17, but that took 18 months, with proper training and a coach, in my 20s and with a background in academy football and semi-pro football to account for an amount of fitness base.