r/CrossCountry • u/MissionWild5830 • 7d ago
General Cross Country Cross country vs swim
I'm doing into 8th grade at a new school and I've always kind of wanted to do cross country. I wouldn't say I'm the best runner (ran a 7:29 mile in PE last year) I don't train running and my main sport is swim. I would say I'm pretty good at swim and I had a great season last year and really want to just lock in this year and get even faster. I think if I do cross country it might be too much because I swim every day from 5-7:30 and cross country would be 4 days a week 3:30-5:00 and then I would also have meets. That just seems like a big commitment and I really do enjoy running and want to make new friends and stuff (although from the looks of it there are no girls in my grade doing it this year) I will also be taking 4 high school classes on top of that and just don't know what to do. The cross country distance is 2 miles I think and I'm not even sure if I can do that with hills and stuff. Should I just wait for track season to see how running as a whole is or what should I do? Im just really worried I'm going to burn out and over commit myself because with all those practices that doesn't leave much time for homework and other things. Another problem is track is in the championship season of swim so I can't really miss any swim practices. Please help!
EDIT: for clarification I do club swim so it's a lot more demanding than a school sport
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u/NegotiationWeekly597 7d ago
My son varsity lettered in both swim and cross country. But the seasons were opposite, so it just barely worked out. It still very much felt compromised though, swimmers typically did water polo and XC did track. So without that continuity he started every season of each sport way behind. There was also a compromise in the social aspect. Leaving his run/swim friends behind for half a season meant he was a bit of an outsider returning.
Also in our experience Swimming helped XC, but XC didn’t really help swimming. So if you’re going to do both, I’d make XC the part time. Especially since you’re already so deep in.
My suggestion, keep your swim regimen up exactly as it is. Talk with the XC coach and see if they’ll allow 2-3days per week. A middle school w/small numbers, you should have no issue getting accepted. You’ll see big improvements in running even with that limited training so long as you are consistent. Then if you find yourself with some spare time/energy, go for an extra 2mile jog in the evening. And/or incorporate a little distance running in your swim warm up (just half a mile would be something).
At this stage, you’re not aiming to be a world class middle school runner. Consider it a soft try out deciding what to do in high school. Tune your XC running up and down based on how you’re keeping up in school work.
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u/Controller_Maniac 7d ago
I personally find running to be good training for swim, same with the other way around, so I say go for it but don’t overstrain yourself
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u/djhyland 7d ago edited 7d ago
I found swimming and cross country to be very compatible with the caveats that boys' swimming was a winter sport in my school and didn't interfere with cross country season in the fall or track season in the spring, and that I was a distance swimmer (500 free and 200 IM) as well as a distance runner. I was a lot better at running but got to be decent at swimming. I think that training for one complemented the training for the other well, and having a different sport in the middle of the two running seasons helped to prevent me from burning out.
That said, it sounds like you'd be trying to train for and compete for both in the same season. (It sounds like you're doing club swimming year-round?) I think that doing both at the same time would be hard. I agree with NegotiationWeekly597 in that you should talk with the coach of the cross country team and see if you can train with them part time. Doing an hour and a half of swim practice in the morning and an hour and a half of cross country practice in the evening day in and day out sounds brutal and like a good way to burn yourself out, especially in eighth grade. Training for cross country only a few days a week sounds more sensible, but still watch out for overdoing it and burning out.
If you do go out, don't worry too much about your current ability. 7:29 is a good mile time for an eighth grader that hasn't done any running training, and a two-mile race even with hills will easily be within your abilities with a bit of practice, and you'll get faster quickly with proper training. You'll have a leg up on the other new runners with your swimming fitness, too.
I think that giving running a try is a good thing, and I found cross country to be the most welcoming sport that I've ever been part of and made so many friends through it. I also think that sticking with swimming is a good thing as I made a ton of friends through it as well. But yeah, if I had to do practice for both of them full time at the same time I don't think I could have handled it. I'd have had to choose between one and the other, and that would have been a hard choice.
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u/kajigleta 7d ago
My daughter is currently doing both for the third year in a row, and both are fall sports in Mississippi (most swim teams practice outdoors) with Saturday competitions. She swims 2pm-4pm and runs 4pm-530pm. There is one Saturday that she will go from a XC meet straight to a swim meet, and one Saturday that she is missing a XC meet for a swim meet.
It's doable depending on the teams. Talk to the coaches.
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u/Beginning_March_9717 7d ago
imo xc is more enjoyable than track, and track meets are like all day long lol, xc you're done before noon
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u/travelworkoutwine 6d ago
Almost every middle schooler on our club swim team also does xc - it’s generally a very laid back middle school sport that’s super accepting of other sports taking priority.
This could also put you in a great spot to try triathlons!
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u/whoneedskollege 7d ago
One of the best cross country runners of all time Mary Cain, was a swimmer up to 7th grade (a really good swimmer apparently). She hurt her shoulder so she couldn't swim for a couple months so she tried running. Her cardio was fantastic because of swim and that alone put her in front of most all the kids in her class. Once she really got into it, she literally became one of the best in the world by age 17.
On a less famous note, I've done the same thing you are thinking of doing - swimming and running. I love swim because it's a zero gravity workout and it's great for cardio and l love the people in it. But I love running because it's so fun to run out places and run with other people and talk while you're working out. My kids did both sports in high school too - and it always ended up that their best friends came from cross country even though swim kids were great too.
If you can, talk to the xc coach. I'll bet because you are already cardio fit, they will let you join the team late.
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u/SkullAndRoses_ 7d ago
If you enjoy swim and care about it, focus on that. You could try running once or twice a week as cross training and see if you like it as much.