Competitive Opportunities in Running 

If you are on an elite track program, your racing is pretty well set after college. While in college, though, is where some of the differences lie, especially in the US

Going the Distance

In the NCAA, the collegiate running year is broken into three seasons: cross country in the fall, indoor track in winter, and outdoor track in the spring. Cross country athletes, primarily distance runners on the track as well, will typically race a distance of 5 or 6 kilometers for women, and 8 to 10 kilometers for men. When these same athletes return to the track, they will be running the same distance regardless of gender, either the 3000m, 5000m, or 10,000m. 

The idea to change the cross country distances has come up in many circles. There has been a push in Ontario, Canada to equalize the race distances to bring them to the international standard of 10km for both genders. In 2015, Queen's University (Toronto) cross country coach Steve Boyd put forward a motion to equalize the race distances at the collegiate level, but he was shot down. 

A similar motion failed at a Western Athletic Conference (WAC) coaches meeting a couple of years ago, where University of Seattle head coach Trisha Steidl had a motion to increase their women's conference championship distance from 5k to 6k. Many coaches who opposed the change felt that they were going to burn out their women for nationals if they raced the extra distance. 

From an athletes view, University of Vermont graduate Mary Kate Cirelli feels that not racing the longer distance at least once during the season is more challenging to runners.

"If you run 5ks all year, you're like 'Oh my god I've got my 5k down, what do I do with this extra kilometer?'"

Change in the works

This year marks the first year where the IAAF World Cross Country Championships had the senior men and women competing at the same distance of 10k. In editions past, the senior men would race 12k, senior women and junior men 8k, and junior women 6k. The junior distances have remained the same, but changes there may be coming soon.

In a similar event, the World Mountain Running Congress passed legislation for future championships this winter calling for the equalization of distance and team sizes. In an effort pushed by mountain running champion Kasie Enman and Team USA junior coach Paul Kirsch, the distances for future championships will change from 4k for junior women, 8k for junior men and senior women, and 12k for senior men, to 5-6k for the junior races and 10-12k for the seniors. Many eastern bloc countries pushed back against the proposal, which also leveled the team size at 4 per age per gender, shrinking the men's teams but growing the women's teams, which Kirsch and Enman attribute to these nations not having as much depth in their programs to field larger teams and opting to focus on developing a stronger men's program.