Running on a Varsity Cross Country Team

I ran in HS, so not quite the same.

Have you asked the coach about this?  He may or may not have an issue.

Be advised that the team is mostly likely going to be running some fairly intense sessions.  If you're new to running, I wouldn't do this.  Collegiate level XC is not really a beginner's sort of thing.

I think you're much better off with your own training.  Their training is going to be geared towards peaking for their meets, and their distances.  You may be causing more harm than good.

Collegiate x-country is a lot of tempo and interval work.  Not for the faint of heart or under-trained.  Even running on a Junior college team (US Naval Academy Prep. School) we had some pretty intense sessions racing at least every other week and sometimes every week.  Collegiate will do 8 or 10k as well, not 5k in most cases.  And depending on the quality of the team, you will be surrounded by some seriously fast runners.  At the Prep. school I was usually 5th or 6th on the team and when we went and ran against the Naval Academies Plebe team (think JV - freshman collegiate type team) there top 5 guys beat our number one guy ........ who was recruited by the Academy to run!!!!  Talk about humbling experience .......... I ran my best ever 8k up until that point that day and was 5th for our team .... and still came in like 20th place.  Most of them ran sub-30 easily.

A gazillion years ago, I ran with my very small college's xc team and loved every minute of it (even though I was the slowest on the team). It was tough with lots of intervals, hills, plyometrics, etc., every day for 2 hours or so. I hadn't considered a marathon before that, but knew I could train for and do one after that one season (the college got rid of xc after that year) and subsequently ran 14 marathons. 

I say "go for it."

Or what he said.

For me, collegiate running was too taxing on my body to try and incorporate it into triathlons.  If you're looking to improve the running, then it may work.  But if you're planning on swimming and biking at the same time, I wouldn't recommend it.  Like Daremo said though, training for a marathon or half is much different than training for an 8k.

Bottom line:  If you want to be a better runner in general, join the team.  If you want to be a better triathlete, don't.  If you want to be a better marathoner, don't.  You'll need more miles and less speed work.

Let it also be known:

College running is nothing like high school running.

IME with university varsity cross country in Canada (not sure specifically when it comes to UBC) it would probably work with your goals to have structured training, gain some experience racing and prepare for your half marathons.  As others mentioned, talk to the coach but most of the programs in Canada are going to have a wide range of athletes (from 31' 10k'ers to 40+ 10k'ers) so you would probably be able to fit in with one of the groups.

As the men's distance is 10k, the training should work well (with some minor tweaks) as you prepare for half marys but if you are really considering a marathon I would probably not pursue the x-country team as the intensity will probably prevent you from getting the volume you require.  

Also, if you are going to run x-country, there will probably be an expectation that you run middle distance during the indoor track season, especially if you have some speed.

Shane

First, thanks for all the advice!

So I had my first practice!

One: There are TONS of fast guys!  I mean I wasn't at the back, but I was solid MOP with some guys WAY out front

Two: Intervals HURT!  1200m intervals on 60 seconds rest, went 4:09/4:06 for 2 intervals before the coach told me to stop since it was my first workout!

Three: Some guys dont like to warm-up easy!   I especially noticed it with the other rookies, since they were huffing and puffing after our 25 min. warm-up and they definitely had trouble with 10 min. "steady" (pace faster then warm-up pace), not to mention the intervals

Four: I LOVED it!  Great bunch of people, even some triathletes in there!  Felt like I pushed reasonably hard on the intervals, but not TOO hard, since Sooke (Half-Iron) is this weekend!

Anyways, it was a great experience!  Can't wait for the next practice!

I'll keep you updated!