Which event should I specialize in?

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Anyone??

Are you interested in running collegiately or just for fun? And if you are looking to run in college, what division?

You should run the 5k. Find the biggest 5k road races in your area and train for them. You could do some road miles and road 10ks too, but try to run a good 5k time.

What is your assigned at birth gender? Is that still your current gender?

You could be the best screenwriter on this forum.

are you accepted at a D3? you're not making 99.99% of D1s as a walkon. there are a tiny amount of schools that need XC bodies where the program seems on life support, that might take anyone.

some D3 are run more like D1s and you'd be begging your way on the team, pigeonholed and channeled. some D3 at small schools there aren't enough bodies, or the coach likes to experiment, and you might be able to ask the coach to try stuff. my D3 i was gonna run relays per orders but i had some ability to ask the coach to move me around on my individual event.

so some schools you might be able to ask to try sprints. others not so much. you'd be dead last running short sprints for sure. you could force the change for fun and see what happens. right team might let you do it. don't know where you got in so not sure if it's that kind of loosey goosey team.

personally, if you're tall, i'd suggest something like 110H or 400H. hurdles there is some value to being tall and good technique even if you're not super fast. javelin and hammer many states don't have in HS so a lot of people are starting fresh.

you don't even necessarily have to "pick one." tell the coach you'd like to learn a new field event or two and aren't really sure you ran the right distance in HS.

Triathlon

short version, you have it backwards -- you SHOULDN'T SPECIALIZE. if you're not sure you were correctly channeled as a kid, you go back to zero and ask to experiment. maybe ask to spend indoor trying new events.

last point, if you plan on running even D3 college XC or TF you need to get on the horn to the coach NOW. XC starts in a few weeks and you'd need to at least be not completely out of shape. TF may start practicing as early as november and some schools will have a cut and other schools they'll want to know you're coming for roster/budget purposes.

No, I am going to a D1 school 100% for academics. I want to join the run club and be competitive on the team. Maybe not freshman year but if I work hard to drop time, at least by sophomore year

Totally understand I won't be walking on D1. I just want to get back into running competitively in the run club at my college (D1). But I also want to get really good at calisthenics and very ambitiously want to dunk, which is why I'm not sure if I can even do these goals simultaneously.

I'm only 5'9-10" ish so hurdles is probably out of the question

I don't even know if run club has a coach, but I will definitely be letting the club leaders know I don't think I ran the right distance in HS. The only question is what should I focus on now? Or should I just build a base this summer?

So what should I do this summer then? Would you recommend just building a base with maybe 1 or 2 workouts per week? I'm not sure what to do because I might be better at sprints or middle distance so I don't want to waste my summer building a huge base if it would hurt me in the fall, winter, and spring

Also was wondering about if I have to add lifting or if a robust calisthenics program would suffice? I just don't want the lifting to interfere with my calisthenics or to make me sore for running

For me 5K is more like long distance rather than middle distance because I just finished high school xc. Do you know if they have 5K in run club? Obviously xc is the 8K but I'm asking about for track season

first off, club track don't assume the school pays for everything. school will fund x. club may ask you for y fee to join. or you may be paying as you go. you may have to cover travel, lodging, your portion of entry fees, food, drinks, uniform, spikes, implements, etc. some schools may have/cover some of this. others may not.

second, club running will likely be more at your direction. the club will facilitate what you want. you tell them what you want. now if what you want is to experiment a little, either within a meet or meet to meet, ideally you tell them that up front, because they may start making assumptions based on your first meet -- but not if you tell them you are going walkabout a little.

third, any coaching you are going to get will be limited. like a fellow member showing you some ropes. but they won't be like a real coach. you could seek out coaching independent of the team. i say this because some events are pretty technical and you need to know what you're doing, for success and perhaps even safety. you could adjust the distance you run without a coach easier than you could pick up something like javelin or hammer and do it well and not hurt yourself.

this is to say, unless you seek out some external coaching -- say, an adult club team coach in the USATF system as opposed to some faculty advisor or team president -- you're gonna limit your ability to actually play around. you can tell them to run you 100m. it's not gonna be pretty.

some clubs just do a regional or state meet. some compete in college meets. be advised you do some real college meet and are getting cute with no real coaching, you may get waxed. but you will probably have the power to make them let you try.

last, without a coach i wouldn't try hurdles. however i could handle the 36" low hurdles fine. the 42" 110 hurdles are a different thing. there are some world class 5'9" high hurdlers but not many. but they are usually technical marvels. you aren't going to be a technical marvel without coaching. but the reason i proposed hurdles is some hurdlers aren't all that fast. but sprinters will be nearly uniformly pretty quick if not blazing in D3 settings, and if your club does D1 meets, it will put HS to shame, not many people will be over 11 in a 100.

if you wanted some serious reboot of your abilities in some other event with serious coaching and support, you needed to do varsity at D3. or to seek out some sort of adult club with actual coaching, in parallel. to be college club is going to be more like a group getting together to have fun with some guys who once were serious and train hard, who can pass on plans, or tell others what practices to run, but they aren't gonna be able to teach you to do hurdles or throw discus.......or likely even teach you the elements of improving a sprint time, the little things.

Do the decathlon