The Correlation Between Soceer and Track

        In my three years of high school running, I have noticed a pretty distinct pattern when it comes to competitive distance runners and soccer players, and that correlation is that they are often one and the same. Many soccer players who go on to be runners find that they are fairly decent at it, but that is really not all that surprising I suppose.

        Soccer involves a lot of running, so kids who have been playing all their lives have already built up a pretty good endurance base. They already know how to run and push themselves for the most part, though of course there is a difference in the mentality required and the pacing of cross country verses the starting and sprinting that makes up soccer.  
         Many of the friends that I played for years with on my soccer team are now some of my greatest competition, and several are too fast for me to even compete with at this point. The speed and strength that soccer players built up from years of playing the game now help them to get to the level they are at much quicker than many others on their team who were not exposed to this level of physicality from such a young age. That this is not to say that soccer players have a huge advantage over non-soccer players on the competitive levels of the track community, but soccer players are generally more likely to join cross country or track in the first place because they have been exposed to running and are more likely to start out at a more competitive level because they are probably at a high decent fitness level already. However once people get to the competitive level, the playing field levels out and everyone is always striving to lower their times and improve their fitness no matter where they started at.