What Is the Best 5K Time An Average American Could Optimally Be Trained To Run?

Have you seen a high school cross country race? Your percentiles would be quite different from those found at a cancer research run. The original question was about genetic potential of man, and if we are maximizing that, we start young.

Parochial boy wrote:

Given that yesterday I was told off by someone for saying that it didnt take much training to run a 5 hour marathon,I have lost all faith in human running ability. If the average person runs a 4.30 marathon off of real training then the average person is probably only capable of 23-25 minutes at the 5k.

Dude, you're calling a 16-week couch-to-marathon training program "real training", which is what a lot of those 4:30-6:00 marathoners are doing. lol.

First Good Answer wrote:

Have you seen a high school cross country race? Your percentiles would be quite different from those found at a cancer research run. The original question was about genetic potential of man, and if we are maximizing that, we start young.

Not only have I seen a high school race, I've run in them. I've also run in college races and coached high school. The genetic potential you're looking at in any of those races is far better than average when it comes to distance running. Race For The Cure is much more representative of the general population than a high school race.

But just for giggles let's look at the McQuaid Invitational, one of the biggest high school meets in New York. In 2011 the fastest time was 15:21 and the slowest was 26:46 (not counting Junior High or Sophomore races). The quick and dirty average works out to 21:00. By the way, that's a 3 mile time NOT 5K. That means if you take a group of the high school students most likely to do well in an endurance race, the average runner only runs 7:00 miles! That's not that fast. There's nothing there to suggest that the average male, even properly trained and in his prime, will ever be able to run faster than a low to mid 20 minute 5K.

Blowing.Rock Master wrote:

Race For The Cure is much more representative of the general population than a high school race.

This statement I agree with, but we are answering two different things. You are answering the thread title as you interpret it. I am answering the question in the alternate reality that the original poster set forth.

OP says:

"if every American male spent his life training to run his fastest possible 5K at the prime of his life, what would the median (50th percentile) time be"

yeah, low to mid 20 minutes sounds about right. Also, this is men and women?

The best runners have frames that are simply unattainable for normal americans. I think this is probably worth a 10% bump to an average time. Optimal muscle fiber distributions are going to cause an additional bump, as is the potential to adapt to training, burn off excess body fat, and have a skeleton that won't break down. upper body musculature, leg length vs height, ped use, starvation diets, etc, so many variables.

I think that the answer is

Men- 19 min

Women-22 min.

another question is what is the best vertical that the average person could hit after optimal training. many people would think something like 30 inches because the best people out there can hit 45 inches. The answer is probably closer to 20 inches.

average is very far from elite. people who run in high school are more gifted than the average person.

Wow, that's slow! I say 21 minutes for a guy and 23 for a woman.What a lot of letsrun posters forget is that almost all of us have chosen running as our sport because we're good at it. We're definitely not the average for running.

Blowing.Rock Master wrote:

I actually did some research, so I'm not just pulling a number out of my butt like most posters.

Using the results of the Race For The Cure in DC, the largest 5K in the country, I pulled the times for the men's 20-24 and 25-29 age groups. I threw out the times over 1 hour(it took 1 guy over 2 hours!), leaving me with 606 finishers.

The average for everyone was 29:29.

The 10th percentile was 22:05.

The 5th percentile was 20:39.

The 1st percentile was 16:32.

You might be able to train all 606 to reach the 10th percentile, that would be over a 7:00 improvement. I doubt you could get them to the 5th percentile. There's no way in hell you'd get them to the top percentile.

I'd say the fastest possible time an average American male in prime fitness could do would be 22:00.

So you're slower than average. No problem with that. In this scenario there will certainly be people who can't crack 18 or even 19 or even 20. They're below average. Lots of people are.

But the average person, in my opinion, will go sub 16 or very close.

And that big bone thing is a farce as the actual bone weight difference is only a couple of pounds, if that.

Blowing.Rock Master wrote:

I actually did some research, so I'm not just pulling a number out of my butt like most posters.

Using the results of the Race For The Cure in DC, the largest 5K in the country, I pulled the times for the men's 20-24 and 25-29 age groups. I threw out the times over 1 hour(it took 1 guy over 2 hours!), leaving me with 606 finishers.

The average for everyone was 29:29.

The 10th percentile was 22:05.

The 5th percentile was 20:39.

The 1st percentile was 16:32.

You might be able to train all 606 to reach the 10th percentile, that would be over a 7:00 improvement. I doubt you could get them to the 5th percentile. There's no way in hell you'd get them to the top percentile.

I'd say the fastest possible time an average American male in prime fitness could do would be 22:00.

This isn't research at all and is pulled just as far 'out of your butt' as any other reply.

Apparently some of you people can't read the OP.

It said the average person with OPTIMAL training for the OPTIMAL amount of time with the OPTIMAL diet at the OPTIMAL age.

Think Galen Rupp style grooming.

And you think the average person would be around 22? Honestly, some of you guys just aren't thinking.

I say about 18. People have to remember two things, which kind of balance each other out:

1)If you are "average" on your Cross Country team, you are not average, you are far above it. The sport naturally selects people who are best at it (for the most part).

2) This hypothetical society is completely different to 2012 America. From a young age, every single male is intensely training for the 5k, his only purpose in life. He has been training for about 20 years when he peaks and I think, with average talent, this can be about 18:00 on a track.

chinochino wrote:

What a lot of letsrun posters forget is that almost all of us have chosen running as our sport because we're good at it. We're definitely not the average for running.

I'm not sure that assumption is true at all.

Just listened to an post-Trials interview with Jack Daniels where he talked about the untapped talent in this country. During the interview he mentioned that he always asks a question at high school summer running camps: "Why did you take up running?" (Choices: a) got cut from another sport; b) to get in shape for another sport; c) somebody coerced me into doing it; d) I wanted to be a runner)

Only 12% answer "d".

Most of the interview applies to this discussion. Daniels sounds convinced that there is a lot more untapped talent in the US that isn't even trying running.

you guys iz crazy!

I remember a thread where we figured out the average letsrunner runs 15:45 and I'd say this is a pretty competitive, runner centric place. There is no way your average person could run under 16. Or even 18. I'll bet it would be closer to 21 min.

M

runrunner wrote:

you guys iz crazy!

I remember a thread where we figured out the average letsrunner runs 15:45 and I'd say this is a pretty competitive, runner centric place. There is no way your average person could run under 16. Or even 18. I'll bet it would be closer to 21 min.

M

again, you are simply not thinking this through.

take the average 5 year old and involve them in a myriad of sports (soccer, basketball, tennis, etc.) until the age of 12-13 where you also begin introducing a couple of miles a day two-three days a week. Continue to progressively build.

During the teen years slowly increase volume until they're reaching 70-80 miles a week by the time they're 18-19 with periodic breaks and down weeks and carefully metered intensity, careful nutritional planning and unlimited recovery time.

You're telling me that the average male that does something like that won't be able to crack 16 mins by their early 20s?

Like I said, you're just not thinking, nor is anyone else who's postulating something stupid like "20 minutes".

Humans have evolved for distance running. The average person with optimal training would DESTROY 20 minutes by an order of minutes.

Just sayin dude wrote:

Blowing.Rock Master wrote:

The same reason why I couldn't make the jump from 16:04 to 13:04, their bodies are incapable of doing it.

Why isn't your body capable of doing it?

The human body is certainly capable of doing it. Blowing Rock either hasn't read the OP or can't think logically.

Been following this one with interest. I think we need to specify at what age training will begin, since training before puberty will most definitely trigger significant epigenetic changes.

Also, would it be possible to move to altitude for at least a few years before the child hits puberty?

This one is more difficult that the usual off the couch at 35 prediction.

I tend to think most people are underestimating the orders of magnitude difference in difficulty as the times drop and that's causing them to guess too high.

We all know how hard dropping 30 seconds can be if you are at optimal racing weight and well trained already.

You do know that not everyone is going to be able to handle 70-80 miles per week, right? And when you say humans evolved for distance running . . . I'm no evolutionary biologist, but I'm guessing humans did not evolve to run 10 miles per day and do 16x400 on the track.

Why can't everyone handle 70-80 miles per week? Even if not, that is slightly irrelevant to the topic. You don't need 70-80mpw to break something as slow as 18:00+.

You don't have to do 16x400 on a track. You don't have to do 16x400 ever. Actually, I've NEVER done that workout and I've run sub 15.

The way I read this is if everyone was trained from birth to be as good as possible what would the average time. My answer around 17 minutes. Yes genetics play a role in this but the argument that we should look at the average high school person is ludicrous. A lot of those kids don't care, have been running a very short time, and there are a lot of kids at their own school that could beat them with equal training.

To look at a road race is even more stupid. So many people run charity races because it is the cool thing to do. They don't even train for them.

We are talking about giving these people optimal diet, training, altitude and everything else. The obesity rate would be basically 0 except for extreme genetic cases because their diet would be so regimented and they would be training so much. I would venture the high school senior would be running 70-80 mpw and the average college senior would be around 110-120. After that they have another 3-5 years of top end training to maximize a great 5k. Probably knocking off 125-150 a week. Their base would be huge and the fast twitch muscles would be the only real limiting factor.

Again all of this is assuming motivation and things like that don't matter. Basically they are all just robots.

Consider This wrote:

You do know that not everyone is going to be able to handle 70-80 miles per week, right? And when you say humans evolved for distance running . . . I'm no evolutionary biologist, but I'm guessing humans did not evolve to run 10 miles per day and do 16x400 on the track.

You do know what the word 'average' means, right?

You think 10 miles a day is that taxing for someone who's been running for nearly a decade (using my start at 12, progress to 70-80 mpw at 19 scenario)? That's ridiculous.

And I'm willing to bet that humans trekked, walked, ran, etc., much further than that on occasion. The point being that it's WELL WITHIN average human physiological capacity and always has been. Because it's not exploited does not mean it doesn't exist.

Do explain what exactly would limit someone from progressively building their mileage to 70 mpw over the span of nearly a decade. What physiological factor would cause them to be unable to obtain that?