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

the smartest letsrunner wrote:

If raised for it from birth, with good diet, lots of activity and running sports as a child, starting some sort of running training in junior high ... you think the average person could only run 40 mpw? ~5.5 miles per day??

OK.

Asker Of Things wrote:

Fernandez can only run 50-60 mpw without getting injured and he's genetically gifted.

If your main talent in life is LONG DISTANCE RUNNING and you can't do >50mpw without getting injured, you're cursed, not gifted.

I went to a math science high school for gifted students. Many people joined the cross country team because it was coed and a relatively easy way to check the "sports participation" box on college applications. We ran 50 or 60 guys most dual meets. Nearly everyone who ran 2 seasons or more ended up breaking 20 for 5k. Most of these people didn't care much about their times and would take every opportunity to screw off during practice. Given that a cohort of people with little athletic ability can break 20 by sophomore year without much effort, I would guess that the average American male could run around 18 flat if they took training seriously for a few years.

What better place to find geeky, Aspie runners than a math science high school?

All you have to do is get 'em obsessed with tracking their mileage and bingo, 90 miles per week.

Low BMI pencil necks are clearly not the average American.

speculatin wrote:

I went to a math science high school for gifted students. Many people joined the cross country team because it was coed and a relatively easy way to check the "sports participation" box on college applications. We ran 50 or 60 guys most dual meets. Nearly everyone who ran 2 seasons or more ended up breaking 20 for 5k. Most of these people didn't care much about their times and would take every opportunity to screw off during practice. Given that a cohort of people with little athletic ability can break 20 by sophomore year without much effort, I would guess that the average American male could run around 18 flat if they took training seriously for a few years.

Good anecdote.

I say 17 minutes, 16 for men and 18 for women.

16:00

you guys definitely are a tad slow. you're saying that with optimal training the average male could run a time that would win or almost win many state cross country meets.

I talked to a varsity runner at UNCG who specialized in the 800. He could only run a 16:45. I'd think he would have more potential than average and likely close to optimal training. He just couldn't run that far at a good pace even after running xc.

I wish I had my lore of running book. my idiot friend still has my copy. the book actually goes through statistical distributions based on running potential.

(I went to science and math as well. we won the state xc meet. lot of talent and dedicated athletes.)

btw, my prediction is still 19-20 minutes. I was just saying that the 16 minute estimates were laughable.

discussion of noakes:

http://sciencebasedrunning.com/2011/07/dont-believe-every-table-you-see-noakes-on-running-potential/

actual exercpts from noakes:

http://books.google.com/books?id=wAa9qq9kbncC&pg=PA66&lpg=PA66&dq=average+running+potential&source=bl&ots=cxibHP-lhz&sig=eKVZtd1WzsQavbY8atm2gcOge5A&hl=en&sa=X&ei=lIQXT5zpD4WItwf8yciNAw&ved=0CEIQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=average%20running%20potential&f=false

a lot of a person's potential in the 5k is genetic, although you can push some levers

KPack wrote:

a lot of a person's potential in the 5k is genetic, although you can push some levers

Meh. From the glance I just took of the VO2max stuff (if that's what you're talking about). I see nothing that soundly indicates that VO2max is genetic. Does anyone know of any studies that soundly show that VO2 max is genetic? Or that fitness period is genetic?

Okay, first thing I want to address is the average race times stuff. Does anyone on here seriously think a typical midpacker trains anywhere even remotely close to their potential? I'd be suprised if even 1% do. Most midpackers I know are the types that get out and run 4 or 5 times a week for maybe 30-60 minutes. Some mileage, but not alot. Most don't get a shit about faster running like tempo's or MP work and I guarantee that the majority never set foot on a track. They are doing low(ish) mileage with almost nothing of intensity.

Many also carry around plenty of body-weight. Just go to a local 5K and take a look at the runners finishing between 23 and 30 minutes. Many are overweight, even fat, and many are more muscular builds. Their are exceptions obviously, but they are the minority by far.

Next up is HS XC results. Some people that run XC do indeed end up their because they are good runners and/or people see this and recommend trying running. These are usually the runners that quickly drop into the 16's and beyond though. Many of the kids that come out for XC really don't give 2 shits about running, or are the nonathletic ones that are only running cause they want to be involved in something but suck too much at the others. I'd argue that the general athleticism correlates with running ability; better runners are usually better athletes and I believe that most of your HS XC/Track teams consistent of a combination of people that either don't give a shit, or are plain nonathletic group.

I strongly disagree that the HS XC group selects the best runners and instead believe it selects more from the edges, attracting the people that are obviously good runners and then the ones that are not talented athletically. The median primarily ends up playing other sports at the school if they are doing anything athletic.

On most HS teams a good portion of the individuals are not motivated to run fast. They screw around in practice, don't always race or workouts hard, and rarely if ever do any more running than what the coach forces them to do in practice. And yet still most kids who stay with it, even unmotivated ones, end up breaking 20 or better. In other words they are breaking 20 doing some easy jogging 4 or 5 times a week about half the year.

As a random anecdote I have to consider one of my friends. He is about as unathletic as they come. He walks gangly, runs even more gangly, terrible hand eye coordination (he will sometimes miss completely objects thrown at him), probably has a max vertical of like 8 inches, and I doubt he could break 18 seconds in a 100m "sprint".

Maybe there is hidden "talent" for distance running in there, but I doubt it. He is the type of person when you see it's almost astonishing how bad athletically he is.

Yet still, he has worked his way over about a year and a half to running about 40-60 mpw. He likes running far, but doesn't really care or do much work to run fast. Just lots of long jogs. Even he, who I'd consider to be literally in the bottom few percent athletically, has managed to go under 21:30, and that's at 7000' altitude.

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Having stated my thoughts about some of these common examples people were bringing up I'll offer some thought on the OP.

One thing people like to talk about is the 400m speed + 8-10 seconds = mile pace per lap, with that applying to a reasonably trained runner. If you took the average person in their 20's that isn't overweight they could almost certainly run 15 seconds for a 100m, which gives them a 400m of at the very absolute least 70 seconds. So that's a mile time of somewhere between 5:12 and 5:20 which is roughly the equivalent of an 18:00 5K.

Keep in mind the OP is talking about individuals properly groomed from birth, so the actual 400m time of the hypothetical runner the OP is talking about will almost certainly be much better, especially if they are involved in general athletic activity from a young age.

Combine all this together and I think it's reasonable to say at least 18:00, maybe as low as 17:00 for the average person TRAINED FROM BIRTH.

KPack wrote:

btw, my prediction is still 19-20 minutes. I was just saying that the 16 minute estimates were laughable.

it's laughable because it makes your prs embarrassingly 'normal'?

again, trained from childhood, what physiological factors would limit an average male from training and hitting the relatively mediocre time of 16 minutes?

spell it out for us, don't just copy and paste some links.

Just sayin dude wrote:

KPack wrote:

a lot of a person's potential in the 5k is genetic, although you can push some levers

Meh. From the glance I just took of the VO2max stuff (if that's what you're talking about). I see nothing that soundly indicates that VO2max is genetic. Does anyone know of any studies that soundly show that VO2 max is genetic? Or that fitness period is genetic?

While the VO2max ceiling is regarded as being genetically limited, VO2max in and of itself can fluctuate significantly between trained and untrained states.

As for economy, there are several studies and reports detailing how elite runners' economies improved over time along with their races times even though VO2max actually decreased.

VO2max in and of itself doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot which is why there's such a huge disparity between values amongst fairly equal runners (and cyclists and rowers and whatever other endurance sport you want to throw in there).

And of course the various 'thresholds' are certainly important in determining speeds and are highly trainable as well.

This is similar to what I was trying to say a few pages ago, but I want to key in on the word "most."

Do most kids end up breaking 20:00? That is your impression, but can we prove it?

I threw out stats from my personal database. It's not the largest sample size, but I think it's worth repeating. Out of ~200 HS seniors each season for three seasons, consistently 49-54% ran under 20:00 at some point in the season.

So if you define "Most" as greater than 50%, then most seniors do break 20:00. That's all I have to say about that.

I agree completely that high school teams generally have plenty of slackers, and some teams have horrible coaching. If you buy 20:00 as the median for high school seniors right now, imagine how low that median would be driven with good coaching, larger talent pool, dedication, etc.

But of course, the OP's scenario doesn't end with high school. If that median is now 1X:00 at the end of high school, it could be 1X:00 minus one minute by age 27 or 28.

LM wrote:

One thing people like to talk about is the 400m speed + 8-10 seconds = mile pace per lap, with that applying to a reasonably trained runner. If you took the average person in their 20's that isn't overweight they could almost certainly run 15 seconds for a 100m, which gives them a 400m of at the very absolute least 70 seconds. So that's a mile time of somewhere between 5:12 and 5:20 which is roughly the equivalent of an 18:00 5K.

I don't think that correlation will work for someone who's predominantly got fast twitch muscle. LaShawn Merritt isn't going to run a 3:28-3:36 1600m no matter what training he does. I don't know what percentage of the population this is or how fast those people's speed will drop off with increased distance if they're properly trained, but I don't think you can ignore them.

ipso facto wrote:

While the VO2max ceiling is regarded as being genetically limited, VO2max in and of itself can fluctuate significantly between trained and untrained states.

This is what I'm asking about. Where is the evidence that VO2max is genetically limited?

Asker Of Things wrote:

Captain Tenneal wrote:

I would guess around 16:45 or so.

That seems pretty fast. I would say the average mileage an average person could be trained to handle would be maybe 40? I am thinking that would be a tough time to achieve with average ability on 40 mpw. I'm going to weigh in and say a time of 20:00.

20 is what came to mind to for men. I assume a relatively healthy person, not overweight (but not superthin) who sticks with it for a few years (3-4). Women, I'd say 22-23.

I'd agree with this. I would be interested though in how distance training from a relatively young age affects someone who is born with primarily fast twitch fiber.

It's all anecdotal evidence and a small sample size but probably 90% of the people from my team that ran XC for several years and weren't massive slackers ended up running under 20 at some point.

But, as you said, if 20 is our median right now (and like I argued before I really don't think those people running around 20 by senior year are generally particular good runners or athletes) just imagine what it could be with involvement in athletics of various types early and then serious build up in mileage starting in the teenage years. Then you have at least another 4-6 years+ to develop after HS.

the used to be cancer guy wrote:

20 is what came to mind to for men. I assume a relatively healthy person, not overweight (but not superthin) who sticks with it for a few years (3-4). Women, I'd say 22-23.

we're not talking about 3-4 years. we're talking about a from birth, arent we?

Just sayin dude wrote:

the used to be cancer guy wrote:

20 is what came to mind to for men. I assume a relatively healthy person, not overweight (but not superthin) who sticks with it for a few years (3-4). Women, I'd say 22-23.

we're not talking about 3-4 years. we're talking about a from birth, arent we?

I'd like to see some evidence that training from birth would help at all. Noakes thinks, in Lore of Running pp. 347-55, that training in childhood doesn't really matter, and I find his argument convincing. Don't give me anecdotal evidence about Kenyans running to school either, because there are plenty that didn't.