Could Bekele break 15:30 for the 5K off of 5 miles a week?

I believe this is the dumbest f'cking thread i have EVER seen on this cesspool of a message board.

Go ahead and retire because I am 100% positive due to personal experience that he could EASILY. When I first started running, I was 30-40 lbs overweight and I had no idea what I was doing and my training consisted of one mile per day on the treadmill. I started at ten minutes for a mile and within five or six months I was running 6:00 for my one mile per day, my treadmill's top speed (and don't give me crap about the treadmill because my fitness was corroborated by my gym class mile runs). I stuck with that for a while and then one day I decided to see if I could go farther than a mile. I ran 1.5 a 10mph with energy left over.

In a few months, Bekele would be running 4:20 or faster per mile five days a week. Within two years, I have no doubt he could run them in 4:05.

Does that answer your question?

sub 4 dreamer wrote:

Let's assume that he is still in his early 20s and is starting from scratch. He will have no lifetime aerobic base to fall back on, as he has lived a sedentary lifestyle up to this point. He is average weight for his height. All he has is his genetics. Given 2 years to try, would this version of Bekele break 15:30 for the 5k off of 5 miles per week? If more than 2/3 of you say "yes" I am going to completely retire from anything resembling competitive running and just jog to stay fit or something.

Oh, and BTW, no cross-training is allowed. The 5 miles a week is the only physical activity he gets.

so he can't walk, or climb stairs or lift objects?

you f***

btw, I say yes, if he did nothing but work at 5k pace and faster, he could break 15:30.

His 5k pace is like 3:58 a mile though....

I don't think he would! Don't be stupid.Unless that was a weekly 3 mile run and 2 sets of 200's over a load of other sports or maybe even just twice a week 2.5 miles worth of vo2max reps again with a lot of other sports he might. But not just with running alone.

Didn't Abdi run around 15:30 in his first 5k after only a week or two of training?

Bekele and many others could run 15:30 off 0 mpw.

I find such clames hard to be true unless they come from another sport with a good conditioning program. But even then 15'30" would be far fetched.

Reality would be to look for Jim spivey and how he progressed when running. Maybe it would go faster with an untrained bekele but personally i doubt it.

Same goes for Jim ryun, he needed time to and today he would be right up there with the other good runners.

The reason why those guys are far beyond us is GOOD training YEARS beyond your training SECOND to GOOD PARENTS.

If you where with a good coach and even with little talent you could still come to a level most people couldn't touch even if they trained hard and you took a relative break.

Look at ritz he isn't the old ritz anymore like some of you still think, he has new conditioning build over the year.

Tri-guy wrote:

I find such clames hard to be true unless they come from another sport with a good conditioning program. But even then 15'30" would be far fetched.

Reality would be to look for Jim spivey and how he progressed when running. Maybe it would go faster with an untrained bekele but personally i doubt it.

I'm not sure what Mark Nenow ran to win the Minnesota state XC meet after six weeks of training, but he did run 9:17 for 2 miles the next spring.

sub 4 dreamer wrote:

"I am going to completely retire from anything resembling competitive running and just jog to stay fit or something."

fallacy

If you just jog, just jogging gets hard

truth is we average guy have to train hard and do intervals just to be crappy

ha ha

How many race efforts does he get? Racing a 5K each week would be a good VO2 workout, and he'd improve. Or something like 4 X 1K hard, and another day with an easy 3K workout or so.

Wow, you VO2 max geeks are really stupid.

My vote. Of course he's could. We're talking talent here.

6/10

This is the stupidest forum i have ever seen. If you possibly think that he could run 15:30 with absolutly no training(or 5 miles per week), you are dumb. Of course he has talent, he holds world records for goodness sake, but he didnt get there by relying merely on his natural talent. letsrun is known for having some of the stupidest threads in the world but this beats them all.

My answer is most definently no

He absolutely could do it. Abdi ran 15 flat off of one week of training in college. He didn't run high school either.

I ran low 16s on a 5k (accurate but easy) XC course my freshman year of high school off of virtually no training. I don't consider myself particularly talented either.

"He will have no lifetime aerobic base to fall back on, as he has lived a sedentary lifestyle up to this point."

If he grew up in Ethiopea, then yes.

If he grew up in America, then no.

Genetics would probaby get him to 15:30 with minimal effort. He could probably take 30 minute strolls with your gf for a few weeks and pop a 15:30 from the adaptation. It's the same reason why out of shape 40 year old fatsos who never ran anything their whole life can pop out a 3:40 marathon within a year of getting off the couch. Of course everyone claims its hard work.

Bekele could stop running for a year entirely and break 15:30 you moron. I give you 0/10 for your lame trolling efforts.