What percentage of people can run a mile in under 5minutes?

I think that at least 10% of the population has or had the potential to run a five minute mile. My high school had several that could run sub-five, and I'm sure that there were many others, mostly in other sports, who had the talent but not the love for the sport. And the ability to do so - if not the desire & effort - would be even greater through the early twenties.

gilt wrote:

I think that at least 10% of the population has or had the potential to run a five minute mile. My high school had several that could run sub-five, and I'm sure that there were many others, mostly in other sports, who had the talent but not the love for the sport. And the ability to do so - if not the desire & effort - would be even greater through the early twenties.

Yup, my high school also had a handful of guys in my class (probably 3 or 4) who broke 5. I wasn't one of them - in fact I just played tennis and never ran in hs - but I ran sub 15 eventually, which is a pretty big step up from one five minute mile. I was out of high school when I first broke 5, think how many more people who never ran a step in hs who could have done similarly if they actually trained. I fluked into running when I was in college, most people with serious potential will never know it. I knew other guys who could have broken 5 for sure if they wanted, but honestly so little of the population really makes the effort in their prime years this is hard to say.

Absolute bottom end I would say 10% of guys could, given all the time and perfect training. On the high end, could be as much as 50-70%.

I would say that at least 50% of men could break 5 minutes in the mile at some point in their lives with sufficient training. out of ~40 million men between ages 15 and 35 right now, at least 20 million have the genes to run under 5 minutes in the mile.

Take a look at the US Army Physical Fitness Test. US Army personnel are self-selecting (volunteers), and so likely more athletic than the average. Also, I assume their instructors (drill sergeants?) are trying to get to get them as fit as possible. The top band in the test is 13:00 for 2 miles and that only for the 17-26 age males. Equivalently, that's slower than a 6 minute mile.

So, either the US Army fitness training is worse than hopeless, or a 5-minute mile is not ever achievable for most of the population at any age. I'll go for the second one.

With a reasonable learning sample, I can tell that less than 1% of LR posters can formulate consistant heuristical assumptions.

tits McGee wrote:

i would say at least 80% of men could do it with proper training

I think it's important to add- at some time in their lives.

I'm 57.

At one time breaking 5:00 was very easy, I did mile repeats in close to 5:00.

Into my 40's I was able to break 5:00.

Then, I just got slower. I admit, I don't train like I used to but I don't know if I could train enough to break 5:00.

Um, excuse you. I'm a 13 year old boy, and I can run a 4:37 mile. So, does that mean I'm a good miler, or does it mean that most Americans are slow. Btw, I'm Indian, so yeah.

definitely less than 1%. At my school of 2000+ kids, maybe only 6 can go sub 5.

More like 5%

My guess is that it's about 40/1000000 who can do this. That's 0.004%. Lot's of handwaving here, but a 5 minute mile is equivalent to about a 36 minute 10k. If you look at major 10k races where there are ~10000 people running there are usually only 30 or 40 people hitting those times. The region that feeds those races often has populations in the millions. So, I'm assuming that of the people who can run a 5 minute mile there will be a significant percentage attending this kind of race (a guess but maybe 25%), since it takes significant training or skill to be running that kind of time. So, depending on the % of the population that has that fitness you can make a rough estimate.

There's no way it's 1%. Remember that races select for people who run and train, and if you take a 10k race that has 10,000 participants there are not 100 people running that equivalent time, and that's only of the people who are already self-selecting for having any kind of running fitness. I doubt that 1% of the population could run a mile without stopping to walk for parts.

Dude, seriously? Do you know how easy it is to prove you are lying? You said you run a mile in the 4 30 s after a year of training, that would make you the single greatest runner in history, get a life liar.

Bigballbillyboy wrote:

Dude, seriously? Do you know how easy it is to prove you are lying? You said you run a mile in the 4 30 s after a year of training, that would make you the single greatest runner in history, get a life liar.

Right. So, I ran 4:47 in my first year of running as a freshman. I ended up focusing on the 800 in HS, but I was barely, and I do mean barely, able to walk on my college D1 team. There were 10 guys with better creds on my college team. Don't act like 4:30 is super human. Thousands of kids do that every year.

Many high schools have no 5 minute guys even though they have 25 guys on the xc team and 50 guys on the track team. I will go with the 1% estimate at some point in their lives. I estimate that it is .2% of the population at any given point.

100% if on the Alberto sauce

the reason why high schools dont have many sub 5 milers is they dont properly train for it. real XC miles, over uneven soft terrain with turns and hills, downhills, uneven surfaces etc is an exercise in agility as well as endurance. Running endless road miles, why is this mile training? Or for that matter, running repeats with short rests, even 200 meter repeats become aerobic with short rest. How often does your average high school track team do a workout like: 2x 500 meters 3x 300 meters or 4x 200 meters and really run close to max speed for each rep? I understand there is some injury risk to this but strength can be built with hill sprints barbells etc while building a base of easy miles on grass, gravel, dirt or through or hiking trails.Why should road miles exceed 50% for a race run on trails? XC is focused on the 5k and even 8k etc, many runners eventually want to marathon. Its not the same thing as the mile, which requires anaerobic as well as aerobic strength.

Skipping rope for 5 1:00 intervals would be more specific mile training than 30 minutes road tempos and other workouts longer distance runners do like progression runs. How about a progression track workout, 800s starting slow then ending in a sprint the last 100? I'm a little mad about this because I got from over 8:00 to under 6:00 speed training and then only brought it down to around the 5:30 range running at an American high school. 5:45 for two miles was a good result, but showed I was doing much more endurance and slow twitch training. I can still run about this fast running road miles, but to continue to improve, the answer is the same as it was a decade ago running in school: more hills, track and off road miles build the specific aerobic and anaerobic strength required to race at middle distances.

I am 26 and I am trying to run a sub 5:00 mile. My fastest mile ran just 2 weeks ago was 5:16.

I think the proper question we should be asking is the pragmatic one, that is, what percentage of people either now or in their prime actually have ran a sub 5:00 minute mile. It is silly to speculate what percentage of people could have.

I would guess that only1-2 percent of people have in their lifetime actually ran a sub 5:00 mile. 2 percent may seem like a small amount, but that is really only 1 out of 50 people. Considering how many people take up running, and of those that do, how many actually run a sub 5:00 mile, it should not be surprising that only 1 out of 50 prevail. I honestly think even still that 2% is generously high.

Now, if I were to speculate the latter, that is, how many people could have ran a sub 5:00 mile if properly trained from a young age, I would guess that number to be quite high, like over 80% for males. The human body is amazing and studies suggest that genetics don't contribute as much to our development as we tend to think. But this assumes the person starts training from a very very young age.

That said, this latter question is dumb. It is far cooler to have actually ran a sub 5:00 mile than to argue that you could have but didn't because you didn't have the genetic potential to do so. That is, sadly, a cop out excuse.

So get out there and run you fools!!

40 years old and ran 5:49 for a Mile today in close to 95 degree heat and heavy humidity. Far off my Mile PR but don't do any speed work and run 95% of my mileage on a treadmill. My treadmill needs some repairs so went to the local track and did a full Mile not 1600m.

Splits:

409m: 1:32

809m: 3:01

1209m: 4:25

1609m: 5:49

I can tell you if you don't train hard and are not running crazy miles and workouts a Sub 5:00 is not easy and I was a sub 4:05 guy 15 years ago. Anyone who wants to argue it will understand when they give up the dream and focus on being fit only. I also know a few sub 4 guys that cant break 6 any longer and might even struggle to break 7.

I'd guess that maybe 80,000 people could lace up this weekend and run a sub-4 mile. That's about 1 in every 100,000 people or 0.001%

Darn it... typo. It should be sub-5 mile. I REALLY hate that LetsRun doesn't have a 60 second edit feature.