ian edwards wrote:
The "yet" is the key part of that sentence. I would be.. but thats a different story.
Does that story involve you being a total moron in your approach to training and running in general?
ian edwards wrote:
The "yet" is the key part of that sentence. I would be.. but thats a different story.
Does that story involve you being a total moron in your approach to training and running in general?
I ran for 2 Pac 10 teams; during the years I ran whichever team I was on was placed (or was ranked) top 20 in XC at years end.
At the first school (larger), I was approximately the 12th or 13th man in XC and maybe the 10th best 5k runner with PR of 15:50 (yeah I sucked). There were probably 20 people on the team running the 5k. I ran that as a FR and never improved. Anyone under 15 was considered to be a stud. If you were in the 15:20 zone you were "almost good". We had 3 guys in the sub 14 zone and only 5 under 15 though some of our 1500 runners could have broke 15.
Other smaller colleges might have 1-2 good guys ahead of you and a whole pack of people behind you (mid 16's to 17s). I was never a mid-packer in XC, I usually finished in the top 25% of finishers and I really did not run well.
At the second school I was 8th man in XC and the 5th best 5k (though would be 8th if all the other XC guys ran the 5k). I improved my PR to 15:45 and was probably in shape for 15:30 but never ran that fast. There were some people on our team behind me.
This was during the early 90s so times have improved.
I think I was about the cutoff where everyone on my team (both teams) who was slower than me was not taken seriously. I believe my coaches took me seriously and did not want me to go away, but I did not have great success with college running (always overtraining trying to get in sub 15 shape).
I'm sure the real average is slower than 16 minutes, but the word "average" on my teams probably meant 15:20-15:40 (I'd say 5 minute mile pace is the good cutoff).
Phenom Man wrote:
There are lots of guys out there who like to run that don't have the greatest natural talent in the world.
Just because they like to run doesn't mean they tried hard enough. If they didn't run pver 100 miles a week for a few seasons, they didn't try hard enough.
ian edwards wrote:
The "yet" is the key part of that sentence. I would be.. but thats a different story.
That sounds like an excuse coming, Ian.
Are you for real? A large part of running 100 mile weeks is a form of talent (not getting injured) that lots of people, especially by college, do not have.
Here is a link to all performances through directathletics for the year. Someone needs to click on every team, copy all of the times to an excel spreadsheet, and take the average.
My guess is somewhere around 16:00-16:30.
SelfExteemtion wrote:
Runners have the lowest self esteem of any athletes I have ever known. If you asked almost any basketball player in HS or even a mediocre college player, they would probably say they were above average or on their way to the NBA. A runner on the other hand, thinks whatever he has run is below average unless he was a D1 All American.
I think you're on to something here. We really are a group of nerdy, overanalytical, probably introverted people in a way that many (most?) competitive team sports athletes are not.
Food for thought.
Stats from this past indoor season based on the numbers people have been throwing around:
Runners under 15:00 for 5k
D1: 356
D2: 61
D3: 56
Under 4:20 for the mile
D1: Over 500
D2: 88
D3: 109
Under 1:55 for 800
D1: 468
D2: 56
D3: 34
There are ~20,000 male track athletes in the NCAA (all levels), taking sprinters into account, there are still over 12,000 cross country runners. By these numbers 15:00, 4:20 and 1:55 seem to be well above average.
I have been wondering this recently, did a letsrun search, and this was the first thread that popped up.
What's the verdict?
15:00 is about average for D-1?
16:00 counting all divisions?
Athletic.net provides a list of every 5000m result in all the college meets that use it (i.e. most of them). Here are the median times for 2012:
D1 (801 total): 401. Andrew Snyder 15:02.69a Jr CA UC Irvine Ben Brown Sat, Mar 10
D3 (604 total): 302. Paul Kwak 15:55.64a Sr IL Illinois Wesleyan Wheaton Twilight Sat, Apr 14
All of NCAA (1719 total): 860. Garrett Patrick 15:31.49a Fr MO Washington U in St. Louis Washington University Invitational Fri, Mar 30
So people saying 15:00, 15:30, and 16:00 respectively are probably right. People saying 14:10 are idiots who don't know what "average" is.
Also worth noting is that the "average" in some events are much worse, since mediocre, injured, new etc college athletes run some events more than the 5k and 10k.
If by average you mean the mean, you're also way off. There are no college runners running 2 minutes faster than Snyder, but there are hundred 2 minutes slower.
crazy raisin wrote:
Athletic.net provides a list of every 5000m result in all the college meets that use it (i.e. most of them). Here are the median times for 2012:
D1 (801 total): 401. Andrew Snyder 15:02.69a Jr CA UC Irvine Ben Brown Sat, Mar 10
D3 (604 total): 302. Paul Kwak 15:55.64a Sr IL Illinois Wesleyan Wheaton Twilight Sat, Apr 14
All of NCAA (1719 total): 860. Garrett Patrick 15:31.49a Fr MO Washington U in St. Louis Washington University Invitational Fri, Mar 30
So people saying 15:00, 15:30, and 16:00 respectively are probably right. People saying 14:10 are idiots who don't know what "average" is.
Also worth noting is that the "average" in some events are much worse, since mediocre, injured, new etc college athletes run some events more than the 5k and 10k.
Someone above pointed out that using decending order lists would be much better than all race performances. This is very much correct as PR/SB is what most of us use when making these comparisions. I'll also add that some of this data might be flawed in that it includes more than just 5000m specialists (like a mid-d guy getting in some over distance racing earlier in the season). So, if I use my PR to compare to a list of random, perhaps tactical races run by non-5000m specialists not at their peak, I am pleased that I am above average, but I may not even be that good a 5k guy.
Just another observation.
The criteria I like is "did you score in your conference meet?"
If you didn't, you are probably a little below average for the level you chose to run at.
Ur arrogant af. U know good and we'll 15.50 is good ur just fishing for compliments.
Runner52 wrote:
Ur arrogant af. U know good and we'll 15.50 is good ur just fishing for compliments.
Are you aware you're replying to a post that's almost four years old?
How did he even find it?
a lot of shitty runners wrote:
At my school you'll get cut if you can't break 15. I'd say about 14:30 is average. Just because a lot of people suck doesn't mean 14:30 is any good.
Yes it does. There isn't a 5k time that's inherently "good". It's all relative.
El Mastero wrote:
Average college guy, as in anyone in college. 25-30min
This.
15:00-:20 av
15:25-16 below av
1630- terrible
To get all distance runners times, not just 5k specialists, I took my D3 conference's median finisher at the cross country championships from the last 10 years. Averaged their 8ks. Converted that time to 5k (17:23). I'm a middle distance runner(but apparently above average for cc too) so i dont know a lot about xc to track conversions, but i think 17:00 is a safe track 5k estimate. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Well the mathematical average would be infinite since there are dnf's.
I’m a D2 female runner. Our coach explicitly told us not to visit LetsRun forums.
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