What % of the 7 billion people on earth that can't run a sub 5 mile?

Mile time wrote:

Just wondering

Like 1% can't run a sub 5 minute mile. So easy man. You don't need any talent to break 5 let alone 4:30.

You'd have to break those numbers down using age, gender, weight, training vs no training, physical makeup, etc to get an acurate number. For instance I'm sure with a little training when I was in hs I would have broke 5 fairly easily but I didn't start running until age 33. I've trained fairly hard in my 40s and 50s and the closest I came was 5:09 at age 49. Never attempted a mile until late in my 40s.

If I've done it, but can't do it now, does that count?

In my high school, of about 1200 people, we had about 4 who actually broke 5 minutes, and maybe another 2 or 3 who were close, and another 3 or 4 who could have, that didn't run track. And we weren't a particular strong school.

That's about 1% without trying. I'd bet a larger percentage, like 4-5%, of the rest could also be trained to run sub-5.

I coach at a high school and we once had 17 in one race- it was a useless, makeup dual meet at the end of the season. We got every distance runner on the team in the 1600 and had the faster guys pace the younger ones.

17 under 5:00. The opposing coach was amazed- he had a couple kids follow along and break 5:00, too.

At the point in their lives in their physical prime (i.e. A 70 year old in his or her teens or 20s, or a 2-year old in his or her teens or 20s, or 30s as the case may be):

Assuming properly trained and each person fully dedicated to the challenge

90%

[quote]runn wrote:

I coach at a high school and we once had 17 in one race- it was a useless, makeup dual meet at the end of the season. We got every distance runner on the team in the 1600 and had the faster guys pace the younger ones.

17 under 5:00. The opposing coach was amazed- he had a couple kids follow along and break 5:00, too.[/quoteI´m a college coach and in a race 17 of my runners broke 4 in the mile (see, I can lie too).

Manchester wrote:

So, rounded to the nearest 1%, about 100% of people can't break 5.

This is correct.

These types of questions always become questions within a questions. Potential means jack squat. In their physical prime I'd guess a very high majority could be trained to run sub 5....but those are fairy tail numbers.

Currently at this very moment who can go to a track and run sub 5? I would guess .1%. So 1 in 1000. That even might be too high.

As an example. ..on a military post of 20000 soldiers 1 soldier broke 5:00 at the most recent post-wide week long athletic competition (something the unit commanders take seriously....we literally get off 2-3 hours early to go "practice" whatever sport we are competing in).

So break it down by age group. Youth. High school. Military age (18-36)...ect. overall I would say 1 in 100,000 due mostly to the numbers of people over age 40.

Alan

Well we can assume that most Chinese and Indians can't, so that is a good starting point.

runningart2004 wrote:

In their physical prime I'd guess a very high majority could be trained to run sub 5.

no chance

nearly 100%

seriously, less than 1 in 100,000 could ever do it

95% is my guess.

You have to consider that half the population is female, and that a minuscule percentage of them can do it. For males, the percentage increases dramatically, but is still less than 10%. That means 95%+ cannot do it.

In my HS, I was the only guy in school who could do it. We had about 1000 kids. .1% of my HS. However, there were schools of similar size with 3-4 guys who could do it. That is still less than 1%. In colleges, the numbers are likely a tad better as percentages go, but it is still likely less than 2% there.

You realize that 80% of your high school never attempted to break 5min mile, right? Not to make you feel bad or anything ....

rekrunner wrote:

If I've done it, but can't do it now, does that count?

In my high school, of about 1200 people, we had about 4 who actually broke 5 minutes, and maybe another 2 or 3 who were close, and another 3 or 4 who could have, that didn't run track. And we weren't a particular strong school.

That's about 1% without trying. I'd bet a larger percentage, like 4-5%, of the rest could also be trained to run sub-5.

* "In my high school, I was the only one who could do it, that TRIED TO DO IT."

wish he would stop wrote:

You have to consider that half the population is female, and that a minuscule percentage of them can do it. For males, the percentage increases dramatically, but is still less than 10%. That means 95%+ cannot do it.

In my HS, I was the only guy in school who could do it. We had about 1000 kids. .1% of my HS. However, there were schools of similar size with 3-4 guys who could do it. That is still less than 1%. In colleges, the numbers are likely a tad better as percentages go, but it is still likely less than 2% there.

id bet that if forced to run track, 15% of guys in HS could break 5. i wont attempt to count females, so we'll just say 0%, since the chances would be very small. using that math, i would say if forced to run the mile competitively, 7.5% of the people on earth could run sub 5.

I'd say more like 1/3 of men would break it. It's pretty easy if you actually try.

bro science wrote:

id bet that if forced to run track, 15% of guys in HS could break 5. i wont attempt to count females, so we'll just say 0%, since the chances would be very small. using that math, i would say if forced to run the mile competitively, 7.5% of the people on earth could run sub 5.

The reason that many overestimate the % of people that could potentially or would with training break 5:00 are the following:

1. They knew kid A in HS that did break 5 and three or four other kids from football beat him in a sprint in gym, so their thinking then becomes that these other three or four could do it too if they trained ignorning that kid A might have had more distance potential or just had a bad start that day in gym class.

2. They confuse actually breaking 6 minutes with ability to break 5 minutes when the two are far apart. Since so and so ran 5-something (and that something could be 45 or 50 seconds) with only some training he surely would break 5 with more training. Well, maybe or maybe not.

3. They see people on TV break 4 minutes so they think 5 minutes must be easy. Happens a lot with the 100m - if Usain Bolt can run under 10, then surely Lebron James or (fill in fast athlete from other sport name) can break 11.