What is the average time of 5k that a healthy young male can reach?

My problem with all these kinds of threads are the "everyone is going to train as hard as they could" part. That's probably the most important part, and you give them a 100% motivation score immediately? That's unrealistic and not fair. Let lazy people be lazy, and if they deserve a 0% for motivation, that's what they should score.

With that said and also considered, I'd say maybe 25 minutes.

Even if everyone trained as hard as they could, 20 would still be an aggressive prediction.

Average of the mean median wrote:

Even if everyone trained as hard as they could, 20 would still be an aggressive prediction.

Yep. People aren't thinking that the average guy doesn't have even close to a runner's body. And even otherwise fit people struggle for many other reasons.

For an "average" male - in other words, if I took the first 1000 guys I saw on the street between 20-30 years old, and gave them proper training schedules and assuming they trained as hard as they could - even if you take obvious injury out of the equation, it's going to be around 22-23 minutes. And that is if they trained properly.

... I should add that those 1000 guys would be reasonably fit to begin with - i.e. not fat or anything. If I just blindly picked them regardless of weight, the "average" would be more like 25.

I started running at 82 years old after two hip replacements, smoking a pack a day for 60+ years and a steady diet of McDonald's and Schlitz. First 5K was 15:43.

The average healthy young male built like a linebacker is never going to break 20:00 for 5K. Probably not even 22:00.

bump

It really depends on the age of the person too.

I guarantee the average high school boy could be trained to break 20 in the 5k pretty easily.

20 flat. Females 23.

Believe it or not breaking 16 would class you as a genetic freak.

the key word being can what time can young healthy men reach probably 17

lollerama wrote:

Average of the mean median wrote:

Even if everyone trained as hard as they could, 20 would still be an aggressive prediction.

Yep. People aren't thinking that the average guy doesn't have even close to a runner's body.

I don't have "even close to a runner's body," and I've managed a 5K PR of 16:52. I probably should have been a linebacker or a fullback instead of a runner, but I enjoy running and spent a few years working really hard at it.

17 minutes. All but 1 of my suite mates from college who took a semester of running class broke 20 mins. They were running at most 15mpw. More like 10 avg. They were not sports material in any sense. Only one who couldn't was a chubby one but not fat. He ran like 24 minutes.

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Perfect training and everything else? Probably close to 0 seconds. Who knows what we might accomplish with perfect technological augmentations.

no runner's body here wrote:

lollerama wrote:

Yep. People aren't thinking that the average guy doesn't have even close to a runner's body.

I don't have "even close to a runner's body," and I've managed a 5K PR of 16:52. I probably should have been a linebacker or a fullback instead of a runner, but I enjoy running and spent a few years working really hard at it.

Most people don’t have an athletic body of any kind... having a body with muscle still puts you at at advantage

You letsrun lot rae privileged with genetics like somebody else mentioned in the thread.

The average person is smart enough to not dedicate themselves towards improving their 5k time.

weird wrote:

the key word being can what time can young healthy men reach probably 17

yea