It’s holding that pace for another 600 metres that’s the tricky bit.
It’s holding that pace for another 600 metres that’s the tricky bit.
Obviously that's going to vary on baseline speed and endurance.
For me 50s. I ran 5:00 at 51, 5:03 for the mile at 54, didn't run any 1000s but probably could have been under 3:00 those years. But not much after that when my times fell to the 5:10-15 range. Ran my last sub 3 marathon at 59.
speed doesn't drop faster with age than endurance. The exact opposite is true.
Aging runners stop doing speed work and adopt a long running lifestyle, and then they think turning into a hobby jogger was because of the aging instead of the jogging.
Compare the masters world records to open and the truth is revealed. Marathon 70-74 record is 174.32 minutes, open record is 120.58 minutes. Ratio is 1.446
400m 70-74 is 57.26, open is 43.03. Ratio is 1.330.
100m 70-74 is 12.59, open is 9.58. Ratio is 1.31. Even closer!
10,000m 70-74 is 38.133 minutes. Open is 26.183 minutes. Ratio is 1.45. Look at that gap!
Sheikh Yabouti wrote:
Most agree that middle schoolers and high schoolers would find the former easier as they have more raw speed and lower endurance. Older people lose that speed but can still grind out a sub-3 marathon with a lot of aerobic training. At what age does it become harder to train for a sub-3 1k over a sub-3 marathon?
Would be interested to hear the thoughts of older runners.
That’s a hard one, because I think a sub 3:00 marathon is gonna be mentally harder than a sub 3:00 K for anyone, but physically achievable is a different ballgame.
If you can run 4:47-4:49 mile pace for 1000m you are close to if not capable of breaking 5:00 for a mile, and most people have to be running interval workouts, decent mileage, and have serviceable basic speed to do that. I follow lots of former teammates/coaches on Strava that just go out and run everyday in the 7-9 minute per mile range and show up to marathons and break 3:00. Some of those people I know for a fact couldn’t even hang for a 2:24 800m, but if they shifted down to 200m repeats and 400m repeats once a week they’d do well better than that after 3-4 weeks of training. You can’t however 3-4 weeks of training BS your way to a decent marathon.
Some time in the 30s for me, I'd guess.
In my 20s, I could easily run under 3:00 for 1km, but my best marathon was 3:07. Not in the same year, but at times when my training was focused on either distance.
In my 40s, I was able to run a sub-3 marathon. Best time of 2:51 at age 46. I never tried to run a 1km then, but I'm sure I couldn't have cracked 3:00. Probably the best 5k time I could have done at that age would have been around 17:20, i.e., 3:28/km.
My own personal experience:
Never, at any time in my running days, would I have been capable of a 3:00 1k. I had a PR of 2:13 in the 800, run at age 15 in high school and probably wasn't capable of very much faster. 1600 PR of 4:57 from when I was 23.
I ran 3 marathons, and in my last ran a 2:58 and was capable of probably a lot faster - my estimation, based on my workouts and races from 5k-Half marathon before I quit running, is that I was capable of mid to upper 2:40s for the marathon. Whereas I would never have even gotten close to 3:00 in the 1k.
I just realized I was basing my post on 3 minute 1200, not 1k. Whoops...in that case, a 3 minute 1k would have been achievable for me, but not by a lot it seems. For me it was still true that a 3 hour marathon was easier to achieve than a 3 minute 1k. I imagine if I was still running now at the age of 32, I'd still be capable of both.
jack the python wrote:
at 49 I ran 2:42 1000 indoor. about the same age ran 2:35 marathon.
10 years later - the 1k seems much harder. so somewhere in there (maybe 55 - the 1K got harder for me)
interesting parallel between the two times though.
Similar for me - 2:41 1000 at 49 and a 2:34 marathon.