Sub 5 Mile: Tops in Human History?

I trot out this story every time this kind of thread pops up.

I work for a major university that has a nationally ranked soccer team. A couple of years ago, I watched as the coach put the team through a mile time trial on the track. One guy broke five minutes; most ran in the 5:30 to 6:00 range, and it clearly wasn't easy for them.

Yeah, haven't you guys seen soccer players in a 5k before- blasting the first 200 in 30 and then sucking wind the rest of the way. Even if much of the world isn't as heavy as the US, with a few exceptions, no one's training there either -they've got other things to worry about - like putting food on the table. Without training, Allen Iverson is the only guy out there who can just go out there and run sub5.

According to the Daniels' vDot tables a 5 minute mile equates to a vDot of 60. Let's assume vDot and VO2max are approximately equal.

According to something I found on the web (which must therefore be true) males in the age group 20-29 have an average VO2max of 43 with a standard deviation of 7. Females in that age group have an average of 36 and a standard deviation of 7.

Assuming a normal distribution 0.75% of these males and 0.03% of these females have a VO2max of 60 or higher , so something less than 0.4% of the population during their peak years is a ballpark estimate.

Maybe high school is too high a standard for the USA, to be representative of the population. But if we are talking about with no training or as someone already is, I think a fair amount of Chinese, Indians, Kenyans, Ethopians and so on could run a sub 5 mile, especially people who have been working manually, outside, for most of their lives.

Wow, well there you go. His high school apparently perfectly represents the entire world. Just extrapolate from there.

I'm not buying the assumption that people in less-developed countries are necessarily fitter than, say, US high school students. True, there is less obesity. But the advantages of not being fat are probably countered by the poor nutrition and limited medical care common in such places. Given that a large part of the body's adaptation is specific to the work done, I'm not sure that toiling in the fields is going to help much when it comes to running a mile.

WHAT...first of all we are only in our second year having a track program.. we have a state HS championship XC team (boys)

our XC captain is our best baseball player as is our best girls softball player

5 mins per mile just plain sucks unless you are an 8th grader dude

why would someone run the mile if they can only run 5 mins? they wouldnt..they would long jump or do something else.

LouSiffer wrote:

WHAT...first of all we are only in our second year having a track program.. we have a state HS championship XC team (boys)

our XC captain is our best baseball player as is our best girls softball player

5 mins per mile just plain sucks unless you are an 8th grader dude

why would someone run the mile if they can only run 5 mins? they wouldnt..they would long jump or do something else.

You must live in a fantasy world. I've seen kids work their ass off for months just trying to break 5:00. If they tried any other events they would be even worse.

5:00 doesn't suck for a HS kid that has a lot of other stuff going on in their life and doesn't have a history of running.

this whole topic is fascinating. But have any of you ever thought about what percentage of people can run a mile in under 4:59?

CA baby...do you honestly believe the best athletes run track? I wish they did but surely they dont.a 5 min mile requires modest (at most) athletic ability which is well within the capability of most average HS athletes At least in my area those who run track are either exceptionally good runners or those simply looking for an after school activity. The students who are good athletes participate in other sports. Our best running talent is not running track (sad as that may be)

bs detector wrote:

Actually, Lou Siffer, why don't you tell me which state you live in. I'll check out last year's state meet results and tell you if your 2 or 3 field hockey girls could have been state champions or not.

PR's of the current runners at the high school I graduated from (2000 students):

4:27

4:35

4:35

4:37

4:37

4:38

4:41

4:42

4:42

4:42

4:42

4:46

4:46

4:49

4:49

probably 5 or 6 more between 4:50 and 5:00 couldn't find them

So that's 15 under 4:50, probably 20 or so under 5:00. 5:00 is not difficult for high school aged kids with decent athletic ability and good training. However, high school aged kids are probably the most fit age group in the US. The numbers diminish drastically over age 25 or so.

Soccer players love to talk about how fast they are and how good they'd be at track. Truth is most of them suck at running.

My track practice today is a prime example. The slow leg of my 4x400m can't make tomorrow's meet, so I had him run a time trial. Word spread throughout school quickly and a one of soccer players started bragging that he could beat him. I let him pop in the time trial and he got slaughtered by seconds.

LouSiffer wrote:

CA baby...

do you honestly believe the best athletes run track? I wish they did but surely they dont.

a 5 min mile requires modest (at most) athletic ability which is well within the capability of most average HS athletes

At least in my area those who run track are either exceptionally good runners or those simply looking for an after school activity. The students who are good athletes participate in other sports. Our best running talent is not running track (sad as that may be)

No, I don't think the best athletes necessarily do track. I do, however, think that running sub-5 does take training for almost anyone. Therefore, I do not expect your average good athlete who plays another sport to be able to step onto a track and just run a 5 minute mile without training for it.

As for your claim that 2 or 3 field hockey/softball girls could probably run sub-5, here are some stats for you - I perused last year's Dyestat Rankings for the girls 1500, 1600, and mile, combined them, and eliminated duplicate performances and those performances that are slower equivalently than 5:00.

By my reckoning only 89 girls in the entire country ran a sub-5 mile or its equivalent last year.

21 of those girls came from CA, 11 from NY, 6 from MI, and 7 states had 3-5 girls. 13 states had only 1 or 2 girls. 27 states had zero girls capable of running a sub-5.

So now I ask you - do you think these field hockey and softball chicks who have never run a race or a track workout in their lives could seriously step into the state championship and either win or be runner-up in 40 states in the U.S.? Do you really think that? And not just 1 girl, but 2 or 3? Are you also on crack?

DIII Runner wrote:

PR's of the current runners at the high school I graduated from (2000 students):

4:27

4:35

4:35

4:37

4:37

4:38

4:41

4:42

4:42

4:42

4:42

4:46

4:46

4:49

4:49

probably 5 or 6 more between 4:50 and 5:00 couldn't find them

So that's 15 under 4:50, probably 20 or so under 5:00.

If that's true, you probably have a top notch running program. Your top 4 would run a 18:14 in a 4 x Mile. Last year at Nike Outdoor Nationals, that was good enough for 10th. 6th place was 18:01. Heck, all your school would need would be one stud (like most of the best 4 x mile teams have) at 4:15 instead of a 4:35 guy and they're under 18.

Oops, didn't see that there was a B heat. I guess 18:14 would have placed them 13th overall. Doesn't matter - that's still a sign of a very good team.

let me tell u right now, i ran 4:25 as a HS junior which was only last year, but have not ran for about 3 months seriously. i play basketball every day full court and run like crazy during the game. i am an athletic kid. i can grab a basketball rim with both hands and used to play varisty soccer for an awesome team as a frosh and let me tell u i just did a time trial this past weekend and only managed a 4:55 and i was going all out it felt. trust me wen i say maybe 900 people in the world that do not run as a sport will be able to run under 5:00 minutes, and that includes professional athletes from the NBA, european soccer, NFL wide recievers, rudgy players from australia, cyclists from the european circuit, olympic swimmers, and any one else as well as the kenyans that don't run ... that is my opinion.

one lap of the track wrote:

Maybe high school is too high a standard for the USA, to be representative of the population. But if we are talking about with no training or as someone already is, I think a fair amount of Chinese, Indians, Kenyans, Ethopians and so on could run a sub 5 mile, especially people who have been working manually, outside, for most of their lives.

Have you ever done manual labor? Even intense manual labor doesn't really get you in aerobic shape. Think of it-- would you ever recommend that someone train for the mile by digging ditches, carrying bales of hay, or pulling weeds?

Running, like all athletics, is a LUXURY item. It consumes a lot of calories and a lot of time that the substinence-level poor simply do not have.

I can guarantee you that no manual laborer in India, China, or Malaysia, which collectively account for over 1/2 of the world's population, would even begin to think of training to run sub-5's...

Stop talking about high schools as if they are the representative sample for the world.

Oh, and running a sub-5:00 mile puts you in the top .03534468% of the world.

The last digit is rounded off....sorry for the large margin of error.

agreed. If anyone stoped their trainning for even 3 months it would be extremely difficult to run a sub 5 mile. Running is by far the hardest sport in the world. The only way you can get better at it is by "running" and more running. Even lance Armstrong, the healthest man in the world, cannot run a sub 5 mile. Now Im not doubting his fitness, he is surley a very fit person, like many other atheletes. But in no way, can someone just run a sub 5minute mile without trainning for it. If Lance cant do it, then barley anyone can. The percent of people in the world who are currently phyiscally "capable" of running a mile under 5 minutes is probably around 0.08%