Nothing wrong with a 20:44 5k, but starting a thread just to bash people who criticize it is just feeding the trolls. Seems like going out of your way to post this just announces that the trolls got to you when you could be using that time to do something productive
It's not about feeding trolls, it's about stating an objective fact. Some of the trolls are miserable and never run. The mere thought of a 5km terrifies them.
If some posters would get off their asses and run a 5km,
they may find more meaning in their lives.
It depends on what you mean by criticize. For a healthy person between the age of 15 to even as old as 80, a 20:44 5k is a fair indicator that the person is in relatively good shape, especially considering the level of obesity and inactivity with a lot of Americans and some Europeans. But if you mean that it deserves any praise beyond that, I disagree and it is perfectly fine to criticize somebody who is actually seriously competing and can only run 20:44. 20:44 is slow for both men and women who are attempting to compete. To say that a time that slow is beyond criticism is akin to the celebration of mediocrity. Nobody would celebrate a pizza delivery man or an entry level bookkeeper. Millions of people do these jobs and there isn’t anything unique about someone doing an unspectacular job everyday that most people can do. You wouldn’t give a trophy to a mid level salesperson. The average shouldn’t be given recognition. The exceptional should be awarded. It is all relative to the person’s ability of course. If somebody with cancer or ALS runs that time, it’s an accomplishment. If a 4:05 miler can only run 20:44, then the odds are he is just being lazy and isn’t putting in any effort.
I've only been training a tiny fraction of what dedicated runners do, yet I can do a 40s 300m dash or a 5:40 mile given a a couple days of rest before, and I have a 26.4 bmi
it's about how old you are, too. A 20:44 is a great time for new runners, older folks, people like the army weightlifter kid trying to get fast for training, but for your typical young ectomorph forum dweller who has been training for 1-2 years, it's a mid AF time
If some posters would get off their asses and run a 5km,
they may find more meaning in their lives.
It depends on what you mean by criticize. For a healthy person between the age of 15 to even as old as 80, a 20:44 5k is a fair indicator that the person is in relatively good shape, especially considering the level of obesity and inactivity with a lot of Americans and some Europeans. But if you mean that it deserves any praise beyond that, I disagree and it is perfectly fine to criticize somebody who is actually seriously competing and can only run 20:44. 20:44 is slow for both men and women who are attempting to compete. To say that a time that slow is beyond criticism is akin to the celebration of mediocrity. Nobody would celebrate a pizza delivery man or an entry level bookkeeper. Millions of people do these jobs and there isn’t anything unique about someone doing an unspectacular job everyday that most people can do. You wouldn’t give a trophy to a mid level salesperson. The average shouldn’t be given recognition. The exceptional should be awarded. It is all relative to the person’s ability of course. If somebody with cancer or ALS runs that time, it’s an accomplishment. If a 4:05 miler can only run 20:44, then the odds are he is just being lazy and isn’t putting in any effort.
20:44 without running a step in the 2 weeks prior, deliberately slowing down the last 1km, hopping across the finish line for fun and off no structured training in your late 30s is excellent.