Female equivalent?????

4:30 male= 5:20-5:30 female

16 min. male= 19 min. female

It's about 1 min./mi. difference if you talking about the typical local 5K winners (16 min. vs. 19 min.). However, as you progress towards national/world record times, the difference gets closer to 30-40 sec./mi. difference.

What I mean is that if you take 100 boys age 14-16 and 100 girls age 14-16 and have them run all out after training for a few months, you will find that the boys bunch up more and that the girls string out more. You will also find that the best of the girls will outdistance their competitors by a wider margin that will the best of the boys. You will also find out that, in general, boys are faster, stronger, and less injury prone. If you test them, you'll find that the boys have more muscle mass, greater red blood cells, thicker tendons, etc.. In other words, boys have numerous physiological advantages over girls that enable more of them to perform better. But you will find a small number of girls who will outperform most of the boys. These girls will outdo the other girls by a margin far greater than the best of the boys will outdo their competitors.

rough guess wrote:

5:25; 18:40

This is right on the money.

No way is that right. How are you going to compare this to road races?!?

Go to a local club, add up the amount of men competing then add the women. Now go back and count how many minutes per day and how intensly the men are training, now do the same for women. It's not comparable.

Stop talking out of your ass

Figure about 10-12% slower

My Guess wrote:

hmmmmm wrote:

"....the nature of female sport...." What the heck does that mean? Female sports are less competitive so there is a larger spread.

Female sports are less competitive because there is a larger spread...

Sure...I guess the spread also causes them to participate less too. The problem with your statement is that when you turn around my statement you then need to provide a reason for the spread. Are you saying that the female gender inherently has greater genetic variability? There is a simple physiologic reason why men's sports are more competitive. It's called testosterone. Cut the balls off any male animal and you will get a more docile less aggressive animal.

Gç wrote:

No way is that right. How are you going to compare this to road races?!?

If you're talking about my 16 min. to 19 min. comparison, this holds true for any typical, local road race. For even smaller road races, you usually see 16:30 and 19:30 or 17:00 and 20:00. The more competitive/'elite' the road race, the narrower the gap between the male and female winners.

Yeah, but how is that relevant towards comparing a 4:30 men's mile? Comparing potential between men and women at local road races is like me comparing the 100th fastest American at 5k with the 100th fastest Iraqi at 5k. Of course the US would kill Iraq at a 5k face off, but does that mean we have better potential?

I just ran it by the Dye voo-doo machine

4:30 Boys mile=83 percentile

5:10 Girlsmile=82 percentile

Big Man wrote:

equal gender amendment wrote:

Stopwatches know no difference.A 4:30 runner a 4:30 runner

I laughed so hard at this for some reason...hahaha I think it was because of the name you chose.

Thank you-my choices in order -

Bette Friedan- but she's dead 16 or 17 years now.

Gloria Steinem-but she has been married for the last 7 years or so...and I swear I saw an over-the-shoulder-bolder- holder strap peeking out from her dress a time or two.

homme moyen sen suel- but that's too close to the truth !!!

I think you have to use adults, or at least college athletes, to accurately compare. Otherwise, you're introducing the fact that the females are fully grown while the males are still getting bigger and stronger. 15:44 is more impressive for an adolescent male versus one fully grown. Women's improvement curves are far less steep during those years or may even decline in the general population as they age due to strength to weight ratios caused by their development.

Very good point, Betty.

These are very similar times to what I ran, while running at a D3 college and I was the #6 runner on the XC team. the # 6 runner on the woman's team probably ran 5:20 and 19:00. Both our mens and woman's team made it to D3 XC nationals, so take that for what it is worth.

Gç wrote:

Yeah, but how is that relevant towards comparing a 4:30 men's mile? Comparing potential between men and women at local road races is like me comparing the 100th fastest American at 5k with the 100th fastest Iraqi at 5k. Of course the US would kill Iraq at a 5k face off, but does that mean we have better potential?

I was answering the original poster's question (4:30 mile and 15:45 5K for a male), which is equivalent to 'local talent' and around the point where 1 min./mi. difference holds true. As the times get faster, the gap narrows closer to 30-40 sec./mi. difference. You are wayyyyy off with your comparison of 4:55/17:15 for a female! 4:55/17:15 are good enough to place a female at any average college conference meet.... a 4:30/15:45 male would be a D1 walk-on.

Yes, I know. Look a couple of posts down. "Local talent" is unimportant.

>>M: 3'26"00 / 4:10.0 (4:30.0)

>>W: 3'50"46 / 4:39.7 (5:02.1)

>>M: 12'37"35 / 15:44.0

>>W: 14'24"53 / 17:57.6

>>So 5:02/17:57.6, I was definately way off with the 5k before.

Betty Friedan wrote:

I think you have to use adults, or at least college athletes, to accurately compare. Otherwise, you're introducing the fact that the females are fully grown while the males are still getting bigger and stronger. 15:44 is more impressive for an adolescent male versus one fully grown. Women's improvement curves are far less steep during those years or may even decline in the general population as they age due to strength to weight ratios caused by their development.

That is the only place I could find some non- emperical numbers.Those times are so high school looking on their face no reason to not look at a place where the data is available ie Dyes Voo-doo machine.

I agree that we have different curves (sic)working here. But while our gestalt may be on target it is still emperical and I was adding hard numbers to the mix.When Paula ran 2:15 some stat dudes came up with the average differentials for all events on a T&FNews thread, If some one wants to search Current Events on that site I'd love to see those figures again- but Ashford vrs Calvin Smith give about the same as Paula vrs Tergat,8% slower while the mile looks soft at 13% slower Mastracova vrs El G

Some one else can crunch the college leaders but the front ends at any age are outliers while the 4;30-XXX is within the body of the bellish curve no matter the age.

No, you can't use the difference between world records to compare any times. The men taper off.... the women at the top physically defy the 'typical woman' (~narrower hips, less body fat) and are therefore able to narrow the 'gap'. It's not just training. Again, I say the difference is 30-40 sec./mi. when comparing faster times and 1 min./mi. when comparing slower times.

QUOTE>>>>>....... the front ends at any age are outliers while the 4;30-XXX is within the body of the bellish curve no matter the age.END QUOTE

JAGUAR#1 looks like ERA agrees with you but until we "KNOW" where on the scale a 4:30 time of all men lies we can not figure out what time to assign to the equal percentile female.

If 4;30 is 16% slower than WR on the M side 4:56 is about 16% behind the WR on the F side.

But it seems to me that percentile is the way to go not the percent lag.

........................ wrote:

Those are good highschool PRs for a decent guy. Similar for a girl I would say are low-mid 18's and 5:teens

*****We have a winner!!!