Talent needed for 5:30 miles?!?

Any school, anywhere... if a kid runs 20 MPW, 10 months a year, they will break 5:30 if they have a good coach. We time trial a 400 at the beginning of every season and most kids who were not runners before will run for a mile the pace they ran for that 400 by the end of the year.

WestCoach wrote:

Any school, anywhere... if a kid runs 20 MPW, 10 months a year, they will break 5:30 if they have a good coach. We time trial a 400 at the beginning of every season and most kids who were not runners before will run for a mile the pace they ran for that 400 by the end of the year.

So you're saying half of all high school kids (boys I'm assuming) can run 5:30 if they train 20 miles a week for 10 months? I say BS.

Flagpole... Generally I tend to agree with you on most things, unlike most around here. However in thsi case I must respectfully disagree. If I tokk my xc team and had them try to hit a 60mph curveball, I would reckpon they would look pretty silly. However, if I the baseball coach spent 4 years with my xc team trying to teach them to hit a 60mph curve, then I would reckon that after 4 years most would be able to (assuming they knew a curve was coming).

Same visa versa. Case in point. I have had young men join my program so they could be in shape for baseball. the previous season they were in the 7:00s. With in a year of working with them they are training 5-6 miles at what was once their mile PR. They of course can now break 5:30.

I maintain that if the runners had the right attitude and willingness to listen to their coach, and the coach had a generally idea about coaching, then most all boys should break 5;30 with 4 years of coaching.

Also to a previous poster... I brought up my girls to show that if girls albeit talented ones can do it at altitude no less, then boys should be able to as well.

I am 31, lifted weights for 10 years, only started running like 3 years ago, and was able to get to a 5:30 mile after the first year or so of training while running alone on a track. That was at 5'10" 170lbs, so I'm like the people your coach described...basically no real running talent at all. I would especially agree with his statement, as high school age guys can adapt WAY faster than guys my age. In other words - if I can do it, I'm sure the average HS kid can.

i think you guys are forgetting that he is saying most coudl do it while restricted to training at most 15 to 20 mpw...maybe they could but 5:30 seems a bit fast for everyone to be able to do it

Space Lord wrote:

I am 31, lifted weights for 10 years, only started running like 3 years ago, and was able to get to a 5:30 mile after the first year or so of training while running alone on a track. That was at 5'10" 170lbs, so I'm like the people your coach described...basically no real running talent at all. I would especially agree with his statement, as high school age guys can adapt WAY faster than guys my age. In other words - if I can do it, I'm sure the average HS kid can.

i ran 6:09 as a freshman off of about 5 miles a week- i did like 1 mile runs a couple of days a week and pussied out on most of the workouts

by senior year, in cross we were doing maybe 35 miles a week on a good week and in track we did like 15-20 miles a week. i would say that on a talent level scale, our team's talent level was -10. basically everyone broke 5:30 for the mile and many people broke 5. i think it requires about zero talent because 5 minutes is not very fast. if no one on this team has broken 5:30, id say that your team just sucks and they should all quit.

I tend to agree with him. I have little talent, had never run more than a couple of miles a week because I played basketball, and ran a 5:05 mile in my first track meet as a high school junior. I think most healthy people who are willing to train a little and put up with the discomfort of running hard for a few minutes ought to be able to run a 5:30 mile.

Flagpole,

If you read my posts again, you'll see I said 10 months PER YEAR and they will run 5:30 by senior year. Like I said, I have NEVER had an athlete fail to do this and most break 5:30 by sophomore year and g on to break 5 by senior year. Granted the ones that go sub 5 usually run 30-40 per week but eve the ow mileage will run under 5:30.

For a 5:30 mile of 20 mpw in four years of training you must be

1) only moderately disabled

2) only moderately overweight

3) enthusiastic about running and motivated

4) able to run from one end of a gymnasium to the other without stopping

When I first started I was not fit and barely coordinated enough to get out of my own way. I wouldn't have made varsity on our women's XC team at the beginning of my freshman season. No talent whatsoever and I don't think we ever cracked 30 miles in a single week. I still broke 5 minutes for the mile by the time I graduated. It requires a little dedication, but its definitely doable.

I think being a basketball player probably put you way ahead of your average non-experienced runner. Maybe you didn't have a lot miles behind you but you probably did have a lot of speedwork from basketball drills.

The points of the debate the tend to make me think less than half could run sub 5:30 is the 15 - 20 MPW limit with little speedwork.

Also, are these kids running year around or just track season? If year round then maybe after a few years they could do it.

I wish we could make every kid in school try. Maybe that should be a requirement for graduation. Four years of math, science, english and a 5:30 mile.

I wasn't the fastest person on my team.

I moved up from 15 miles a week to 80 all the way through track season, and bumped it up to 110 before the next XC season. I woke up in the morning to get a run in, every single day, seven days a week. Even on vacations.

It's pretty hard not to improve if you decide you want to run like that.

But I see your point, I'm probably not a very good example.

The local middle school, where my son goes to, had at least seven freshmen go well under 5:30 in the 8th grade without any training except running 800m in P.E. for some kind of warmup every other day.

I screwed up the last part.

edited: The local middle school, where my son went, had at least seven 8th graders run sub 5:30 without any training except for an 800m jog warmup every other day.

They're now freshmen, and easily running sub 5.

That would be talent. But almost the entire high school XC team, around 50 out of 60 kids, can run a 5:30 mile. The kids who can't are carrying 200 pounds extra weight on their stomach.

Under the conditions you have mentioned, I would tend to agree. I have said the same thing about running under 19:00 for 5K cross-country, except you need to run more miles, and it might take a couple of years to get there. There might be a few exceptions, but not many. I don't "talent" really comes into play until you starting talking about how far under 5:0017:00 someone can run.

Sean Nunn

Raytown South

i ran 5:51 in 7th grade and likely could have gone faster, and i was overweight and didn't have much of a running background.

Everyone,

I'm not saying SOME can't do it. I'm saying that MOST can't -- as in 50% or more of high school boys can not run a mile in 5:30. First of all, are you going to hold a gun to their heads and make them run 20 miles a week for 4 years? I don't even think half the high school population could even do that let alone then run a mile in 5:30.

Those of you using other athletes as examples are going to the athletic well. Most high school baseball players could probably run a 5:30 mile if forced to run 20 miles a week for 4 years. But again, those guys are at least a little bit athletic as far as running goes.

Think of all the FAT baseball players (catchers) all the fat football players (linemen), all the fat non-players, all the pasty goths and Emos, all the burnouts, the serious geeks. No freakin' way that half the boys in any high school could break 5:30. I had one of those really uncoordinated serious geeky guys on my high school team -- even had a name to go with the picture -- Nicodemus. That guy ran 30 miles a week for 4 years and then as a senior in high school in his last mile race ever as far as I know, he ran 5:58 or 5:59 -- I just know that he barely broke 6 minutes. This was a goal of his for 4 years of hard (for him) work. That's still quite a ways away from 5:30, and there are people in high school even more ill equipped than he is.

5:30 mile was as easy for me as it was for many of you. My first high school mile ever -- actually it was my first acurately timed mile (and it was the full mile, not a 1600) was 4:54. But, I also saw lots of runners who actually trained struggle to run 5:45.

Usually you runners pump yourselves up too much -- this time you're not giving yourselves enough credit. Not everyone can run a 5:30 mile. I've got a brother who ran track with me for 4 years in high school and he was a wrestler who ran all the time for that sport too, and he never broke 6:00 for a mile. He looked like a runner too. In fact people would often meet the two of us at the same time, having had heard of my reputation as a runner and assume he was me.

No way. No how can that many kids break 5:30 for a mile -- even with training that most couldn't complete anyway.

I was smoking weed every weekend, was injured all winter, had a lowly soph PR of 5:17, and was running 10-20mpw in outdoor as a junior and I still broke 5:30. It's a nice barrier if you're just getting back into shape and were only a 5:00+/- a-few-seconds-miler to begin with, but I'd agree that any boy that met the qualifications in the first post and had the right attitude could get into 5:30 shape. Especially, if they had a few races with the other guys at their level to try and do it.

One time HIGH schooler wrote:

I was smoking weed every weekend, was injured all winter, had a lowly soph PR of 5:17, and was running 10-20mpw in outdoor as a junior and I still broke 5:30. It's a nice barrier if you're just getting back into shape and were only a 5:00+/- a-few-seconds-miler to begin with, but I'd agree that any boy that met the qualifications in the first post and had the right attitude could get into 5:30 shape. Especially, if they had a few races with the other guys at their level to try and do it.

No way could most do it. I ran 4:32 in high school on about 15 miles a week -- 20 MAX, and trust me that wasn't most of the time, and I never ran on the weekends unless we had a meet on Saturday - just what the coaches told us to do then. I could have smoked weed and not run for a long time too and still busted a 5:00 or something like that because I had talent.

I once ran a 33:something 10K off no training after about 6 weeks of doing NOTHING. I had some talent.

Most people have NO running talent at all -- zero. 5:30 in their dreams.

Hmm, you offer no logic at all as to why you think that. Ok you have talent and majority don't. What does not having talent take you to then? Most of the zero people you're talking about run zero miles as well, which was cleared up in the original post.

I ran 5:26 off of just a month of training or so IN EIGHTH GRADE. Granted I had good talent, but any high school boy that meets those qualifications should be able to run a better mile than 5:30 after 4 years of working.

Either that or they will run 5:30 a lot sooner.