Beckham and the 5000

If there is one athlete who could run a sub 16'00" 5k it would be Czech's Pavel Nedved. Besides his normaly training sessions, he also runs an hour a day (even while on vacation)....He's probably the fittest player in the Serie A (Italian League), if not all of Europe.

I played soccer all growing up. Started as center midfielder on every team I played on through college. Never ran track or xc. The summer after college I was playing tennis with my future wife. She bet me I couldn't run a sub 5:00 mile. There was a track nearby so we jogged over. Ran a 4:47 (65, 75, 77, 70) in TENNIS shoes. Hmmm, I thought. That's interesting. The next week I entered a local 5k and ran 16:11. This was all off the residual fitness from years and years of playing soccer year round. Spring of my senior year I didn't do much but drink beer and have sex.

So I would have to guess that Beckham, who looks more efficient as a runner than I ever did, wouldn't have any trouble running sub 16. My guess is that sub 15 would be unlikely.

For someone who just rocked up and ran a mile- you did a good job of remembering your splits - although possible, it sounds like a load of shite to me!!!

Because remembering 4 splits is tough.

do you remember the splits you ran in your first mile? and is that still important to you?

I read a study many (20?) years ago where they had some national soccer team from South America run a 5k time trial. The average time was in the high 16s, if I remember correctly.

I think if you saw a football player in the flesh you'd geta shock, strength is very much part of the game and these guys are becoming more and more powerful rather than stamina based. We recently did a photoshoot with michael Owen and he looks fairly slight on tv but he is built like a brick shit house in the flesh with a neck like Mike Tyson. Most footballers have very powerful very heavy thighs aswell, not exactly distance running material. A lot of these guys are almsot as wideas they are tall.

And at the very exterme end of the scale you have guys like Desailley and particularly Neil Ruddock, who, when he joined Swindon had to get a pair of shorts specially made as his thighs were so big!

I am actually a sunderland fan and having watched them train on many occassions I doubt very much whether any of that team could break 16 for 5k, and this was when we had a great season and finished 7th in the Premiership. At the time we were renowned for beinga very fit, very physical team who covered a lot of ground and closed people down quickly, we were often described as the fittest team in the league.

All of this ona diet of dribbling round cones and at most 4 laps of a pitch at the beginning of training. Footballers by nature are not good tariners on teh whole, thats reflected on how fat they get when they are injured!

I reckon Beckham would run 16-16.30.

Nah, I had to look it up. That was ten years ago mate and it was the day I decided to take up running, knowing that my days in team sports was over. The point of the post was that I was fit from soccer. In fact, maybe I'm just fit. I haven't been running much in the past year, too busy. Still, I bet I could still run close to those times easy.

I know a 29.18 guy who has just given up running to play sunday lge soccer. Fcuking mental or what???

Yeah, and the really stupid thing is he was a sub 28 guy if he had ever got his arse in gear.

Beckham surprisingly ran the MU team 3k time trial in 8:45. So, with a bit of formal training I would expect a 7:40 3k and 13:05 5km.

Of course there would be no reason to even attempt this because of the pay cut involved.

Andrea Esponsia ran 2:08 marathon (as vet) after getting kicked out of mexican soccer for "Slowness".

Running is the "Side dish" of sports I'm afraid.

I know. It's such a pity, but he just doesn't seem to be able to concentrate on one thing for long enough to actually see it through........it will probably be rugby next........hmmm, 8stone wet through, perhaps not but i would pay to see it.

Yeah whatever amigos. Now what about Beckham?

Yeah right. "A bit" of formal training. Like about another 6 or seven years. He may well have a lot of distance running talent, hard to tell, but do you know how fast 13.05 is? Do you know how fast 8.45 is for that matter? The 3k time trial was probably like those triathlon 10ks that are run in 28 minutes, or the modern pentathlon 3ks where fat blokes run 8.30, ie about 80% of the supposed distance.

Man Utd dont even do a 3k time trial you tube! Get a life and stop making it up. As for your predictions, you haven't got a clue how fast these times really are have you? Stupid fool.

Yes I know all of that. But what I dont know is this:

Ringer wrote:

Yeah right. "A bit" of formal training. Like about another 6 or seven years.

Why a numeric change to alhpha within one sentence? Queer!

Ok Tube Man. Then simply prove it Mr Tube ... (link will do)

aerobic blaster no.5 wrote:

Why a numeric change to alhpha within one sentence? Queer!

Similar to the change from English to gibberish in the above.

Oh ok, it looks like a "gib" has arrived. I thought you freaks were banned like the racing Jockeys were in 95.

Damned Govt. reformes.com