Raw Talent: Is sub-15mins a mark about 90% of men can reach if they train long enough smart enough?

I went from 24 min to 17 min 5K in less than 6 months. I don't know how to measure running talent, so I don't know if I have any. I'd like to see how fast I can get though. That's on about 20-30 miles per week. I seem to be at the point now where training smart is going to be key. I could just jack up the mileage and I'm sure I'd go faster, but I like the idea of going as fast as possible with as few miles as necessary. What's going to stop me from running faster and faster?

*THREADJACK*

I went from 24 min to 17 min 5K in less than 6 months. I don't know how to measure running talent, so I don't know if I have any. I'd like to see how fast I can get though. That's on about 20-30 miles per week. I seem to be at the point now where training smart is going to be key. I could just jack up the mileage and I'm sure I'd go faster, but I like the idea of going as fast as possible with as few miles as necessary. What's going to stop me from running faster and faster?

*THREADJACK*

I went from 24 min to 17 min 5K in less than 6 months. I don't know how to measure running talent, so I don't know if I have any. I'd like to see how fast I can get though. That's on about 20-30 miles per week. I seem to be at the point now where training smart is going to be key. I could just jack up the mileage and I'm sure I'd go faster, but I like the idea of going as fast as possible with as few miles as necessary. What's going to stop me from running faster and faster?

*THREADJACK*

I went from 24 min to 17 min 5K in less than 6 months. I don't know how to measure running talent, so I don't know if I have any. I'd like to see how fast I can get though. That's on about 20-30 miles per week. I seem to be at the point now where training smart is going to be key. I could just jack up the mileage and I'm sure I'd go faster, but I like the idea of going as fast as possible with as few miles as necessary. What's going to stop me from running faster and faster?

*THREADJACK*

(not trying to flame the thread, sever caused multiple posts)

You will never get 90% of men to even run a sub 60 400m. The average male can NOT run sub 60 for 400m even with training. So how in hell do you think you can get 90% of men to run sub 15?

A sub 60 400m is the bare minimum ability you would need to be able to run sub 15 in 5k. Most people would need to be even faster. So even with just the 400m ability component you would eliminate the majority of the population. Now when you add in the endurance components.....the number shrinks even further.

We runners have a very skewed perception of what the "average" person is really capable of.

How about this? percentage of male population who could (have) run sub x in the 5000 during their prime with perfect training:

sub 20: 1 out of 2

sub 19: 1 out of 4

sub 18: 1 out of 7

sub 17: 1 out of 10

sub 16: 1 out of 100

sub 15: 1 out of 1000

sub 14: 1 out of a million

sub 13: 1 out of 10 million

sub 12: 0

kingkiller wrote:

What's going to stop me from running faster and faster?

*THREADJACK*

Women.

haha you might be right about that

Nutella1 wrote:

How about this? percentage of male population who could (have) run sub x in the 5000 during their prime with perfect training:

sub 20: 1 out of 2

sub 19: 1 out of 4

sub 18: 1 out of 7

sub 17: 1 out of 10

sub 16: 1 out of 100

sub 15: 1 out of 1000

sub 14: 1 out of a million

sub 13: 1 out of 10 million

sub 12: 0

600 people in the 12's? not so sure about that. if you're that talented the opportunity to run probably doesn't pass you by. it's not likely that there are many people who could have run 12's that haven't or won't. if they can, they probably will

How exactly did you manage to drop from 24 min 5k to a 17 min 5k? Like what did your schedule look like? I'm curious because I'm trying to do something similar myself, mind from high 18's down to 17 to be exact.

-thanks

Realistically the number is probably more like 25:00. 90% of men could be trained to break 25 minutes. Most of my friends are former athletes, nothing great but high school athletes. The best they could do was a 6 minute mile. If athletes struggle to break 6, how are they even going to break 20?

This year, 792 collegians broke 15:00.

There are about 8 million students enrolled in 4 year colleges and universities.

792/8,000,000 = .001%

So about 1 in 1 million actually did it this year.

How many could do it if they had the motivation to train properly, etc., etc.?

10x as many? I doubt it, but let's make the assumption, i.e., 1 in 100,000 theoretically. Certainly no more than that.

Breaking 15:00 takes some pretty serious talent, relatively speaking.

Correction. Student population of 4 million men. So 1 in 50,000?

F*** no. I train my ass off and can't break 15:30, and I'm above-average.

1 in 100 million would be more like 300 sub 13 because we are talking about men. There will never be woman under 13 min in the 5k

kingkiller wrote:

Nutella1 wrote:

How about this? percentage of male population who could (have) run sub x in the 5000 during their prime with perfect training:

sub 20: 1 out of 2

sub 19: 1 out of 4

sub 18: 1 out of 7

sub 17: 1 out of 10

sub 16: 1 out of 100

sub 15: 1 out of 1000

sub 14: 1 out of a million

sub 13: 1 out of 10 million

sub 12: 0

600 people in the 12's? not so sure about that. if you're that talented the opportunity to run probably doesn't pass you by. it's not likely that there are many people who could have run 12's that haven't or won't. if they can, they probably will

it's really a question of how long and hard they train. I believe that 95 percent have the capability to run sub 17.

I'd say that if all the worlds dudes were from birth dedicated to sub-15 the figure would be 3-4%. High? Just think of all the kids at your grade/hi-school who were better than the runners but did not run.