I do not consider my self talented and I have run 15:10 5k, 19:35 for 4 miles, and 31:02 for 10k, and a few 2:30 marathons.
I just put mega miles in for 3 years while in my late 20's.
I had no idea what I was doing and had no guidance. I went strictly off of an article from Runners World.
sdfhafjl wrote:
You honestly think that 30% of the population has the capability to run sub 15:00 and sub 31:00? The top 30 % of collegiate runners can't even come close to those times. Probably only 10 to 15 percent of guys running competitively in college run that fast.
I'll clarify. 30% of the *male* population has the *genetic capacity* to break 15:00.
If you told 100% of guys as they were growing up that on their 30th birthday, if they hadn't broken 15:00 by that time then they would be shot, I think only about 70% of them would be shot. The rest would have found a way to have broken 15:00.
Everyone likes to think "I'm so special -- I worked hard for years to run my 14:56", but the problem is, no one else is bothering to do that. In all probability, you're average. There's a 68% chance you're within 1 standard deviation of average running talent and a 95% chance you're within 2 standard deviations.
...unless you're one of those "Everyone who is slower than me just isn't working hard enough and everyone who is faster won the genetic lottery" types.
People often speak of the need for people to "get their PRs down" at distances shorter than the goal distance. I think this is taking things an unnecessary step in an advisable direction. Doing the kind of training that would likely lead to better short-distance times, though is vital. I don't think it's a trivial distinction; it's one thing to do a lot of 200s, 400s and 800s at close to mile or 3K pace along the road to a goal 5K, but another to actually set aside time in the season to target mile or 800-meter races. I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea to race those distances during a build-up, but saying that "you'll never run sub-15:00 unless you run under 2:00 or 4:XX first" is demonstrably wrong.
I focused on the longer distances for many years and the closest thing I did to mile or even 5K training was sets of a lot of 400s (16 or even 20) with short (100m or 35 or so sec) rests at what felt like about 5K pace. When I had run 51:30, 1:08:30 and 2:24 my 5K PR was 15:22, which was obviously an outlier. It took me a couple of months of dedicated anaerobic workouts, including sets of 6 to 8 400s in the low 60s and 5 or 6 800s well under 2:20, before I was ready to take aim at a 5K, and when I did I took off 24 seconds at once. Around that time I also soloed an 1100-meter time trial in 2:55, but never raced a mile until much later and only ran 4:27 (on the road, but it was dead flat with few corners). So I guess the message here is that you can do the kind of work that lends confidence and credibility to a given 5K effort without formally translating it into a bunch of personal bests.
It's not nonsense at all. Some people are just able to run close to their mile pace for a very long time. I have personally seen the 30:50 guy run an all out 2:10 800m.
15:00 may not be doable off less than 4:30 speed, but 31:00 certainly is.