Will a woman ever run a 4 minute mile?

There is less chance for women to improve because there real are no big meets that they run a mile at. And even on men side there is less every year. So unless there is a change in way meets are run both records will stay the same.

Better drug testing is making the distance times slower.

It was just a guess based on past information. It will be at least a century before a women breaks 4 for the mile. A 2:10 marathon for a women is much more likely in our lifetime. A women has already gone under 2:20.

I am no expert on the subject. This is pure speculation on my part.

Has any women ever gone under 3:50 for the 1500?

joe9090 wrote:

Has any women ever gone under 3:50 for the 1500?

No. WR is 3:50.45 by Qu Yunxia in 1993. Clean WR in the 1500 is probably open to debate.

Here is the real quote from 1988s self coached runner.

"When English professional runner Walter George set a mile record of 4:12.75 in 1886 during a match race against Scotsman William Cummunings, speculation began as to whether man could ever run a mile in 4 minutes. Despite the interest in this topic, George's record was not bettered for twenty nine years, and by 1943 the record for the mile had been reduced by only 11.2 seconds. Not until 1953, almost seventy years after George's historic effort, was it clear that the 4-minute mile was a definite possibility."

The women have a long way to go. It may not happen in our lifetime. Maybe with improved training it might happen faster.

Fastest woman for 5000m in 2011: 14:20.87

Fastest woman for 400m in 2011: 49.35

A woman who could run both of these times might come close. Therefore, it's not happening. Ever!

Eastern European and Chinese women doped to the gills, using modern full-time training and full-time medical and coaching support, fast tracks, and wearing good spikes could not even get below 4:10.

The Chinese were never caught. Hence clean.

How many of these women specialize in the mile though? I think if there was more hype around the distance it could be done in a matter of time.

Idiot, women specialize in the 1500m.

sorryladies wrote:

Eastern European and Chinese women doped to the gills, using modern full-time training and full-time medical and coaching support, fast tracks, and wearing good spikes could not even get below 4:10.

This sums it up. Unlike men in the 1880's, women en masse have been trying to do what it takes to get close to 4 for decades now - and they're not even close. Heck with a very few exceptions their marathons are little better than the 1980's.

it'll take PED's and/or some non-woman woman individual to do it, neither of which count.

Kevinrunner wrote:

Better drug testing is making the distance times slower.

Yeah, the men´s marathon is getting slower for every year...

ggg wrote:

The Chinese were never caught. Hence clean.

My argument from page one was that the super amazing times by the Chinese athletes were all run on tracks in China that don't exist anymore at meets from which no full race videos exist. They backed up their world class at the World Championships but they never ran anywhere close to the times they ran in China. If that is due to less doping controls, short tracks or slower clocks (?) is up to speculation. But I think when discussing future performances, we should dismiss these times as a benchmark.

After taking these performances out the gap between 1500m and mile performances is not that big anymore. Then again, whom do you trust in the mile? Probably Sonia O'Sullivan at 4:17.

To break 4, a woman has to run 4 seconds faster each lap. It won't ever happen for a real woman (XX).

????????????? wrote:

There is less chance for women to improve because there real are no big meets that they run a mile at.

Irrelevant. Once women's 1500m times are around 3:45, meet directors will be putting up a lot more mile races. Then again, 3:45 will never happen either.

5k record 4ever wrote:

A man ran a world record 12:37 for 5k in 2004. In 2008 the best, by the same man, was 12:50. In 2010 the world best was 12:51. Prior to 2004 there was a gradual improvement over time. The MEN are progressively getting slower over time. Therefore, you CAN compare the slowing times of men and women. NOT ONE SINGLE MAN BROKE 12:50 for 5k in from 2004 through 2010! Therefore, the men are terrible at the 5000m.

We all know that there were a lot of drugs involved in long distance running around 1995-2005, thus the great all time performances on the mens side. Now that it's not so easy anymore, runners are catching up naturally. We will see sub 12:50 again rather soon (3-5 years from now) more frequently.

As for the women, the dirty/clean gap was bigger because doping in women shows greater effects - talking testosterone, steroids etc, not EPO.

3:50.98 by Jiang Bo at the 1997 Chinese National Games.

The exact same track will used in a the Diamond League meet on 19th May, and was used last year too.

The women's mile has never had the same "status" as on the men's side and hasn't been taken seriously for a long, long time - if ever.

The 4:12 record is "only" equivilent to a 3:54 or-so, and the number of performances equivilent to a sub-4 can be counted on one hand. By comparison, there have been 249 sub-4 1500m performances.

Qu's 3:50.4 is worth 4:07-4:08. When you consider she was an 8:12 3K performer its reasonable to assume she could have carried that through to 4:07-4:10

Its going to take a 3:42-43 1500 runner to challange. I can't see that happening for a century at least. No one has even challenged the 3:50 barrier since 97.

Even though I brought up the 3:50 record myself, no one has done better than 3:55 in the past decade.

So realisticly, women are about 13-14 seconds away.

But what really makes them look far away is that most sub 4 men can run at least 1:50 for the 800 and that is much faster than the best 800m women let alone women milers.

Because of different dynamics, women may require a slower 800m time then men, maybe 1:52 or even 1:53, but the women milers are still pretty far from that.

It would be nice to see progress.

But even with the big imprevement that the American women have had recently, the AR in the 1500 is still almost 30 years old and the second best time is 12 yeqars old.

joe9090 wrote:

In 1885 the men's record for the mile was 4:12, which is close the women's record now. So my guess is a women will break a 4 minute mile in about 120 years from now.

So the Men's record is 3.43... so in a 120 years time, you think the men will take off another 29 secs?

3.14 seems a little too quick....