Which is more impressive, a sub 12 FAT 100m or a sub 5 mile?

I was at the girls state meet today in my state...

It took 11.8-12.06 to make the 100 final

It took 4:50-5:00 to make the 1600 final

For girls, it seems it's pretty darn equivalent

unknown6 wrote:

The IAAF tables say that getting a sub 12 is harder, but this doesn't match what I see in most high schools. In most years, all 4 of our 4x100 guys would have run at least one sub 12, while we would be lucky to get a sub 5 performance by two different guys in the same year.

Also, our girl's school record is 12.02 for the 100, but only 5:11 for the 1600.

Is this common for your area?

The only thing I can say is this is common in my state.

Remember that most people want to run as short a distance as possible and the 100 is waaaay more popular than the mile in high school. So there are reasons for it.

In states like California where you can train all year round easily, it might be a completely different story.

Sub 12 is way harder for me now.

Sub12silly wrote:

Basically the dumbest post I've ever seen on these boards. You kidding?

Every single soccer player at my former high school could knock off a sub 5 whereas few athletes could break 12...

Wtf are you talking about???

not in jamaica wrote:

Almost every high school football player can run sub 12 with ease. The same is nowhere near true for HS soccer players running a sub 5.

If a guy runs an 11.99, it's "congrats, you're not dead last anymore and won't be cut from the team." But if a guy runs a 4:59 1600, he's treated like a running god.

Not true at all. I hate it when people say this kind of shit. At my high school there were probably 2 guys in the soccer team who could break 5, which is because it is a very difficult barrier to break. The elitism on letsrun is baffling.

In theory, sub 12 (25% slower than WR) should be much harder than sub 5 (34 % slower than WR). But that's rarely the case in practice.

Lock him up!! wrote:

Every high school is different, but from my experience in high school, there would be 5-6 guys sub-12, and maybe 1-3 guys sub-5. It's kind of a trade-off though, because sub-12 requires natural-born sprint speed, and not as much hard work, whereas most kids have the necessary speed to run sub-5, but it requires much more aerobic work to get down to sub-5.

Our high school had 4 sub-5 milers (4:24, 4:32, 4:42, 4:48) and 5 sub-10 100 yard dudes (4 @ 9.7 & 1 @ 9.6) along with a 10.1 100y white guy. What our team had in talent was cancelled out by an idiot coach who managed to burn everyone out by season's end.

is this right? wrote:

Sub12silly wrote:

Every single soccer player at my former high school could knock off a sub 5 whereas few athletes could break 12...

Your high school is 99% white.

The OP's high school is 99% black.

My school district has something like a 1% population of black kids (I think last time we counted, the high school had less than 20/2,000) and this is actually kinda true, at least for us. No black kids do track. We have one white guy going under 12, huge talent compared to everyone else, but currently we have 8 Distance guys under 5. Just kinda putting my statistics out there

Our weight room trainer at my school made the soccer team all do the mile on an indoor linoleum 180m track (9 laps per 1600). One of the kids ran a 5:03 and another kid wasn't far behind him. Remember, this is inside a high school gym around some random loop with very tight turns using a kid who doesn't even run for his sport. I think soccer players have a lot more potential than people give them.

Plus look at how many of our top distance runners at all kinds of levels used to be soccer players; We have Centro, Fisher, etc

Sub 12 is more difficult for either sex.

Attack of the drones wrote:

In theory, sub 12 (25% slower than WR) should be much harder than sub 5 (34 % slower than WR). But that's rarely the case in practice.

Sub 12 is a bit harder in practice, but not by much.

12 year old girls record:

100: 12.10, 0.8% slower than 12.00

1500: 4:41 (equivalent to a 5:03 mile, 1% slower than 5:00)

1896 Olympics men's winning times:

100: 12.04 (preliminary time of 11.8 was faster than the 12.0 in the finals. Converting hand times to electronic results in 12.04)

1500: 4:33.2 (equivalent to a 4:55 mile)

Those Olympics didn't attract the best athletes in the world or have a modern track, but that would have affected both events equally.

65 year old men's record:

100: 12.37

Mile: 4:56

not in jamaica wrote:

Almost every high school football player can run sub 12 with ease. The same is nowhere near true for HS soccer players running a sub 5.

If a guy runs an 11.99, it's "congrats, you're not dead last anymore and won't be cut from the team." But if a guy runs a 4:59 1600, he's treated like a running god.

This is not true and I'm guessing you don't coach HS. There are a number of football players and soccer players who can, but not at ease.

is this right? wrote:

Guys running a sub 12: 657 out of 2760 (23.8%)

Guys running a sub 5: 472 out of 1733 (27.2%)

Girls running a sub 12: 3 in the whole state

Girls running a sub 5 mile equivalent (4:37 for the 1500): 3 in the whole state

Results may be tilted heavily in favor of the sub 12 100 in states with a higher percentage of blacks.

I found results from an early season college meet where they ran the mile and not the 1500:

Guys running a sub 12: 43 out of 62 (69.4%)

Guys running a sub 5: 77 out of 90 (85.6%)

Girls running a sub 12: 0 out of 40

Girls running a sub 5: 3 out of 58 (5.2%)

Mark Boen wrote:

Sub 12 is more difficult for either sex.

I'm inclined to agree. I know some guys who've walked on to D2 teams with PRs in the 11.9-12.0 range. I don't know of anyone that has walked on to a D2 team that couldn't break 5 (with the obvious exception of sprinters and throwers who couldn't break 5).

A girl running an electronic 11.99 or better can get a full ride to just about anywhere. Options are still very good but not that great for girls running 4:59.

How you might "feel" or "think" it is is irrelevant. The link to the Iowa state is pretty telling—they're about even.

The only intelligent thing brought up in this thread is that there are probably more athletes outside of track that can run a sub 12 than there are athletes who can a sub 5. There are definitely athletes across things like football, basketball, soccer, and even things like baseball and tennis that might be able to break 12 seconds. Whereas with the mile, there might only be a few kids on a soccer team that can break 5 minutes, and it's very doubtful that athletes from those other sports can do it. That being said, someone on here grossly overestimated the average high school soccer player fitness. There would only be relatively few that could go under 5.

What? I've run a fair amount under 5 with only about 8 weeks of 32 mpw. My pacing was not even and it was hot. #3: ok fine. #4: False I take 5 APs (4.0 unweighted gpa) rarely get to bed before 11:00 (wake up at 6:45). #6: no high schooler has that. Do you mean sub-4? I definitely don't have world-class talent. I definitely don't have national-class talent.

I can't run under 12 for 100. Stats gangsta tells me I could run 12.7 based on my 400 and mile, but that's only if I was good at the blocks etc. so maybe I could run 12-high with a rolling start. There's one kid on my team who can run under 12 and I'm the only one who can run under 5. I think they're pretty similar in difficulty level.

At my school we have 7 guys under 5 in the mile, but just one sprinter under 12 in the 100. I feel like the majority of male runners could definitely get under 5 in a mile if they trained for it. The majority of people would not get under 12 in the 100.

Sub 5 mile takes a lot less talent but more significantly more training. Hard to call one or the other "harder".

by the sea wrote:

>99% of the world's population would struggle to run a sub 5 1500 after years of training, and a sub 5 1600 or mile is far out of their league.

Not sure wrote:

I'm the only one who can run under 5.

If sub 5 was achievable by more than a tiny fraction of the world's population, you wouldn't be the only person on your team under 5.

Orangke wrote:

I feel like the majority of male runners could definitely get under 5 in a mile if they trained for it. The majority of people would not get under 12 in the 100.

Ehso wrote:

Sub 5 mile takes a lot less talent but more significantly more training. Hard to call one or the other "harder".

Most sub 5 milers could run a sub 12 within a month if they had the opportunity to race it and get comfortable with using blocks.

Almost no sub 12 sprinters would be close to a sub 5 after a month's worth of training. This includes Usain Bolt.