How many people have the genetic ability to break 15:00

how much talent is it wrote:

If every male managed to:

A. Maintain an active lifestyle and a healthy bmi from 0-15

B. Train optimally (no drugs), think 50-100 miles per week depending on the athlete, healthy diet, proper workouts etc. from age 15-25

Under these theoretical circumstances what percentage of the population breaks 15 minutes for 5000 meters? I gotta think it's at least a majority of men

the most fit person to answer this question is a high school coach with a large team and a ton of success in the past.

often times, high school runners don't meet their potential because they don't run enough miles and don't do summer base mileage properly. what happens is that they often end up reaching only 40-45 miles per week by their senior year and is only able to improve a little (junior 18:00 -> senior 17:50) and then they assume they just don't have the genetics to be a fast runner so they quit right after high school.

to answer your question, i think about 20-25% of runners with 10 years of experience (15 to 25) can break 15. this is assuming 10 years of good workouts, dedication, healthy diet, and being injury free, of course. in 2018 ncaa cross country, 215 out of 252 runners broke 32 minutes in the 10k (i'm assuming a 32 minute 10k cross country time is equal to 15 minute 5k track time). breaking 15 minutes doesn't even require outliars, just people who are on the higher end of the spectrum.

As a percentage of the total population? Less than 0.1% I would imagine.

To date in 2019 in the UK 187 men have run 14.59 or quicker in the 5km.

In all of Southeast Asia today (Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, etc) total population > 500 million, there’s probably fewer than 500 guys that can break 15 minutes, and most of them will be Japanese.

The guy who posted the extremely small percentages is right considering training only occurring after 15-16 years old (though the numbers might be a little low). However, I think he is dead wrong if you were able to control the environment from conception.

Healthy, fit mother during pregnancy, good nutrition.

The child eats well and is healthy mentally and physically the first few years of life, and is developing gross motor skills properly (crawling, climbing, walking, play-fighting with parents / siblings, etc)

The kid is very active after 3 years old. Running, biking, skateboarding, whatever it is, soccer, baseball, hockey, basketball, just running around a park / playground to the point of frequent fatigue.

At 10 they have 30-60 minutes of constant aerobic training a day (long soccer practices or running to and from school like the Ethiopians / Kenyans). I’m not suggesting someone do this to their kids btw, just answering the question.

After that, if they join an XC club at 12, train for 2 years, and join a good XC program in HS, with a good team and coach, give them a proper 10 year progression and I think a significant minority (20-30%) could eventually break 15 minutes.

This is coming from a guy who coached 3 years and never had anyone break 16.

Yep you're right. For context you can think of this as an inner city school - 0% white, 0% of parents went to college (that is a prerequisite for admission), no running in the family. There are problems with homelessness, poverty (kids not eating), abuse, etc. Very few kids apply themselves during workouts (let alone during the summer). But I think this is a more representative sample of the general population than what we're all used to - large, homogenous high schools with big xcountry programs with kids running over the summer. You can't generalize from what is likely the top of the distribution. Once you start looking at college you're down to the top 0.01% or whatever. Of course we'll never get an answer because there's no experiment taking random people and training them optimally for years, but my experience seeing kids from what I would expect is the middle of the distribution try to take up running is not encouraging for 15:00 talent one day.

First clue this guy is a troll:

"Maintain an active lifestyle and a healthy bmi from 0-15"

.... 15 is beyond unhealthy even for distance running performance.

For reference I'm 6' 2" and would need to be 115 pounds for a BMI of 15.

And BMI is a totally ridiculous standard for athletic people who aren't skinny fat. I've run sub 15 at a BMI of 25.1 (overweight my butt) with body fat of 7%.

Let's be real wrote:

First clue this guy is a troll:

"Maintain an active lifestyle and a healthy bmi from 0-15"

.... 15 is beyond unhealthy even for distance running performance.

For reference I'm 6' 2" and would need to be 115 pounds for a BMI of 15.

And BMI is a totally ridiculous standard for athletic people who aren't skinny fat. I've run sub 15 at a BMI of 25.1 (overweight my butt) with body fat of 7%.

He meant age 0-15. Or at least i’m pretty sure lol

Delulu wrote:

LOL. Not every human could even be trained to a 15 second 100m, let alone a 15 minute 5k.

This is actually true.

“Healthy, fit mother during pregnancy “

Ok well realistically that rules out 90% of the population anyway. Every female I know binges on junk food through pregnancy because “haha I have an excuse, I gotta eat for two now ;)”, is prediabetic and has probably had zero vigorous physical activity within the last decade.

Why does letsrun live in a fantasy world and not the real world? Most parents bring their kids up on crap food too.

Under realistic circumstances and not fairytale circumstances, 1 in 100,000 break 15. Breaking 16 would be much more common. End of story.

I think there are two sides to this.

One is that humans can vastly underestimate what they are capable of.

In 1969, the Americans put (four?) men on the moon.

I don't think anyone believed that was possible until the US government

declared it a mandate.

The other side is that some people genetically may be more muscular

than others. Some are more frail. Some are better with their minds.

Others are more athletic.

I stand by what I said earlier. I think 10% of healthy men could potentially run 5k under 15 minutes.

Possibly more, but I'll go with 10%. Now, 10% won't because running 5 under 15 minutes isn't a top priority

for many people, let alone a government.

But I say if a similar plan to the moon mission was layed out for all men aged 12 to say 35 or even 40, you would see many many men run 5k under 15 minutes. I think you might see 5% actually do it. 10% if they started there plan when they were younger, like 12-15.

This is fun to speculate about but will probably not happen. There are more dire issues in the world than running a sub 15 minute 5k. (i.e. obesity)

Plus you'd see some people die were a quest to run sub 15 program to exist. Those would be the people working against. themselves to do something their body likely wasn't designed to do. Their bodies might break down or they could have heart attacks.

If near-optimal training through high school and college would put a majority of men at sub-15, we wouldn't just see a lot more sub-15s, basically every amateur male at race weight running >50 mpw for a few years should hit sub-17. That obviously doesn't happen.

If I can anyone can wrote:

The folks who think practically anyone can do it need to ask themselves why they aren't dipping under 13.

Usually it's the folks who run between 15-17 with minimal training who have this view. Go on then, take three minutes off your time.

This. It's usually the most talented people who refuse to believe others aren't as talented. These same people always seem to think they're working harder than others, too, which is usually a crock as well.

I live in a metro area that has around 2 million people. We have 5k races with 3,000+ people in them and no one breaks 15:00. A 15:20 to 15:40 would win. Maybe 10 people out of that 3,000 under 17.