It's too damn hard to run a sub 5 mile

If you said sub 5 equivalent in any distance, I'd agree. But you'd be wrong that anywhere close to 99.99% of young men could be trained to break 5.

I think that this thread pretty much proves that sub 5 is pretty damn near impossible to run if you're fast twitch like the OP. Conversely, there are lots of sub 3 marathoners who can't even run sub 5 pace for a single lap because they're all slow twitch folks with zero speed.

Is Flagpole's 3% estimate too low for a sub 5 mile? Yes, but it's way closer to the truth than your 99.99% claim.

flat racer wrote:

For runners who haven't trained on a banked track before, a flat indoor track usually produces a faster time than a banked one. I think sub 5 outdoors in California is very likely.

You're right. To add to your point, the BU track that he ran on, along with most other banked tracks, are optimized for 28-29 sec/200m lap speeds.

Even if you regularly train on a banked track, running on it at 5:00/mile pace wouldn't yield faster times than a flat track. It might even be a bit slower.

Flagpole wrote:

Why can't you be offered $1 billion to run a mile in 3:50?

.

Because 3:50 is world class while 4:59 will not win high school dual meets! You need a combination of good luck, talent, and sustained top-level training to be among the best ever. You just need consistency and dedication to meet marks that 11 year old girls have hit.

Way back when at my old medium sized public high school in the northeast, no exaggeration 100% of the boys who I ran with in distance events that did each of XC/indoor/outdoor and put in summer miles could dip under 5min, and we weren't even competitive in our league, nevermind our region or state. These were people who, like me, were mostly bad athletes by default (couldn't make the cut in soccer or were too skinny for football) , whose prior experience in running consisted of wogging the middle school gym class mile, who had a lot of late nights and poor eating habits, and who were probably running less than 35mpw on 5 sessions most of the year. It is just not an incredible feat.

Now, there are many people who are unable to fully commit to something because of financial situations/life happenstances/other goals or commitments, etc. but if the entire focus of your life, from birth to 25, is to accomplish a physical task that an 11 year old girl has done, and you can't do it, you must have a disability. If most people who are semi-serious about running are being honest with themselves, the peak of their efforts is nowhere close to what they are capable of, and even that is not consistent but taking place probably only 25 days out of the month for a season or two, and not day after day after day for years at a time.

Heck, I bet just recovery alone OP is not anywhere close to touching even the most basic of things (getting 2+hrs of REM sleep 365 nights a year? Hitting macro targets? Drinking plenty and staying completely away from sugary foods and the like?) These are basic things that ignore the more costly/timely things like frequent mobility sessions, GPP, prehab, tissue work, managing micros, obsessively working on form, dealing without outside stressors, finding an ideal competition weight (which I bet is not 112 pounds) etc.

As others have pointed out, he is aerobically stunted relative to his speed, but as OP points out, he is often injured trying to increase mileage. I'm following along hoping he hits his goal with workarounds, but it is clear that if he was absolutely determined to make this happen and had unlimited resources, he would find a way to bump up mileage and work on the thing that is holding him back. I have no doubt he is working extremely hard just judging by this thread. But I also have no doubt he was not organizing his life around this goal from the time he was sentient.

I'm not sure the comparison with 11 year old girls is apt. Look up 11 year old girl gymnasts on Youtube, do you think that almost every able-bodied male could duplicate those feats if they started from a young age? Some will have the flexibility but not the coordination, some will have the coordination but not the flexibility, and a few unlucky dudes will have neither.

On another note, it's possible to make a case that the OP's speed is worse(!) than his endurance. FWIW:

100m record for 10 year old girls: 12.15

OP's wind-legal 100m PR: 12.15

Mile record for 10 year old girls: 5:04.19

OP's Mile PR: 5:03.96

400m record for 65+ year old men: 56.09

OP's 400m PR: 55.86

1500m record for 65+ year old men: 4:39.87

OP's 1500 PR: 4:39.05

200m record for 55+ year old women: 25.07

OP's wind-legal 200m PR: 25.09

1500m record for 55+ year old women: 4:41.46

OP's 1500 PR: 4:39.05

Mile record for 55+year old women: 5:08.47

OP's Mile PR: 5:03.96

He actually developed his 100m-mile range quite well and may be near his ultimate mile potential. I do hope he pulls it off though. Coming that close to a barrier and failing to get under it would be heartbreaking:

All good points, I did not think about something like gymnastics where there is essentially a height cutoff that makes certain things near impossible.

Agree that OP is near his personal limit given age and training history, but I do think he will pull it off. In my mind the workout times already indicate that on a good day he is there, it's just a matter of putting it all together on race day and as others have pointed out trying to avoid having a mental barrier about the task. Rooting for you Michael, keep us updated!

Checked out my country's 2021 1500m list.

From 110 guys, 50 ran under 4.40. almost all who are slower, are either young kids(15 and younger), old masters(over 40 years) or decathletes.

I guess then post comunism countries are healthier than USA.

Elusive dreams

How many times a week You go to gym, to do squats and other exercises? How many times a week You do plyometrics and jumps?(up the stairs, standing long jump/triple jump?

Do You do max sprinting?

All these things are needed for runner. If You don't do them, You are not training properly.

In Your training weeks I don't see these things.

With sprint and strength training Your body will become much stronger and You could run much higher mileage without any injuries and develop good endurance. You can run much faster than 5 minutes .

This is my typical training week.

M: 6 miles easy, max out 30/60/150m sprint, then jumps and gym

T: 4 mile warm up, then around 3-5 miles in intervals with short rest(5 times a mile , 12x400 and so on) 1 mile cool down

W: 5-7 miles easy

T: similar to Monday

F: 3-4 mile warm up and then 3-5 mile tempo run, 1 mile cool down.

Saturday: 5-7 miles easy, some easy and relaxed sprints or exercises

Sunday: 10-13 mile long run at easy pace.

Flagpole wrote:

converter wrote:

Never thought I'd say this, but Flagpole is right.

Sub 34 is two back-to-back sub 17 5Ks. Less than a quarter of the male seniors in my high school XC team could even run ONE sub 17 5K, and this is among a self-selected group who stuck with the sport for 4+ years. And we were one of the better teams in the local area.

Well, I see you have finally matured then to be agreeing with me. Congratulations!

And just like that Flagpole loses the moral high ground and just turns back into a narcissist.

Thanks!

You're completely right that I wasn't organizing my life around running a fast mile from the time I was sentinent. I was a 400/800 guy in high school and had little to no interest in running the 1500/1600/mile at that time. IIRC, my high school PRs were:

400: 57

800: 2:15

1600: 5:2x. I think I was closer to 5:29 than to 5:20, so it's definitely possible for a trained HS runner to get much faster after graduation.

I didn't have sub 5 as my goal until I ran my first sub 5 1500 in 2007 (freshman year of college). I later took some multi-year breaks to re-focus on the 400/800 and to try out the 100/200, but overall, I'd say that I've spent a total of 9-10 years trying to get my mile time under 5.

As far as recovery goes, I'd give myself an 8/10.

Sleep: 7.5-8 hours on weekdays, around 8.5 hours on weekends. The notable exception would be the somewhat restless sleep I had the night before my 5:03 mile.

Diet/nutrition: I take a multivitamin on a regular basis, haven't had a soda in years, and mostly (~85%?) eat home cooked meals. I do eat sugary processed foods like cookies and cakes on occasion, but I keep those portions small.

Outside stressors: Usually low. I currently (knock on wood) don't have any major financial, family, or health worries.

I did all of that, but only when I trained for the 100/200/400. At that time, I lifted 2-3 days a week and did weighted lunges, Bulgarian split squats, sled drags, regular and eccentric hamstring curls, standing long jumps (I think my PR was a little over 8'), single leg hops for distance, and so on.

Interestingly enough, my weight remained the same. Those lifts and plyos dropped my 100 time by quite a bit but had little to no effect in anything longer than a 400.

As for the debate on how much talent (if any) you'd need to break 5, my hunch is that I've got a little more talent than an average person, but not a whole lot more. In 5th or 6th grade off of zero training, I remember being faster than most kids, but I wasn't close to being the fastest in the class. Based on my HS and post-HS experience, my improvement/trainability is probably similar: slightly better than average, but not a whole lot better.

If all able-bodied males trained to their full potential since birth, I'm sure that a lot more than 3% of them would eventually be able to run sub 5. But it also wouldn't be anywhere near 99.99%, that's just madness.

speculation wrote:

flat racer wrote:

For runners who haven't trained on a banked track before, a flat indoor track usually produces a faster time than a banked one. I think sub 5 outdoors in California is very likely.

You're right. To add to your point, the BU track that he ran on, along with most other banked tracks, are optimized for 28-29 sec/200m lap speeds.

Even if you regularly train on a banked track, running on it at 5:00/mile pace wouldn't yield faster times than a flat track. It might even be a bit slower.

Here's some research on this:

BU Track: 18 degree bank, optimal lap speed is 26.8 sec/200m.

Ideal sub 5 track: 9.5 degree bank, lap speed will be 37.28 sec/200m

The OP's best shot at going sub 5 would be on an outdoor track in ideal weather conditions, followed by an indoor track that's banked less than 10 degrees, and then followed by a flat indoor track. I wouldn't recommend a sub 5 attempt at BU or on another similar high-banked track.

Any banked indoor track race is better than outdoor race with strong wind.

joggerish wrote:

Flagpole wrote:

Well, I see you have finally matured then to be agreeing with me. Congratulations!

And just like that Flagpole loses the moral high ground and just turns back into a narcissist.

It's called humor, brother. Try it sometime.

Mr. Slowpoke wrote:

Flagpole wrote:

Why can't you be offered $1 billion to run a mile in 3:50?

.

Because 3:50 is world class while 4:59 will not win high school dual meets! /// etc. but if the entire focus of your life, from birth to 25, is to accomplish a physical task that an 11 year old girl has done, and you can't do it, you must have a disability. ///

Flagpole is correct in refuting the idea that 90 to 99% of the under 25 male population could run under 5 for the mile if offered enough money. What about the short legged lads who have the body morphology to become good at sumo wrestling? Or those who have extremely low VO2maxes? No amount of financial insentive can get a person to do the physically impossible.

Another giver of +1 wrote:

Mr. Slowpoke wrote:

Because 3:50 is world class while 4:59 will not win high school dual meets! /// etc. but if the entire focus of your life, from birth to 25, is to accomplish a physical task that an 11 year old girl has done, and you can't do it, you must have a disability. ///

Flagpole is correct in refuting the idea that 90 to 99% of the under 25 male population could run under 5 for the mile if offered enough money. What about the short legged lads who have the body morphology to become good at sumo wrestling? Or those who have extremely low VO2maxes? No amount of financial insentive can get a person to do the physically impossible.

CORRECT!

Even among men who look lean and fit, the vast majority of them couldn't do it. My brother was a sprinter in high school. He wasn't very good, but at sprinting he was faster than me. He was fit and not fat. He also wrestled. He had and has no endurance. He could never break even 6 minutes for the mile if his life depended upon it at any time in his life, even if he trained for it, and I'm not sure he could have ever even broken 7 minutes. It's just not something he could do. He's far from alone.

Mr. Slowpoke wrote:

In my mind the workout times already indicate that on a good day he is there

I did a 9x400 session for Christmas today and averaged 74.6, which is exactly 5:00/mile pace. I started a rep every 3 minutes, which meant that my recovery time was 1:45. My laps were fairly consistent - the slowest one was mid-75, and the fastest was high-73.

This was a solo workout in trainers. I wanted to make it a 10x400, but there's absolutely no way I could have done that last 400 in 75" unless I spiked up for that rep and had a pacer.

Anyway, here's last week's training. As usual, the 200s were around 800-1000m PR pace with full recovery.

Sunday (12/19) - 6.5 miles, 2x200

M - 4.25 miles, 2x200

T - 5 miles, 2x200

W - 5.5 miles, 2x200

Th - off

F - 5 miles, 4x200

Sat - 1400m warmup, two 100m strides in 17.5", 9x400 in 74.6, 3 mile cooldown

Total - 34 MPW

Interval Man wrote:

speculation wrote:

You're right. To add to your point, the BU track that he ran on, along with most other banked tracks, are optimized for 28-29 sec/200m lap speeds.

Even if you regularly train on a banked track, running on it at 5:00/mile pace wouldn't yield faster times than a flat track. It might even be a bit slower.

Here's some research on this:

https://www.geoffreyburns.com/stream/theres-money-in-the-bank-the-physics-of-indoor-track-and-optimal-speeds

BU Track: 18 degree bank, optimal lap speed is 26.8 sec/200m.

Ideal sub 5 track: 9.5 degree bank, lap speed will be 37.28 sec/200m

The OP's best shot at going sub 5 would be on an outdoor track in ideal weather conditions, followed by an indoor track that's banked less than 10 degrees, and then followed by a flat indoor track. I wouldn't recommend a sub 5 attempt at BU or on another similar high-banked track.

4:59.9/mile pace is approximately a 9:19 3000 and a 15:32 5000 if you maintain that speed all the way. I pulled up some results on TFRRS and found:

Athlete 1: 9:24.92 3K at BU on 1/26, 9:25.01 3K on a flat track on 2/9

Athlete 2: 9:22.62 3K at BU on 1/26, 9:39.71 3K on a flat track on 2/9

Athlete 3: 9:14.63 3K at BU on 1/26, 9:21.86 3K on a flat track on 2/11

Athlete 4: 9:20.34 3K at BU on 2/18, 9:19.72 3K outdoors on 4/26

Athlete 5: 9:17.52 3K at BU on 2/15, 9:19.71 3K on an oversized flat track on 2/29

Athlete 5: 9:18.37 3K at BU on 2/14, 9:06.31 3K on a flat track on 1/18

Athlete 6: 9:19.84 3K at BU on 2/10, 9:43.86 3K on a flat track on 2/24

Athlete 7: 9:23.24 3K at BU on 2/10, 9:38.98 3K on a flat track on 2/24

Athlete 8: 15:48.06 5K at BU on 1/24, 16:00.36 5K on a flat track on 2/8

Athlete 9: 15:35.96 5K at BU on 2/10, 15:37.56 5K on a flat track on 1/26

Athlete 10: 15:35.81 5K at BU on 2/10, 15:29.29 5K on a flat track on 2/24

Athlete 11: 15:43.28 5K at BU on 1/24, 16:00.65 5K on a flat track on 1/18

Athlete 12: 5:01.02 mile at BU on 2/15, 5:01.45 mile on an oversized flat track on 2/29

Athlete 13: 5:00.49 mile at BU on 2/15, 5:06.24 mile on a flat track on 2/8

Athlete 14: 5:01.26 mile at BU on 2/15, 5:13.22 mile on a flat track on 2/29

Athlete 15: 5:01.55 mile at BU on 2/15, 5:02.29 mile on a flat track on 2/29

Athlete 16: 4:59.80 mile at BU on 2/15, 5:03.64 mile on a flat track on 2/29

Athlete 17: 5:00.50 mile at BU on 2/9, 5:10.12 mile on a flat track on 1/19

I tried to be as random as possible, and the comparison meets were all in the same year and usually within 2-3 weeks of each other. Overall, it does seem like BU is faster than a flat track even at 5:00/mile speeds, but most of them probably had a decent amount of practice on a banked track.

elusive dreams,. wrote:

I did a 9x400 session for Christmas today and averaged 74.6, which is exactly 5:00/mile pace. I started a rep every 3 minutes, which meant that my recovery time was 1:45. My laps were fairly consistent - the slowest one was mid-75, and the fastest was high-73.

This was a solo workout in trainers. I wanted to make it a 10x400, but there's absolutely no way I could have done that last 400 in 75" unless I spiked up for that rep and had a pacer.

Anyway, here's last week's training. As usual, the 200s were around 800-1000m PR pace with full recovery.

Sunday (12/19) - 6.5 miles, 2x200

M - 4.25 miles, 2x200

T - 5 miles, 2x200

W - 5.5 miles, 2x200

Th - off

F - 5 miles, 4x200

Sat - 1400m warmup, two 100m strides in 17.5", 9x400 in 74.6, 3 mile cooldown

Total - 34 MPW

I managed to do all ten reps today, but at a slightly slower pace (averaged 74.9" in trainers with 1:45 rest instead of 74.6"). Last week's training:

Sunday (12/26) - 6.75 miles, 4x200

M - 4.5 miles

T - 5.25 miles, 2x200

W - off

Th - 2x200, 5.75 miles

F - 4x200, 5 miles

Sat - 1400m warmup, 2x100m in 18" and 17", 10x400 in 74.9, 4400m cooldown

Total - 35 MPW

New year, same goal. I've gone 33 consecutive years of not running a five minute mile; hope 2022 will bring that streak to an end!