Is it possible to break 16 (5k) with a 63s 400?

Horrible Optimist wrote:

Anything is possible! That being said, no. no it is not.

Even if wrong, this made me chuckle!

I ran 14:10 with 58 400m speed so yeah that’s definitely possible

HRE wrote:

Heavens yes. I ran 15:33 and my best 440 at the time was 66.

Was the 66 in a race or in training? I find it surprising that your 5000 race pace was only 8 secs per lap slower than one lap flat out.

high school girls probably can wrote:

For what it's worth, Sydney Thorvaldson has a hs 400 pr of 63 and an overall pr of 62 (both were run at altitude though, which gives her some advantage) and ran a 16:19 5k at over 5000 feet of elevation. She'd easily be sub 16 on most sea level 5k xc courses and well under 16 for 5000m on the track.

Interpret this as you wish.

My interpretation:

She's a slow twitch distance runner and never bothered being fresh or peaked for 400m races, trained through the 62 and maybe it was windy that day. Would break 60 if motivated and on fresh legs.

slow child wrote:

I ran 14:10 with 58 400m speed so yeah that’s definitely possible

There's a big difference between 58 and 63. Did you race the 58 fresh, out of blocks, on a calm day?

My 400 PR (for which I never trained) is 65. My 5K PR is 15:46. Yes, you can run sub 16 with a 63 PR. ( I am primarily a marathoner - 2:27 PR and ultramarathoner.)

Another giver of +1 wrote:

HRE wrote:

Heavens yes. I ran 15:33 and my best 440 at the time was 66.

Was the 66 in a race or in training? I find it surprising that your 5000 race pace was only 8 secs per lap slower than one lap flat out.

I got talked into running a leg of a 4 x400 at a summer all comers meet.

Wow apparently I have the opposite problem. I did an all out 400 m in 59s at a fundraiser event for local HS track team, I did a mile and 800 before it but I had plenty of rest, like at least 10 minutes between the mile and the 800 and 400. But my 5k PR is a pathetic 16:51.

I was 32 years old at the time.

idekkkkman wrote:

I don’t want to thread-steal. But what about with a 58 second 400? Anyone think that is enough to get me under 15:00?

I think so-I barely broke 60s all-out and I ran 15:20 in college...obviously I was a 10k guy but if you can run around 60s-only 72s laps for 15 minutes-just have to do 12.5 of 'em!

no wheels wrote:

I once split 62 in a hand timed in a 4x400. I am skeptical I could run below 65 in a real 400m race. My 5k PR is 15:15. Definitely doable.

I'm gonna call bs on this one, that's clearly not possible.

lol what? wrote:

no wheels wrote:

I once split 62 in a hand timed in a 4x400. I am skeptical I could run below 65 in a real 400m race. My 5k PR is 15:15. Definitely doable.

I'm gonna call bs on this one, that's clearly not possible.

How does a hand-timed 62 relay split equate to a 65 in a real 400m race?

The person would run 63 in a real 400m race.

The amount of mileage required to be sub 16 (or 15:30 or sub 15, as some have posted) with slow 400m times, seems to reinforce that it is highly unlikely that OP will do this ,rather than reassure OP that it is possible, because OP is 17.

After my freshman year in college, some of the guys run open meets. I am in a 400m in such a summer meet, and the steeplechaser for the college team is running as well. 9 runners, 8 lanes, so we double up. He tells me to take the inside of the lane, but I am just having fun, and he wants to run under 60. Without improving his speed, he wasn't fast enough to do much in his event. I let him lead the first 100m, which is about 15 seconds, and then I see some guy 20 meters in front of everyone, so at the 300m mark I take off, run down the leader, and cruise in for 52.2. Had I run hard all the way in from the 300m, I would have run 50 point. Developing speed seems preferable at his age.

HRE wrote:

Another giver of +1 wrote:

Was the 66 in a race or in training? I find it surprising that your 5000 race pace was only 8 secs per lap slower than one lap flat out.

I got talked into running a leg of a 4 x400 at a summer all comers meet.

Respectfully I'd say that that 66 is not representative of what you might have raced with a few weeks concentrated effort at running a fast 400. A couple of 200m races then a 400 for example, on fresh legs.

+1. Can't hide from the lack of speed.

Another giver of +1 wrote:

HRE wrote:

I got talked into running a leg of a 4 x400 at a summer all comers meet.

Respectfully I'd say that that 66 is not representative of what you might have raced with a few weeks concentrated effort at running a fast 400. A couple of 200m races then a 400 for example, on fresh legs.

Who knows? I only once managed to break 30 for the 220 and that was in high school so maybe 8-9 years before the 15:33. Undoubtedly if I had tried to run the 400 I'd have gotten faster but I wasn't going to put time and effort into doing that because I don't believe getting 400 time to say, 62, was going to have any impact on making me faster at the distances I was serious about. The OP is fast enough to run under 16:00 for the 5,000. He needs to be 14-15 seconds per lap above his 400 time. That's no big deal. He needs to worry about developing his endurance more than he needs to worry about developing more speed. In fact, I'd bet that more endurance would improve his 400 time. I like Rod Dixon's line about how he got his speed through strength.

What speed?

I think Dave Wottle could outsprint Dixon.

At Crystal Palace, preparing for the track meet held as part of QEII celebration, John Walker and Rod Dixon were at the track with their coach. They watched me run 500m in 65 (52 at 400m) in spikes and on the fly, then float 200m, and then 300m in 38.7. I was just out of HS, but there for another meet. A couple of other guys from my HS were in the interval as well, we paid a track tour to visit Europe and run a few races.

Walker then ran 3 x 400m in 50.5 (or thereabouts), with 50 seconds recovery (spikes and on the fly).

What speed? From Dixon? A guy with an Olympic 1500 medal?

Keith Olbermann

Getty Images

In a 2008 visit to The View, Keith Olbermann revealed that he doesn’t vote. Later, Olbermann explained to Portfolio that the reasoning behind his “very idiosyncratic” ballot-casting abstinence makes sense: “I don’t want anything, even that tiny bit of symbolic connection, to stand in between me and my responsibility to be analytical and critical." Unlike Downie, who is widely respected for his impartial coverage, liberal Olbermann’s anti-vote stance didn’t garner much esteem.

Anything is possible with JESUS

HRE wrote:

What speed? From Dixon? A guy with an Olympic 1500 medal?

Herb Elliott was fast? He did run a second faster than Dixon in the 800m.

Jim Ryun was fast.

Seb Coe was fast (read that he ran 45+ on a relay split).

Steve Ovett was fast (21.7 200m in high school).

Mark Winzenreid was fast (22.3 220y 47.8 440y in HS in Wisconsin, a state where the weather is not conducive to fast HS spring track times. Winzenried was running 4 x 400 in 48+ and injured his achilles tendon on the last interval or he wins the Olympics, not Wottle. Mark would never run as slow as that final was.

Since when is the 1500m a measure of speed?

Steve Scott ran 1:49 in practice (on the fly, in spikes) and it was 54-55.

If he could run a 49 400 on the fly, it would likely be 24-25.

Sustaining above average pacing is not about being fast.

What is Dixon's 200m? 400m?

My senior year, if we had sports and therefore the meets to sharpen, my teammate and I would have been expected to race the half at the IPI against the 1st and 2nd place runners from the state meet. The IPI was a post season race for seniors. Based on the times of the 1st and 2nd place runners in the state meet, all 4 HS runners would have been expected to break the national record, and run a half that converts to faster than Dixon's PB, which he ran when older.

It was discovered much later in my life that I had a severely restrictive left hip joint, but when it would loosen up a little (not often), I could run around 21 flat for 200s in practice (on the fly and in spikes). I ran a 48.6 400m in a relay when I was 25 on a dirt track in my training shoes.