Please estimate: What percentage of Americans ages 60 to 75 can run 5 miles in less than 45 minutes ?

I would totally take you up on the bet that 1% of Americans couldn’t run 5 miles. Obviously there’s no way to prove this, but I see a bunch of non-fit looking people at the gym or outdoors slogging through a few miles at a time. There are a lot of people who run, I mean look at all the people who finish marathons. Running 5 miles without stopping is nothing compared to that. You should get off your high horse old fella. It doesn’t take a lot of fitness to run 5 miles non-stop. I mostly know people in the 20-40 year age range and I would guess 20% of them run somewhat regularly and another 20% could definitely manage 5 miles nonstop. That’s 40% of an age bracket that accounts for about 30% of the population so even if you think I’m off by a factor of 10 that’s still 1%, and that’s assuming no one under 20 or over 40 can do it which is obviously not true.

.00001%. dead serious

.05%

I’m 75 and can run 5 miles in under 37 minutes. Two years ago I ran 35:50 on a hilly course. I train 30 mpw with x training and do two workouts per week.

There is no way that 20% of 20-40 year old Americans can run 5 miles without stopping at any speed.
Since we are runners, we are also surrounded by runners and that screws our view.

In the city where I live we have one of the biggest running clubs in the country. Let's assume all of them can run 5 miles. And lets triple that number to get to all of the runners in town.
Compared with the overall population you get to a number which is 0.016%.

Most of the posters on that thread are modest and helpful. Yes, there are a couple of narcissists there who can be insufferable, but with the new “block” function they are easier to ignore.

Not a lot. I'm 63, I've been running for 50 years. I haven't been racing because I think I'd run about 22-23:00 for 5K. I look at my age group results in local races and see 26,27, even 28 winning and placing.

While its not the type of data I'm looking for, the highlights of the 2021 Outdoor Participation Report provides discouraging facts about American society. The US sure ain't Norway.

Retaining COVID participants: Research from Outdoor Industry Association indicated that about one-quarter of new participants say they don’t want to continue their new outdoor activities, a number that may grow sharply as consumers return to pre-pandemic habits.

Lack of diversity: Nearly 75 percent of outdoor participants were white. Participation rates declined 7 percent annually among Asian Americans for the past three years; stagnated for the last three years among Blacks and grew among Hispanics but remained well below whites.

Declining intensity: There were fewer of the most devoted outdoor participants and more casual ones. A decade ago, 24 percent reported participating more than twice a week, while in 2020 just 20 percent did. The same pattern occurred among children, young adults and adults.

Fewer outings: The average number of outings per participant continued a steady, long-term decline, falling from 87 in 2012 to just 71 in 2020.

Stagnant female participation: Although there are significant industry efforts to address gender disparities, for the last eight years females have represented just 46 percent of outdoor participants, even though 51 percent of Americans are female.

outdoorindustry.org

2021 Outdoor Participation Trends Report

In 2020 the world witnessed incredible upheaval, and Americans across the country took to the outdoors in search of respite from COVID-19. The 2021 Outdoor Participation Trends Report, commissioned by the Outdoor Foundation,...

Open link

In an earlier post I wrote about .01%, I meant about .1%. 50 of 332 males 60 to 75 went under 45 in an 8k I looked up. The hard part is figuring the % of people that do races. Maybe around 1% of the population? I don't think 45 minutes for 5 miles is too hard if you work at it and don't get injured. I went under 35 in a small local 5 mile race at age 60 and got beat.

You need to race to see where you are

My dad is 64 and he runs a 21 minute 5k.
He didn’t start running until college and dropped several 35 minute 10ks so I think that with a good training plan he could have had a lot of potential. I think that only about 1% of people 60-75 can drop 5 miles in 46min.

I do not think that numbers in the US would differ much (i.e. an order of magnitude) from big European countries where a rough estimate could be done on the basis of parkrun statistics. I mean that parkrunners seem to be a representative group of total runners.

So, in a 10 mln city the number of 60-75 y.o. is, saying roughly, 15%, i.e. 1.5 mln (both male and female). I am sure that 1000 (that could make 5/45) would be too optimistic an estimate. Perhaps 500. This results in approx. 1:3000 or 0.03%. Just my 2 cents....

Our town has a very active recreational running club and also a good data base of results. Most of the good local runners have been members at one time or another. I did a quick check through of the results over the last 20 years and compared it to the recent census data. A very rough calculation gives:

Town Population: 26,395

Cohort Population: 5,135

Club members who have hit the standard: 10 (0.19%)

But that is over a twenty year period and so will produce a result that would be higher than any one snapshot in time. If we just look at one year (2017) then just 4 (0.08%) runners hit the standard. This would probably be closer to the true number.

Now there will be runners who never joined the club, but to he honest, I can't think of any appearing in local race results. Also, some of the club members are from a neighbouring town so should be excluded from the calculation. So probably the errors cancel somewhat.

I would say less than 0.12%

Out of curiosity, I looked at a few of the biggest marathons and half marathons in the US to see how many ran close to a 9 minute/mile pace and it was only 1 or 2 per race. I know most of the M70-74 elite runners in my state who, if healthy, could run 5 miles in 45 minutes. I'd guess it's maybe 5 out of 6.5 million state population. So for M70-74, I'd guess it's...

M70-74 Probably 1 in 50,000 or ~0.002%

I'd guess that less than 1 in 20 M70-74 could run a quarter mile nonstop at 9 min/mile pace.

Please estimate: What percentage of Americans ages 60 to 75 can run 5 miles in less than 45 minutes ?

First off very few people over age 60 put in miles regularly and those that do, I would say less than 5% can put together 5 9min miles. For the entire age group, men and women, I would say it is definitely less than 0.5%.

0.008%

Far less than 1% of the general population. While that time range is an easy jog for many in the younger crowd, it's fast for anyone 60 and up. Times drop off after 40. After 50 it's a precipitous drop. Very precipitous. After 60, well, forget it. You're lucky if you golf, let alone "run." Hell, a good percentage of people never make it out of their 60's alive. I'll be thrilled if I can manage 9 minute pace in my 60s and beyond.

Wow - Very very surprised by the answers here.

I was going to say about 1-2%, but giving it more thought I think maybe < .25% may be actually closer.

At 65+, I train pretty hard 40-45mpw with 15% of "faster" stuff worked in. If other comments are anywhere nearly close, it explains why I am having to to bust my arse to try and get back to sub 20:00 for a 5k.

We took a little trip over the weekend and ran on Saturday; 30 degrees (w/c < 20) and 20+mph winds. I hard to work hard to run 20:30. (getting gaped didn't help any)

In the big picture, I guess I should be thankful to be where I am at.

Im 66 and found that the best for me is to run every other day. Recover is key. Most races there are only a few runners over 65. But they are tough as boiled owl! If we finish without a heart attack or rupturing anything. Lets go get that beer!