Lifting and sprinting. I was a sub-11 100m guy in HS but I think my mile time would be pretty trash
If you were really a sub 11 FAT 100 meter runner you have no business running or training for the mile. If you want to work on your aerobic conditioning, get a road bike or indoor smart trainer. Sprinters/ fast twitch guys do way better and get more fitness out of cycling than they do running. Good luck-
What if LeBron busted out a 5:05? That wouldn't impress you? What about watching Victor Wembanyama do it?
It is all about body-type. If a NFL linebacker ran a 5:30 mile it would look awesome. If a running nerd ran 4:59, it would look a lot less awesome.
A greyhound running a 4 flat mile isn't impressive. But if a gorilla did it, then we'd be losing our minds. It depends on the body you are working with.
I just don’t think that basketball players run pure mileage enough outside of scrimmages with a basketball for the top guys to know how to pace themselves well.
Back during my freshman year of high school we’d mostly do line sprints on the basketball court, tons of lifting and jump program, and then just full-court scrimmages.
We did a 1600m TT a couple times, but most of the guys would range in the 5:40-6:20 range, a couple in the 5:40-5:20 range, and then I would just chill for 3 laps and kick it in with a 5:15 or 5:10.
Some of my former “teamates” now play in the NBA, but I’d be surprised to see them break 5:00, mostly because of effort. For most of these guys in HS it was probably just feeling like it was to early in the morning and that they needed to conserve energy for the rest of the day. Still, I would say that the guys in the 5:20-5:40 range had good basketball stamina, and likely could have been up there with me if they went to XC practice in the afternoon.
So to answer your question, I think that a fit non-runner male in his 20s would run around 5:30.
You're correct about the times for basketball players, Eric Musselman now at USC tests his team with a mile in training camp and guards are supposed to run sub 5:30, wings 5:45, bigs a little slower. Instagram reel of them running linked, but they talked about the benchmark on Pardon My Take podcast last week.
The US army fitness test standard is based on the assumption that the average fit 20-something male can run two miles at roughly 8:40 - 9 min/mile pace. So this means you'd probably expect them to run a mile in the 7 - 8 min range.
I raced a mile last year against a guy in his early 20s who told me he was a sprinter and had never run distance. He ran a 5:15, and I feel like that's on the fast end of what is realistic. I'd say 6 minutes is respectable.
A lot of competitive soccer players could do better, though I'd hesitate to classify them as "not a runner".
Most strong, military grade, non runners, can hit 5:40-5:50 with very little specializing. Those posters / posers above listing 6:20s or slower were left behind as youngsters.
It depends on what level he is at. Somebody saying 'fit' could be a guy who works out at the gym 3 times a week and occasionally bikes, or a pro soccer player. The former is undeniably 'fit' compared to even the average 20 year old American.
A professional soccer player could probably run a mile between 5:00 and 5:30, but a guy who plays soccer as a hobby might not be able to break 7 minutes.
Look at most Parkrun results. Nearly all the guys breaking 20 minutes belong to running clubs. I do often read of a boxer or such jumping into a Parkrun and running 18 minutes, but they are usually professionals or top amateurs, not just some 'fit' guy who takes boxing classes once or twice a week.
You are completely underestimating professional soccer players (and probably also professional boxers)!
I´m certain that the likes of Christano Ronaldo, Haaland and other well running soccer players with a bit of training could run well under 4:30 for the mile.
See my post above about running 4:35 in the 1500m in my early fifties. In the same period I was possibly a 17 minutes 5000m runner (ran 27:20 in a 7.500m coming through 5000m in just over 18).
And I was a bloody amateur veteran soccer player in my early fifties with 4 children and more than a full time job.
That's well above average natural ability. I've been a serious runner from 15 to 65, and ran very similar in my early 50s when focused on 1500m/5000m.
The year I'm thinking of, 4:35 for 1500m would have put you in the top ten in the US in 50-54 age group.
when I was in college playing D1 soccer, I ran a 5:25 mile (splits 70, 80, 90, 85) with no specific mile training. Trained for a while after and got down to a 4:57. No one on my team was running much faster than me over a mile. I would be extremely surprised if Haaland or Ronaldo could get down to a 4:30 with just some modest training; that's a different class of running that you need special talent or a lot of time to be able to achieve
Without knowing if you're run at all recently there's no real way to tell what you'd be capable of now.
For example, maybe you ran a sub-11 100 back in school, but if running across a sidewalk to avoid an oncoming car is difficult, or you don't do any kind of working out now, then your likely mile time to start is going to be magnitudes slower.
However, if you randomly do a bunch of short sprints or other random running in workouts, it's more likely you'll be able to run a kind of fast mile with a few weeks of training even if it's the first serious running you've done in a while.
For a fit 20-something male with no distance running background, a good mile time would be around 7 to 8 minutes. With some focused training, you could likely push it closer to 6 minutes or faster.
7-8 minutes depending on what type of “fit” you are.
Agree. Sub-8:00.
Yes, all the answers saying this have the right idea for the fit non-runners. Years ago, a fitness YouTuber guy on popped up on my feed and wanted to do a mile before/after training for running for many weeks. He would be what any reasonable person would call fit, as you expect for someone making a living doing fitness videos. His before was 7:30ish? and his after was something like 6:4x.
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