What is the average mile time of the GENERAL population for a 30 year old male?

Roadkillracing wrote:

For every 30 year old who goes to the gym a few times a week, likes to play pickup basketball games and tries to keep off the extra pounds there are 5 who sit around eating cheese wiz straight out the bottle and consider walking to the other side of the mall a workout.

Truer statement has never been made. Average mile is over 10:00, no doubt. Go down to Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, etc., gather up all the 30 year old males then tell me what you think they could "run" a mile in. I know most people on this site don't see it but this country is extremely fat. There are fatties everywhere.

Insanity rampant on this thread. I agree a given percent will DNF. Also, a larger percentage than you would think will need to rest and/or walk. So is a break or walking a DNF, since it is not running? Most will start too fast, and end up barely maintaining a jog to the finish. Only the prior/current runners or those who actually train regularly at something will pace a full mile.

I'd say given the above, and how you treat DNFs, no way the average less than 3:00 per lap, or 12:00 total. And that would be generous.

Well, that's a lie since the WORLD RECORD is a 3.43.13 set in 1999. Is this site even remotely serious, because the comments on here are laughable. I am almost 36 and I can run a 6 or possibly a bit better, but I train HARD. Average runners who are either new or don't run competitively will average in between the 8-10 minute range, depending on their build and how often they run.

Mean, Median, or Mode?

I'd guess the median (50th percentile) is much faster than the mean, since the handful of 4:00-4:30 guys are only going to be 4-5 minutes faster than the mean but the bottom one percent is going to be "running" 30+ minutes or 20 minutes over the mean.

Mean: 12:30

Median: 9:30

Mode: 9:30

8 minute. You have to remember lots of young people are into exercising now and getting super cross-fit.

If every 30-year-old male in the US were forced to cover a mile (on foot) as fast as he could, and were nicely incentivized for giving his best effort:

I think the *median* (which is probably what the OP is talking about by saying "average") would certainly be over twelve minutes, but maybe under fifteen.

You couldn't take a mean time for them all, because a small (but not tiny) percentage of men would not be able to complete a mile on foot, period.

I would say 6 minutes if they really applied themselves.

Science! wrote:

Mean, Median, or Mode?

I'd guess the median (50th percentile) is much faster than the mean, since the handful of 4:00-4:30 guys are only going to be 4-5 minutes faster than the mean but the bottom one percent is going to be "running" 30+ minutes or 20 minutes over the mean.

Mean: 12:30

Median: 9:30

Mode: 9:30

This ^ is getting closer. But the real numbers are

Mean: Infinite (it only takes one who can't make a mile to create one infinite data point and hence an infinite mean.)

Median: 12:30 (as has been pointed out, it is nearly impossible to overestimate the percentage of fatties out there)

Mode: Not really meaningful since time is a continuous variable.

I ran a 5:30 mile at age 18 in high school and I was on the junior varsity team. I felt my time was top 5% in my senior class of around 250 guys. But it was not even close to elite, under 4:30 among high schoolers. I am 29 years old currently.

Average time for a 30 year old athletic runner: under 6 minutes

Average time for a 30 year old athletic guy non-runner: 6:30

Average time for a 30 year old in the general population: 8:30-9:00

This thread is rediculous. 1irst of all, there is no way that so many American's are that fat or obese. I don't have a single obese friend, nor do I see any walking or waddling around the track.

2econd of all, if you just suddenly put every single 30irty year old male on a track and made them run a mile, you MIGHT get a few that are upwards of 10, but theres NO WAY the average is above 6:00. All of my friends can run under six, so when you factor in the fast guys with the slow ones, you're going to be way faster than you all think here.

The entire population? I would think most would struggle to break 8

4:45 was the fastest?

My high school was not super athletic and it featured a sub 4:30 miler most years.

Mean = infinite

Median = 8:45

Nutella1 wrote:

You need to look at 30yo males. I doubt that 30% of them are overweight or 60% obese. It's probably more like 20%/40%.

I am going to go with 9min.

CDC Stats

Overweight (includes obesity; BMI greater than or equal to 25.0)

Male

20–34 years ....... 61.1

35–44 years ....... 80.2

45–54 years ....... 76.8

55–64 years ....... 79.8

65–74 years ....... 77.5

75 years and over . 73.2

Female

20–34 years ....... 55.4

35–44 years ....... 63.9

45–54 years ....... 66.2

55–64 years ....... 72.2

65–74 years ....... 74.2

75 years and over . 63.2

I'm 30, haven't run at all in nine years, and am slightly (10 lbs.) overweight. I ran 5:50 in a random time trial recently.

You have talent. Just log in the miles.

'I think most people could gut out something in the high 6's low 7's if they were at an "ideal" racing weight.'

Without any training no chance aged 30

Allow me to cheat by introducing some actual data:

http://usgovinfo.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=usgovinfo&cdn=newsissues&tm=9&f=00&su=p284.13.342.ip_&tt=2&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad347.pdf

1) I'll assume that the "population" this thread refers to is the USA.

2) Because the data are separated into 20-29 and 30-39 age groups, I'll split the difference between the means of the two, in order to get approximate data for 30-year-olds.

3) I'll use data from the 1999-2002 survey of males. Does anyone think that American males aged 20-39 have gotten *thinner* on average since then?

Yeah, me neither.

4) I acknowledge that I'll be talking about the means for height and weight and the median for mile time. (Others have pointed out why we have to use median for the time.) This is not really an apples-and-oranges comparison, though; at worst, it's lemons-and-oranges.

Here we go:

Average height for American 30-year-old men: 69.6 inches.

Average weight for American 30-year-old men: 186.3 pounds.

Okay, think about that: this average guy we're talking about (call him "X") is roughly 5' 9 1/2" and over 185 pounds. (And that weight is not muscle.) His BMI is just over 27, putting him well into the "overweight" category.

Now: having taught adult fitness classes for a couple decades (in addition to having coached for a quarter-century), I can *promise* you that X cannot run a mile, period. That is, the percentage of American guys at this age who can run an entire mile is considerably less than 50; therefore X is running only part of the mile, at best.

Now the question is: How fast can this guy walk-and-jog a mile? Again, from experience I know that his time will be something over 12 minutes. (You don't appreciate how out of shape X is. He can't run for a minute at a time without getting seriously out of breath.)

[In other words: at more than twice his age, and having had a heart attack about a year back, I can *walk* five miles at about the same pace this guy can reach for a single all-out mile.]

The thing is, LRCers mostly are (or at least were) runners. They mostly are, or will be, college graduates. They mostly come from above-middle-class family backgrounds. (Everyone saw that I used "mostly" in there, right?) So they really don't have a feel for who X is, or his living circumstances.

X is not and has never been a regular runner. He does not have your education. He does not have your likely income (okay, maybe your likely *future* income). He does not have the orientation to physical activity that you, and most of the people you encounter, do. X might occasionally play a game or something, but he does *no* vigorous exercise on a regular basis. (He probably does some walking, but at a low intensity:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cdc-80-percent-of-american-adults-dont-get-recommended-exercise/

)

So you're asking X to cover a mile. He CAN do that, but he won't be happy, and his time--just a guess here, but an educated guess--is something like 13 minutes. Or a bit slower. All out.

I think that 8:00 is too slow.

My high school's soccer team runs a timed mile every year. After a summer of training, 2 people broke 5:30. These are soccer players, one of the most endurance running intensive-sports.

The baseball team regularly runs a 1.8 mile loop which I've been told a 'great' time on is 16 minutes, or 8:20 pace.

Now take 1/3 of the population to be obese, the vast majority to be sedentary (not soccer players, not even baseball players or mildly active), and to have been sedentary for the last 10+ years.

My bet would be on 10:00 at the fastest.