Woke wrote:
Where I live if you break 20 minutes in a 5k you will be near the top of most local races.
Hobby joggers don't race. For them, running is a hobby done for fitness and enjoyment.
The world does not care about your local 5k as much as you think....
A lot of them no concept of 5K/mile/800 and its relations to other distances. They just see 5K as being short so its not important. Everything is marathon to them. And I am not even referring to ones who are awfully slow. A couple of runners I met who started running 2 to 3 years ago are all marathon or nothing. One of them ran a 3:3x at NYC last year at age 50. The second one is probably sub 3:40 shape now at age 54.