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

Way less than 1%. I'm over 60 and I know a lot of people over 60. Other than a handful of fairly serious runners, not one of the non-runners would be able to do it without training (in which case they would then be one of the handful of runners)

To clarify this would be could if they trained for it, for about a month. If you asked people to go out tomorrow and do it I would guess you'd see something closer to .2 or .3%

That's a great age-adjusted time, which I used to do back in the day. Now I'm 82 and ran a 5K in 26:50 a few months ago (with a hill at the end) but last Saturday I slowed down to 2:15 for a hilly half marathon in Sleepy Hollow, NY, about 600 competitors, and had no competition over 75. My first five miles, with a big hill, were about 49 minutes. I only rarely encounter anyone over 75 in my races these days.

That’s some great running. When I was fifty I thought I’d be able to go out and hammer a ten miler forever. Now I’m 61 and now an eight mile mile seems fast- just one ☝️ of them. My mid fifties saw a sudden increase in slowing (if increasing slowness makes sense)

Incredible athletic accomplishment for an 82 year old. Congratulations.

I used Carlsbad 5000 results from 2019, and a performance calculator that indicates ~27 minutes for 5k (8:41 pace) is equivalent to a 45 minute 5 miler.

In 60-64, 63 of 115 finishers were <27 min

In 65-69, 24 of 68 finishers were <27 min

In 70-74, 13 of 41 finishers were <27 min

Thank you, that's interesting.

Your are 63 and run 50-60 mpw at mostly 7:30 pace? That is impressive, to say the least.

I'm 70, running 35-40 mpw at mostly 10-11:00 pace (except for 1 speed workout a week), hoping to break 21 (close but not yet) in the 5k this year.

What does your 5k race pace drop down to?

stan the man that is impressive. My 5k race pace is 7 flat on a good day. I run abt 25mpw around 10mpm

I'll be honest, I'm surprised by that. A couple of notes, that is men only, women would bring the overall percentage down a little. Example 13 out of 76 women 60-64 hit the 27 min mark. I think 27 min 5K equating is pretty generous.

But the other thing I found looking at 2019 results is there is a division called party people where there are around 1200 runners. Only 79 people in that division of all ages hit the 27 min standard.

I think that Masters division of the Carlsbad 5000 is not a good representation of the overall population. A very small percentage of 60+ year old's still do road races and looking at the results a lot of the people in the master division traveled from out of state. But probably a good representation that a lot more of the public would be capable of this time if that was a goal for them.

I started back running in my early to mid 40's after a two decade break. Was fairly competitive age group wise nationally in my early to mid 50's. Not the best but in the top second tier I guess. Peaked at age 51 with 16:23 5K and 34:09 10K. These are "faded glories" though. Since then it's gotten increasingly more difficult. I'm now 62, with some arthritis in my right knee and not really racing but still trying to do some harder training as I can. I can still run maybe a little over 6 min pace for 3 miles all out on a really good day but it's increasingly getting tougher.

There’s about 45M Americans in that age bracket, and no more than 1000 of them could run that time, so 1000/45M = 0.002% max.

I am entered into a 5 mile race that will be run 2 days after my 62nd birthday. I am confident that I can complete it in under 45 minutes. Even after all these helpful replies, I am still guessing, but my estimate is that among men who are 62 only (excluding all other ages), only about 1 in 1,000 can achieve this. I won't be near the elites for the M 60 to 69 group, but I'll take sub 45 minutes at this advanced age.

James2 on Page 1 here probably got it about right with 0.1%.
I looked at Bolder Boulder results from 2019. 260 CO men from age 60-75 ran 58 minutes for 10K at altitude (9:08/mile--and this is a very conservative conversion of about 2%, not the typical 3 or 3.5%). There are about 400,000 males in that age range. So 0.065% in just 1 (albeit very big) race. There are probably 1.5X to 2X males capable of running sub 58 for 10K (or 45 for 5 miles) living in the state who did not participate. Probably some selection bias as Colorado is a very fit state and people do move there for the running, but +/- 0.1% is a very reasonable estimate.

The number of road race participants sharply drops after 50. In the last pre-pandemic race I ran (Mar. 2020 half marathon), there were 80 finishers in my age group (M55-59). There were 120+ in M50-54 and 140+ in both M40-44 and M45-49. 58 in M60-64, 30 in M65-69, and 19 in M70-74.

So I would guess about 1% of 60+ people actually run road races. And the percentage of finishers who could run under 45min for 5 miles also drops with each age group.

I ask 21 individuals at the senior center I attend daily, and none said they could run 5 miles in 45 minutes. Most said they couldn’t run 5 miles period. I ask the other 6 runners I know over 60 and all 6 said they could not do this as well. I ran a large 5K recently and finished 2nd
in the over 60 age group with a 27:48. I am confident that I would not break 45 minutes as well.

at age 61 i was rated 37th in the marathon world wide, 20? in the 5k and 10k. however, they only rated people from the majors and there are not a lot of 5k and 10k certified courses so the ratings are iffy. marathon ratings are probably more accurate since most of us always trained for the majors as we got older. i still run every other day about 4-4.5 miles or so. i am a month short of 77 years old and there is no way i could do 5 miles in 45 minutes. maybe ~52 or so but i don't know. two years ago i could run 8 miles at same speed i do <5 now. i did speed training fast) and improved my measured times quite a bit but hurt my knee so i stopped. my endurance is dropping off the most , i am sure i could improve my speed quite bit. my typical pace of slogging is maybe 11.5 - 12 mile but i don't ever measure it. it is not my breathing. i typically do not run fast enough to ever suck air. my guess is that would only happen ~8 minutes/mile. about 3.7 miles it gets hard even when slogging. it is my legs. i don't stretch and i don't do any other exercise but planks (which i hate). i walk every other day maybe 1-3/4 hours. i even walk slow but i don't get at all tired doing it. a year ago i decided to run every day up this quite long hilly trail (~3/4 mile) started out good with dramatic elapsed time improvement but in a week it got real hard as i could not recover one day to the next so i stopped. i think runners see the impact of aging much more than non runners. i have been through the normal injuries. worse was a destroyed arch in a hilly marathon ~45 years ago. it led to a few bouts of plantar and posterior tibial tendonitis. for the past 2. 5 years (covid years) i have honestly not had a pain of any type in my body. nothing. that is one advantage of running so slow. i do sleep a lot. probably 9-10 hours every night and a nap after i exercise most days.

I find I also need to sleep 9-10 hours and take occasional naps. But I think a secret to escaping injury is cross training. I do cross country skiing (skate mode) whenever I can in the winter. I hope to get another week of it this year, but it isn't looking good at the moment. But at 82 and often under 27 for the 5K, and around 55-56 for 10K, I'm reasonably sure I could do a 45 min 5 mile.

At 62, my knees limit my running to just three days a week. I usually try push the last mile. It's a very good day when that's a sub-8. Ugh. At 59, I was seriously thinking a sub-3-hour marathon might be possible at 60. Ha!

I think most of us underestimate the toll of time and aging ... until hit smacks us hard.