I'd like to see Parkrun data. But here's a link that shows a variety of info from the US, although not sure how valid or comprehensive it is.
I'd like to see Parkrun data. But here's a link that shows a variety of info from the US, although not sure how valid or comprehensive it is.
I have often found the 40-44 division more competitive than 35-39 but I chalked that up to more 35-39 year olds having younger children and less time to train.
18rabbitskiing wrote:
I have often found the 40-44 division more competitive than 35-39 but I chalked that up to more 35-39 year olds having younger children and less time to train.
Yeah, I think that the division might be competitive relative to ability, but I'll set that aside for now.
Top 1%?
There were posts on here about the Pittsburgh Great Race recently (Hasay and); that's a decent-sized regional race, so it's probably fairly representative.
Full field, 5K: 1463; M 40-44: 74
Full field, 10K: 3158: M 40-44: 200
Distortion point 1: Some runners run both races (I didn't cross-check)
Distortion point 2: The likelihood of some good local runners running fall marathons/HMs and either skipping this or going slow could weaken the field overall and is especially likely to weaken the upper tier (assuming that faster, better trained runners are more likely to make those kinds of training decisions).
Distortion point 3: How many decent runners could be running with friends/family (not at all unlikely in 40-44; I ran with a child > 20 min for 5k multiple times at this age).
Add your own caveats.
Nevertheless, I have in the M 40-44 category a roughly top 10% at sub-20 5k or 5K equivalent in the 10K. Roughly top 7% at 18:30/equivalent. Roughly top 3.6% at sub 17:00/equivalent. Roughly top 2.9% at sub-16:00/equivalent. 0 runners sub-15:00 or equivalent; maybe top 0.7% for sub 15:30/equivalent.
And that's for the people who showed up to race. I have no precise means of proving the likely speed of people sitting at home, but I have some solid reasonable guesses.