Whats a respectable 5k time to you?

I will bet you ANY amount of money you want that UNLESS you ran as a scholarship athlete there is no way in h*ll you run a sub 16 let alone a sub 15

Med School Runner wrote:

For the 20ish/30ish category:

Devoted runners:

sub 16:00/18:30 m/f

Runners who seriously train:

sub 15:00/17:30 m/f

If you never skip days or lower mileage unless you're (A) Injured or (B) Sick, you count as a "devoted" runner. It takes real dedication, sacrifice, and structured training to drop that extra minute.

[quote]LL Cool J wrote:

This is for men.

25+ I assume you recently started running or are old.

25-22 Not respectable.

22-20 minutes Not bad (as in a thing you might say to a person running this time)

20-18 kind of bad

18-16:30 my respect for this depends. If they're a college runner this is not respectable. If the person didn't run in college it's very good. Respectable; this person is at least somewhat suited for running and is training.

16:30-15:50 pretty good

15:50-15:30 good

I'm sorry dude, but you are mistaken. You are only taking into consideration high school and 1st year college kids. 15:30s in high school will get you recruited into D1, yes. But as far as older collegiate athlete go, it's a fairly middling time, even in D3.

Are we talking about road or track 5k?

Exactly. Indoor or outdoor 5K is very different from cross country 5K, as there is so much variability for courses. Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx in NYC is narrow, craggy, and hilly, and many great HS runners don't break 16 running it. Noah Affolder and Donn Cabral have, but more often than not, the best runners in the public schools and private schools in the tri-state area are in the 16s.

Pathetic 18:30 guy here but this is about how i feel

Over 20 - nothin wrong with that, but jogger status

sub 20 - decently fit person, nothing special though

sub 18 - definitely runs and is quite fit, good job

sub 16 - impressive time, must work hard

sub 15 - great runner, quite the athlete

5k hmmmmmm wrote:

My breakdown

As far as guys not doing this for a living/scholarship I say:

Sub 22-Working on your fitness..congrats but keep going

Sub 20- Nice time, could talk training with this person, obviously takes running somewhat seriously

Sub 19- Into the 18's I say well done. Took a bit of commitment.

Sub 18-Respect. Decent 5k time. Would feel this runner takes running seriously and has either invested a lot or is very eager to improve

Sub 17-Into the 16's and Id say your legit. Serious runner...know the score, work hard.

Sub 16-Ballin. Anybody with a 15 in front of their PR is pretty awesome in my book

Sub 15-Superstar

This is an excellent response. I'm surprised at the unusually high response quality considering this is LRC.

Bukirob wrote:

I will bet you ANY amount of money you want that UNLESS you ran as a scholarship athlete there is no way in h*ll you run a sub 16 let alone a sub 15

Med School Runner wrote:

For the 20ish/30ish category:

Devoted runners:

sub 16:00/18:30 m/f

Runners who seriously train:

sub 15:00/17:30 m/f

If you never skip days or lower mileage unless you're (A) Injured or (B) Sick, you count as a "devoted" runner. It takes real dedication, sacrifice, and structured training to drop that extra minute.

Lol you're trolling, right?

I ran 16:05 in HS. Nobody who mattered wanted to give me a scholarship.

I ran 14:50 for a D2 college. We had 10-15 guys who could break 16, and only a couple of us were on scholarship.

Most of the responses on here are accurate.

Interested Runner wrote:

I'm surprised at the unusually high response quality considering this is LRC.

Well, this thread is from 6 years ago. Dyestat was still going then....

anything under 20

As a general sense of the average time for the 5th percentile conditioned on age and sex, I'd offer the following:

For men, if you're less than 30, anything less than 17 is impressive. If you're between 30 and 40, anything less than 18. 40 and 50, sub-19. (I'm 43 and sub-17. I also weigh 190-ish and thus I'm a muscle-bound stud who can run and dunk while sporting a nice grey mane that drives the ladies wild with anticipation.) 50-60, sub-20. 60-75, sub-21.5. 75-100, sub-infinity. Over 100? Infinity. (You still alive bro? Winner.)

Btw, I just pulled these numbers out of my arse.

Other factors, like weight, are even more important, and if you can run fast while carrying a lot of muscle mass, that's impressive -- you can run, and you're strong, a rare combination that translates to greater fitness, utility, and athleticism overall.

For women, anything greater than or equal to 36DD.

It really depends. At the local level, when guys run around 17 or faster.

But then there is the age thing.

Once you hit 50 going sub 20 isn't easy.

Maybe it's more- when do you respect someone rather than take them seriously.

someone new wrote:

The 10 year olds who can run under 22 are pretty impressive to me and most others.

How about a 12-year-old at 18:30? Ran a smallish 5K last weekend, finished second. First two guys (including me) 40+ years old, low 17s...third place, 12-year-old boy, 18:30.

This thread brings to mind a couple anecdotes for me. Back in my 40s I was chatting with another runner before a 5K. I had recently started training seriously, and, at that point, had whittled my time down from a pathetic 20 minutes to sub-18.

I began sharing that story with the other runner, but got only as far as "six months ago I was running 20-minute 5Ks," when he interjected, "wow, that's really good!" I just said, "yeah, thanks," and didn't finish my story. Everything is relative.

The other anecdote is about 10K times. In the 1980s, the local newspaper, to give perspective to non-runners, described 40:00 as the dividing line "between running and jogging." Hmm.

Sweet! Im close to the legit zone and I am 41! I just got seriously with my running last year and broke 30 mins. Raced the same 5k last weekend and hit 23:03 (last years time 27:XX)

zoo_manimal wrote:

someone new wrote:

The 10 year olds who can run under 22 are pretty impressive to me and most others.

How about a 12-year-old at 18:30? Ran a smallish 5K last weekend, finished second. First two guys (including me) 40+ years old, low 17s...third place, 12-year-old boy, 18:30.

I once ran a small, hilly-ish 5k where the first female was a 10 year old girl who ran 19:45.

I was shocked, and thought this was truly phenomenal. Since I don't have children or know anything about young runners, how does this performance rank??

Sub18Hopeful wrote:

zoo_manimal wrote:

How about a 12-year-old at 18:30? Ran a smallish 5K last weekend, finished second. First two guys (including me) 40+ years old, low 17s...third place, 12-year-old boy, 18:30.

I once ran a small, hilly-ish 5k where the first female was a 10 year old girl who ran 19:45.

I was shocked, and thought this was truly phenomenal. Since I don't have children or know anything about young runners, how does this performance rank??

From googling it quick she also ran a 12:17 on a 2 mile cross country course in 5th grade. Seems unreal to me but I just suck!

Sub18Hopeful wrote:

zoo_manimal wrote:

How about a 12-year-old at 18:30? Ran a smallish 5K last weekend, finished second. First two guys (including me) 40+ years old, low 17s...third place, 12-year-old boy, 18:30.

I once ran a small, hilly-ish 5k where the first female was a 10 year old girl who ran 19:45.

I was shocked, and thought this was truly phenomenal. Since I don't have children or know anything about young runners, how does this performance rank??

I don't know...but same 5K last year, same kid went 18-flat (as an 11-year-old), and top female was 18:30 (13 years old). Second female, 18:35 (14 years old).

All that said, there seems to be an overachieving program all these kids run on out there.

Damn. Anything didn't want to derail the thread.

Such a difficult and subjective assessment. I'm sub 18 now and I feel like this is decent for someone who started at age 27 and has been running for now almost 10 years (never focused on 5k though).

Sub 20 for M18-49 requires either innate talent and no running, or average talent and moderate work.

Sub 19 requires even more talent without putting the work or, a bit of work.

Sub 18 would require a lot of talent without work, so most likely some work.

Sub 17 would require great talent without work, so most likely quite a bit of work.

Sub 16 would require unique talent without work , and definitely a ton of work.

Sub 15 would require never seen before without work! So definitely talent and work.