Runner's World Defines a "Serious Runner"

The MonBRO Doctrine wrote:

clock puncher wrote:

i thought 10000 hours was serious

No, 10000 hours is a TERRIBLE 5k time.

Dang, I thought being part of the Sub-10000 club was something special

Idontevenknow wrote:

"Busting the 25 minute (5k) barrier marks you as a "serious" runner. It requires a commitment to more mileage and focused workouts, and can take years to achieve."

-Runner's World

I would say this comment is dead on:

I'm a 81.5 years old, smoke on occasion, and had bypass surgery 10 years ago. I run for 20 minutes on the local YMCA treadmill twice a month. Needless to say, I DO NOT take my running seriously. I recently ran a local 5km in 25:08. That is OVER the serious/non-serious threshold.

Okay then, I score in the high sixties age graded--goal is to reach 70%+ but it's good to know someone sees all this in perspective.

Funny thing about age grading--started racing late 30s, best times were in my early 40s. Now I'm having to reset goals to shoot for best times in my age group. It's not impressive, but I find my motivation wherever I can.

If LR posters don't see me as a serious runner, I can't afford to worry about that. I actually am sometimes kind of a funny runner, but I guess that's for another thread.

I live in a running town in CO and am in my 40s. I run about 25-30 mpw including some tempo work and a lot of hills. I consider myself only semi-serious in comparison to people around here that put in way more mileage than me. Yet, running is a big part of my life even at my measly 20:xx 5K level. I realize I'll never bust through the 5K tape in 15 or 16 something and win a local race, but I still like the sport quite a bit. When I race I try to give it 100%.

But no, I'm not serious in the sense that I'm willing to run 80 mpw or more to see how good I could get. In my experience there are very few people willing to be serious enough about running for long enough to really reach their full potential. Therefore I don't think there are really that many serious runners. More like a bunch of casual to semi-serious hobbyists that enjoy the sport. The serious ones in my view are the ones that put in high mileage and some hard work for a number of years and really try to see how good they really are. Just my 2 cents.

Maybe this is why most U.S. people take our sport as a joke. 25 minute 5k? Thats like going to a little league game and saying little kids are serious baseball players. I ran 40mpw for maybe 8 weeks this season because I got injured and still did a hard tempo 5k in 1632, and I am an 800 runner. I wouldnt even say a 6 minute pace 5k is serious

lbnkklll wrote:

Are there really 25 minute 5kers that actually consider themselves "serious runners? I have several friends who occasionally will run a local 5k in the 25 to 30 minute range for some type of benefit, but they do not consider themselves runners, let a lone serious runners. One even friend referred to her race as a "shuffle."

I coached a girl who broke 20:00 for an XC 5K. her uncle who was a "really serious runner", according to her parents said that ANYONE who breaks 20:00 is great, even a man. So, guys, we'er all great!!!

I know some guys locally my age that run 60-100 miles a week and run 18-19 for 5k. I'd say they are serious runners even at around 6 minute pace. That's also pretty fast for 40 yo. Seriousness is a state of mind and approach. Like some other posters have mentioned, a woman over 60 running 25 for 5K is very fast. But an 18 year old boy running 25 is indeed a terrible runner for his age.

runn wrote:

I coached a girl who broke 20:00 for an XC 5K. her uncle who was a "really serious runner", according to her parents said that ANYONE who breaks 20:00 is great, even a man. So, guys, we'er all great!!!

I coach a 16 year old girl who broke 17 in a 4.5 km XC race, which would be about 19min for a 5k XC.

When I was 9 years old I ran my first 5K fun run in 24:36. The only training I had was just being an ordinary active kid, playing tag during recess and stuff like that.

Of course, that was back in 1987. Maybe "ordinary active kids" don't exist anymore.

Age grading is an excellent idea the skinny male high school letsrunners among us would do well to investigate, but I don't believe that 50th percentile on those charts is "the mean" of anything.

simply orange wrote:

Age grading is an excellent idea the skinny male high school letsrunners among us would do well to investigate, but I don't believe that 50th percentile on those charts is "the mean" of anything.

You're right, which is why I immediately substituted the word "median."

But it's not really the median, either. The age grade tables are based, as I understand it, on the age group records for each age. So if, for the sake of argument, the age 54 5K world record was 15 flat, and if I ran 30:00, I'm running at 50% of age grade. 60% of AG would be a time of 25:00. 75% of AG would be a time of 20:00.

A true median would be based on ALL the times notched by ALL 54 y.o. men in ALL road and track racdes in, say, a given year. Array them from fastest to slowest; count down from the top. The time halfway between top and bottom is the median.

The "median" I suggested in my original post is a fictional construct. It still makes more sense than the Runners World model, IMO.

Actually, neither "median" nor "mean" is a useful term in conjunction with age-grading. I just think the age-grading model is a much more useful way of arriving at an all-ages standard of "serious" performance. It creates stakeholders of all ages AND offers an index of seriousness, arguably, that the RW model lacks.

25 minutes is not an acceptable threshold for seriousness for young men--or for older men, really. Let's be honest: as an aspirational model, the time (and the article) is aimed at two key demographics: overweight/out-of-shape women in the 25-50 age group who have just run their first 5K after discovering the joys of jogging; and overweight/out-of-shape men in the 35-65 category who are in the distant early stages of getting back into shape.

But of course 25:00 is a fine time for older women, as the 60+ poster helped clarify here, and so the time per se is nothing to be mocked--except by thoughtless 21-year olds who haven't yet experienced The Ravages of Time.

kudzurunner wrote:

You're right, which is why I immediately substituted the word "median."

You do realize that age grading has nothing to do with percentiles simply compares your time to a world record (set in totally different conditions from your race) for your age?

50%, in this case, has nothing to do with median. It just means that you were twice as slow as the world record.

you would do better just to look at how you place in your age group in a certain race. If you are winning stuff too easily, look for better races.

Also, we have already established that talent is a pretty important variable here, so looking at age grading standards isn't exactly fair to the guy who is built like a football player that is just getting into running.

Progression on a personal level is a much better indicator than age grading.

Runner's World actually has an age-grading calculator but for some reason it won't work--at least for me.

http://www.runnersworld.com/cda/agegradingcalculator/0,7977,s6-238-277-415-0-0-0-0-0,00.html

It's working fine. Here are the categories:

Age-graded scores have been categorized into these broad achievement levels:

100% = Approximate World Record Level

Over 90% = World Class

Over 80% = National Class

Over 70% = Regional Class

Over 60% = Local Class

It's good to know that my recent 20:20 converts to an open-division 17:13. That's about 15 seconds faster than I ever ran when I was actually in the open division.

So there you go: RW should have written an article in which they linked this page and said "60 Percent is Passing!" JOIN THE SIXTY PERCENTER CLUB. You want to be a serious runner in your local community? Run at least 60 percent of your age-group standard.

If you're a 38 y.o. woman and you run 25, your AG percentage is 60.61%.

But if you're a 45 y.o. woman and you run 26 flat, your AG % is 61.43% Your 26:00, at that age, is actually slightly better than the 38 y.o.'s 25:00.

This is a huge missed opportunity for RW.

I think the real truth about all this is - apart from you running nerds - NOBODY CARES!

kudzurunner wrote:

25 minutes is not an acceptable threshold for seriousness for young men--or for older men, really.

25' would give me an age grade in excess of 60%. Why can't that be an acceptable threshold for me?

randomcoach wrote:

I coach a 16 year old girl who broke 17 in a 4.5 km XC race, which would be about 19min for a 5k XC.

Wow, you're awesome.

It's pathetic to think that an elite racer and joe jogger are even participating in the same sport. Racing is to jogging as the NBA is to zumba. Go ahead, jog your 25 min 5k. I do not understand your kind.