Flagpole wrote:
...if you just trained everyone, that they would all be able to:
break 20 minutes for 5k
run a 5:30 mile
or whatever
Most runners I know know are realistic that they will never break 20 mins for 5K or 6 minutes for the mile, or 3:30 for the marathon.
If you look at a NYRRC Coogan's 5K results, for example, you'll see that less than half the runners run sub 23 and around 25% of those are affiliated to a club.
Well, they did other sports in high school and then ran to stay fit after college.Yes, they thought they were fast...hard not to think that if you don't really know...they were faster than all the other people they trained with, and in the few races they had done, they finished in the top 5%.I watched my then 12-year-old son come in second overall in a 5k last summer in 18:51. Third place was 21:something. Go to enough races like this, and if there's not a 12-year-old in the race like my son, you might think you're fast.
brahs are us. wrote:
Flagpole wrote:I think too many of you people don't have access to non-athletes or something.
Back when I still worked for a company (I was in my late 30s), we decided to do a corporate challenge 5k. It was at a time where I hadn't been running much, so I decided to give it a go; 3 months of training where I started at 15 miles a week and bumped it up to about 30 by the end. About 15 of us trained for it, including a couple of 20-somethings that were supposedly "very fast". Some of the 20-somethings would run after work together, and these two supposedly fast guys would "dust" everyone. I just trained on my own.
Get to race day...they both run in the 23s. I run 17:48.
They were both young and fit. Could they get a little faster with more training...yep...both were already runners though, and they had even trained for longer races...they just weren't very fast (even though the even slower ones thought they were).
Don't worry about the "there is not talent" posters, Flagpole. Any rational person can see that there is a wide distribution of talent, a Gaussian distribution if you will.
Best not to entertain their incompetent responses to your reasonable, rational assertions.
But seriously, did those 23 minute guys THEMSELVES think that they were fast?!! Ugh, I would think that they would have raced people when younger and realized that they were slow as heck.
Flagpole wrote:
track chick wrote:I actually agree with you (somewhat) but that isn't the same argument as people running to break 20 min. Most of your sample in these XC races aren't bothered about breaking 20 min. It's not the same thing!
They are still running to do the best they can. There's a girl on my daughter's HS track team who just ran her 1600 PR of 7:19! She tried her hardest, flopped on the ground afterwards, the whole deal.
I think more of those runners running slow times are trying harder than you think they are. When I was in high school, a lot of our cross country team was made up of guys who wrestled in the winter...very competitive tough guys who ran to get in shape, but they tried like hell during the races too...the fastest wrestler? About 21:30 or so.
All of these people claiming that slow people just aren't trying hard should stop by the finish line of their local 5k sometime. Sure, there are some who look fresh as a daisy and clearly weren't pushing too hard, but there are a lot of people in the 20-30 minute finishing range who are totally spent. I'm sure that their training is not optimal, but they are obviously trying to run as fast as they can, given the fitness they have.
I also read something where a physiologist (Jack Daniels, maybe? not sure) said he wouldn't expect anyone to improve their times by more than 15-20% just based on the training they do. So Flagpole, your first 5k was somewhere around 17:30, and you got down below 15? Pretty good job of maximizing your potential. The guy on my HS team who started out at about 35 min for 5k? He's probably never gotten to 20:00, and sub-15 is a fantasy.
ronner wrote:
I had a college teammate who on our first day of xc practice, every season, he couldn't keep up on the teams easy runs. By the end of every season, he qualified for nationals(D1) as an individual and be our #1 guy be a long shot. He wasn't working harder than the rest of us during the season, our coach actually struggled with wether he should cut the guy for being so lazy. But he could get to nationals off half @ssed training in the fall and no summer running. Talent is for real and some of us have more than others.
I for one, set my school record in the Presidential Fitness test mile run off of no training in third grade. So yes, I had more talent than my peers. By college though, I was surrounded by guys with more talent than me.
Yep...talent is real.
There's a 8th grade boy on the track team at my son's middle school...he also ran CC in the fall and was the team's best runner...he came into both seasons having not run a step since the last season ended. So, just like in y our story, he was relatively slow at the beginning and then just killing everyone at the end. He ran a 6:05 1600 at the beginning of the season while being beaten by other boys on the team and then got down to 4:53 by the final meet. Not bad for an 8th grader. Super talented, but so far, lazy.
We all have a baseline ability with no training. We also have a cap determined by genetics, beyond which we cannot reach because any greater effort or training will result in injury.
Training is a way to increase the efficiency, endurance, and power of the body, while staying below the threshold which would cause injury. Training is controlled breaking down of the body so it can build itself up stronger.
There is a threshold beyond which, without external supplements, the body is simply incapable of performing.
you are of course correct. it applies to all walks of life.
not everyone can be a Mozart, Einstein or Gauss!
regarding running, the ability train hard without getting
injured is part of talent and is often ignored when discussing it. If you break down running more than 40mpw
you are not going run 2:05 for the marathon irrespective
of whether you have the right genes or not.
Buffalo ORange wrote:
I also read something where a physiologist (Jack Daniels, maybe? not sure) said he wouldn't expect anyone to improve their times by more than 15-20% just based on the training they do. So Flagpole, your first 5k was somewhere around 17:30, and you got down below 15? Pretty good job of maximizing your potential. The guy on my HS team who started out at about 35 min for 5k? He's probably never gotten to 20:00, and sub-15 is a fantasy.
Buffalo ORange,
My first 5k was at age 15...we weren't yet running 5,000 meters for CC in Ohio...didn't do that until my junior of high school; before that it was 2.5 miles for CC. Ran that first 5k (on the roads) in 17:22. Got down to 15:48 by senior year of high school and then 14:58 after that. And, I think that's about the best I could have done. I didn't train a lot in high school, but in college and beyond I ran a LOT more...improvements, but not great ones.
Flagpole wrote:
"The women's world record is 14:11 - do people really not think most 16 year old guys could come within 6 minutes of that?"
Yes. I think most MEN under age 40 (well over age 40 too, but I'm going for the most able group of men) could NOT run 5,000 meters within about 6 minutes of that time (not under 20:00).
Simply by the numbers....
The average active person's VO2max is in the low-mid 40's, and while there are a few studies around showing improvement up to 50% for a few individuals, the average is in the 10-15% range. Plug this into Dr. Daniels Oxygen Power equations and you get around 20-21 for the average person. That's POTENTIAL if they trained hard for it, and that's the average person, not the average runner. Now this is average, or mean. not median, but in large distributions, the mean and median are usually fairly close. What this means is half of all normal, healthy people could run faster than that, and half could not.
Once again, this is POTENTIAL, not what they can just saunter out to their local road race and run. Many people (joggers world readers) don't even know HOW to train. Many people who run are just doing it to control their weight, and they don't even care how fast they go. Others are just going for the post-race party (social runners). Many people don't want to run 60mpw plus 2-3 workouts (don't want to hurt that much), and others simply can't do it without getting injured.
Put that all together and it's not hard to see why there are so few people running sub-20, 18, or 15.
"With the best training in the world everyone could break 20 minutes for a 5k"
Ok, lets assume this is true. With the BEST training everyone breaks 20 minutes. But with that same BEST training, people are breaking 14 minutes you absolute morons. Why? Because they have more talent!!! Wow people are stupid.
Are you seriously trying to say talent doesn't play a role in running? Are you serious?
Or you can simply look at young kids who have NO training. Why are some kids so much faster than others? No, it's not because they train harder.... They're kids, they don't train. Yet some will completely blow the others away when it comes to any race.
Actually, I don't think there is a single able-bodied (ie, doesn't have something wrong with him) man under the age of 35 that couldn't break 20 without the proper training and weight loss. I am one of the least naturally talented runners out there. After a year of not running due to long term illness, jogging 3 miles at 10+ minute pace felt like nearly enough to kill me. 2 years after that (2 weeks ago), I just hit a new half marathon PR with every single 5k split under 18:00. I trained reasonably well, with no talent at all, but could train better and get considerably faster still, no doubt in my mind. Saying that any young able bodied male couldn't break 20 without proper diet and training is ridiculously wrong.
Raptured wrote:
Actually, I don't think there is a single able-bodied (ie, doesn't have something wrong with him) man under the age of 35 that couldn't break 20 without the proper training and weight loss. I am one of the least naturally talented runners out there. After a year of not running due to long term illness, jogging 3 miles at 10+ minute pace felt like nearly enough to kill me. 2 years after that (2 weeks ago), I just hit a new half marathon PR with every single 5k split under 18:00. I trained reasonably well, with no talent at all, but could train better and get considerably faster still, no doubt in my mind. Saying that any young able bodied male couldn't break 20 without proper diet and training is ridiculously wrong.
Dude, you just have some talent, that's all. You saying that you don't have talent doesn't make it so.
You clearly have NOT met enough people if you think any able-bodied male under age 35 should be able to break 20 minutes.
My super fit, lean, sprinter, wrestler brother would have had a hard time breaking 23 minutes even with a ton of training. It's just not possible for most people...simply not possible.
Raptured wrote:
Actually, I don't think there is a single able-bodied (ie, doesn't have something wrong with him) man under the age of 35 that couldn't break 20 without the proper training and weight loss. I am one of the least naturally talented runners out there. After a year of not running due to long term illness, jogging 3 miles at 10+ minute pace felt like nearly enough to kill me. 2 years after that (2 weeks ago), I just hit a new half marathon PR with every single 5k split under 18:00. I trained reasonably well, with no talent at all, but could train better and get considerably faster still, no doubt in my mind. Saying that any young able bodied male couldn't break 20 without proper diet and training is ridiculously wrong.
That's A) a really stupid post and B) a great example of the "humble brag". Good job on that at least.
I find it ridiculously hard to believe that someone young who gets down to their ideal racing weight, does their core work, runs 50 mpw or more weekly, does long runs, does workouts, etc for 10 months to a year consistently wouldn't break 20 for 5k. Unless their training is utter crap or poorly structured.
ssssss wrote:
I find it ridiculously hard to believe that someone young who gets down to their ideal racing weight, does their core work, runs 50 mpw or more weekly, does long runs, does workouts, etc for 10 months to a year consistently wouldn't break 20 for 5k. .
Well, that's a good point that i think Flagpole didn't consider. When everyone adds "core work" to their program, WHAM!, a couple minutes are shaved off their time. So yes, with core work, of course everyone can break 20. But that's almost cheating. Without core work....many people are lucky to break 30.
Flagpole wrote:
Jealous Much? wrote:Cleary you can't break a 20min 5k
Dude, I ran 17:22 in the very first 5k I ever ran, ran 15:48 in high school and then later 14:58. I just recognize that I was blessed with some talent. Most runners refuse to acknowledge that if they broke 20 minutes or 5:30 or whatever.
get over yourself, plz
I went from being able to run only one mile at a time in 9 minutes to 20 minute 5k in less than a year running on pure desire and hill work.
Flagpole wrote:
Raptured wrote:Actually, I don't think there is a single able-bodied (ie, doesn't have something wrong with him) man under the age of 35 that couldn't break 20 without the proper training and weight loss. I am one of the least naturally talented runners out there. After a year of not running due to long term illness, jogging 3 miles at 10+ minute pace felt like nearly enough to kill me. 2 years after that (2 weeks ago), I just hit a new half marathon PR with every single 5k split under 18:00. I trained reasonably well, with no talent at all, but could train better and get considerably faster still, no doubt in my mind. Saying that any young able bodied male couldn't break 20 without proper diet and training is ridiculously wrong.
Dude, you just have some talent, that's all. You saying that you don't have talent doesn't make it so.
You clearly have NOT met enough people if you think any able-bodied male under age 35 should be able to break 20 minutes.
My super fit, lean, sprinter, wrestler brother would have had a hard time breaking 23 minutes even with a ton of training. It's just not possible for most people...simply not possible.
Flagpole, you are 100% correct. So many here lack perspective...and like you said...then want to glorify themselves by claiming they did it all with hard work. Only a very small percentage of the population can break 20mins for 5K as evidenced by the fact that only a very small percentage of the population breaks 20mins for 5K.
People think slower folks don't run faster because they don't know how to train. This may be true to an extent...but it's exacerbated by the fact that they get so much stupid advice from people who are faster. The faster folks want the slower folks to do what they do...and that, of course, does not work. The faster runners...along with most coaches do not understand what it's like to be in an average body.
If you think the 20+min 5K runners are slow because they don't train right, try coaching them. Try coaching a group of people who's starting point is a 30min 5K. It's no easy task. Their bodies do not respond like a natural runner's body does.
Those of us that are able to run quickly should simply count our blessings.
ssssss wrote:
I find it ridiculously hard to believe that someone young who gets down to their ideal racing weight, does their core work, runs 50 mpw or more weekly, does long runs, does workouts, etc for 10 months to a year consistently wouldn't break 20 for 5k. Unless their training is utter crap or poorly structured.
All I can come up with on that is that you just haven't met enough runners. Time on task does not just give you results, and 20 minutes for 5k is tough enough that most can't do it...never.
PTF wrote:
Flagpole wrote:Dude, you just have some talent, that's all. You saying that you don't have talent doesn't make it so.
You clearly have NOT met enough people if you think any able-bodied male under age 35 should be able to break 20 minutes.
My super fit, lean, sprinter, wrestler brother would have had a hard time breaking 23 minutes even with a ton of training. It's just not possible for most people...simply not possible.
Flagpole, you are 100% correct. So many here lack perspective...and like you said...then want to glorify themselves by claiming they did it all with hard work. Only a very small percentage of the population can break 20mins for 5K as evidenced by the fact that only a very small percentage of the population breaks 20mins for 5K.
People think slower folks don't run faster because they don't know how to train. This may be true to an extent...but it's exacerbated by the fact that they get so much stupid advice from people who are faster. The faster folks want the slower folks to do what they do...and that, of course, does not work. The faster runners...along with most coaches do not understand what it's like to be in an average body.
If you think the 20+min 5K runners are slow because they don't train right, try coaching them. Try coaching a group of people who's starting point is a 30min 5K. It's no easy task. Their bodies do not respond like a natural runner's body does.
Those of us that are able to run quickly should simply count our blessings.
CORRECT! Nice post, brother!