Number of 5 minute miler in US

I just did some calculations and the number may be much lower than you'd think. I can say with pretty good certainty that where I am, DE, we probably have fewer than 30 post collegiate sub 5 runners out of the 800,000 people in the state. Add to that 25 guys from the university and about 40 from the high schools. Extend that out to 280 million and you still only get 32,000.

Now, DE is no power house in running like Oregon or New Jersey, but I'd say it's about average (remember that most of the country is pretty rural and that our culture is pretty fat). Also keep in mind that half the population are women and a large part are either over 40 or under 14.

Even a 25 year old who can break 5 is considered "regional class" by the age grading system.

So, congrats man. 5 minutes aint to shabby!!!

1998 top HS 1600m times

http://www.cs.uml.edu/~phoffman/nats98/topb16.htm

845 under 4:30, top time 4:04

1998 top HS 3200m times

http://www.cs.uml.edu/~phoffman/nats98/topb32.htm

1023 under 10:00, top time 8:55

1997 top HS 1600m times

http://www.cs.uml.edu/~phoffman/nats97/topb16.htm

626 under 4:30, top time 3:58

1997 top HS 3200m times

http://www.cs.uml.edu/~phoffman/nats97/topb32.htm

763 under 10:00, top time 8:54

1996 top HS 1600m times

http://www.cs.uml.edu/~phoffman/nats/topb16.htm

446 under 4:30, top time 4:04 (first year he did the list, accuracy?)

1996 top HS 3200m times

http://www.cs.uml.edu/~phoffman/nats/topb32.htm

539 under 10:00, top time 8:57

So, taking 1998...

12 guys, 4:10.xx and under

184 between 4:10.xx and sub 4:20

50 between 4:20-21

65 between 4:21-22

53 between 4:22-23

50 between 4:23-24

62 between 4:24-25

61 between 4:25-26

72 between 4:26-27

75 between 4:27-28

64 between 4:28-29

95 between 4:29-30

So, every 5 seconds there seems to be around a 20-30% jump in number of times. That makes sense as you would think there would be more runners running 4:30 than 4:20 and even more runners running 4:40 and so on...

So...following that progression I see around 118 at 4:35, 147 at 4:40, 183 at 4:45, 228 at 4:50, 285 at 4:55, 356 at 5:00.

So...total numbers equal about 2162 high school runners under 5:00. In those 3 years there was around a 25% increase in number of runners under 4:30 from year to year. If we assume that there would also be a 25% increase in number of runners under 5:00 and calculate that per year out to 2004 that would put us at 12,879 high school runners under 5:00.

Now, 5:00 is equal to around 27:48 8k or 35:28 10k. Add 5-10 seconds per mile for XC and we've got a 28:20-28:50 cross runner, or 36:00-36:30 10k cross. Ok, now someone go thru last year's regional results in D1-3 plus NAIA and Juco and find the number of runners under those times. I'm tired.

I would also have to say that a good number of collegiate men soccer players can break 5 minutes.

hey now wrote:

36.1 million Americans who ran once / 267 million Americans total equals 13.5%, not 86%.

Yeah, I meant to say that 86% did NOT run - left out the word NOT.

Ludacris wrote:

I would also have to say that a good number of collegiate men soccer players can break 5 minutes.

*********************

You'd be surprised. Though most of us take it for granted, 5 minutes is pretty darn fast. We had a guy on our track team who ran 4:30 in High School and was considered a running God amongst his soccer teamates.

Though, I'm sure you're right. Their have to be at least a few per team.

-Barry

I AM A CROSS COUNTRY AND TRACK COACH AT A HIGH SCHOOL WE HAVE ABOUT 40 MEN IN OUR PROGRAM ALL 5 SENIORS RUN UNDER 4:40 2 JUNIORS UNDER 4:59 AND TWO SOPHMORES AND 3 FRESHMAN GRANTED THE FRESHMAN ARE AN UNUSUALY TALENTED GROUP THIS YEAR. SO TO SAY ONLY 2 SUB 5 MINUTE MILERS PER HIGH SCHOOL I WOULD SAY IS UNDER ESEMATING THE TALENT OF THE HS ATHLETE.

METERS wrote:

Well, it is time for the irrelevant question of the week.

For elite runners the 4-minute mile is the first step to the world-class level. The same can be said about the 5-minute mile among amateurs. Once somebody hits five minutes for the mile they can say I am faster than 99% of the population.

Just about every high school has at least two 5-minute milers.

If you take high school runners into consideration along with elite runners, talented weekend runners, and master racers there are probably 200,000 five-minute milers in the US.

Does that sound like the right number for this pointless thread? The reason I am writing this is because I run my first 5-minute in twenty years this past weekend.

Fast fact:

At one time early in the last century the 5 minute mile was good enough for a women to represent her country in Olympic competition.

The number is between 50,000 and 100,000 Americans at any one time.

For a rough approximation of the possibilities we can do the following:

If you look at this site:

http://www.heartratemonitor.co.uk/research.html

you see that for a male in their 20's the average vo2max is 43 with a standard deviation of 7. If you look at this site:

http://www.coacheseducation.com/endur/jack-daniels-nov-00.htm

you see that a well trained person with a vo2max of 59.5 can run a 5 minute mile.

Assuming that the vo2max values in the first site are for untrained individuals, and that a modest amount of training can increase vo2max by 20% then we see that a person with an untrained vo2max of about 49.6 could be fairly easily trained to run a 5 minute mile. If we assume that vo2max distribution is approximately normal then we see that about 17% of males in their 20s could be trained to run a 5 minute mile.

I'm one of those Excelsior Runners. Nearly 40 and going to break the 5 minute mile again soon after more than 20 yrs!