Much of what composes running talent is invisible or subtle, so those who have it do not seem obviously "special" and tend to overlook their talent. Consider things like heart or left ventricle size; prevalence of slow-twitch fibers; ratio of tibia to femur length; and springiness of leg muscles.
I am with the under-5% crowd on this question. Runners who find achieving this standard easy vastly overestimate how talented they are relative to the population as a whole.
jamin wrote:
Echidna wrote:No one with a linebacker type build is ever going to do it, no mater how many people they can tackle.
Part of their training which would span years would involve losing their linebacker build.
I can't believe so many people in this thread are using the "Look at the general population" argument.
Look at the general population is the wrong approach, yes.
But the numbers are definitely very low. Well under 25%, personally I think somewhere between 2-10% is probably realistic. Cycling, where it's very much "by the numbers" provides some good evidence.
From a good post:
Andrew Coggan wrote:
With short-term training, VO2max increases by 15-25% on average, with another perhaps 5-10% possible (on average, anyway) with more prolonged and/or intense training. That gives a total increase of 20-35%, so I'll go with 30% just for argument's sake.
So, if VO2max is, on average, 50 mL/min/kg and increases by, on average, 30%, that means that the average Joe ought to be able to raise their VO2max to about 65 mL/min/kg with training. Indeed, there are many, many, many, MANY amateur endurance athletes with VO2max values of around that number (not to mention the fact that athletes in team sports with an endurance component - e.g., soccer - often have a VO2max of around 60 mL/min/kg, something that is also true in other sports that you don't normally consider to be of an endurance nature, e.g., downhill skiing or motocross - i.e., motorcycle - racing).
The question then becomes, how high might functional threshold power fall as a percentage of VO2max (again, on average), and what does this translate to in terms of a power output? The answer to the former is about 80% (LT, on average, being about 75% of VO2max in trained cyclists), which means that in terms of O2 consumption, a functional threshold power corresponding to a VO2 of 65 mL/min/kg * 0.80 = 52 mL/min/kg could be considered average. If you then assume an average cycling economy of 0.075 W/min/kg per mL/min/kg, this equates to...
3.9 W/kg
The main takeaway there is 3.9 w/kg. Top pro's typically have an FTP around 6/wkg, so a generic average guy training seriously can get to about 65-70% of the level of a top pro.
Applying this to running, if we take typical top pro times to be around 8:00 for 2M and give 70% that gives us around 11:25 for 2M. Now, given those figures are for power, a 30% difference in power won't result in a 30% difference in speed (wind resistance increases exponentially) but....running speeds are very low. I'd say 11:00 would be exceptionally generous for what we could expect the average male to do.
How many could do 10:00? Depends on how you think the bell curve is actually distributed on either side of 11:xx range. I'd be shocked if more than 10% could.
xnznnsnz wrote:
I'd say 2.5% of.men in their prime
You forgot the decimal point, but I fixed it for you.
May I ask what your lifetime best is ultimately?
I actually doubt that 10 % of the population could even run a single 75 second lap.
I have seen a lot of poorly talented people do all kinds of good training and they would have as much luck learning how to fly as they would doing two sub five miles in a row.
Reasonable now wrote:
I ran 9:57 and was 9th man on my team/couldn't even make my team for state. I had a nationally respected coach and ran up to 90 mpw. When people ask me about my HS running career I have to tell them I never made a varsity team in cross. That would seem to make me thoroughly mediocre. Don't get the 0.2% or even 2% arguments.
For every story like yours, there are thousands of stories where there was only one guy who broke 10 (in my case, that would be me, and we had 70 guys on our cross country team, and of those guys the second fastest ran in the 10:20s for 3200 in track) or where there weren't any. My school had just under 2,000 students, so about 1,000 (a little fewer) males.
I didn't break 10 until I was a junior in high school, and then I did it again as a senior. When I was a freshman and sophomore, no one in the school did it, and when I was a junior and senior, I was the only one who did, and after I graduated, no one at that school broke 10 minutes for 3200 for 16 years.
Your story is anomaly. How many kids were at your school? 1,000? So, 500 boys? 2% of 500 is 10. In a program such as yours that had a nationally respected coach, likely anyone with a modicum of running talent went out for cross country and track.
It is exceedingly difficult for any male to break 10 minutes for 3200 meters let alone when you add 18 more meters for a full 2 miles.
2% MAX, and likely less than that.
Hitting a mark like this, it requires will. You have to want it. Bad.
I wanted to break 5:00 in the mile more than anything my soph year in high school, trained to it, and did it.
You may as well ask, what percentage of males in the group would really, really want it bad???
Later, I ran 4:21.9 at age 18. I was ecstatic. I kept running the mile until I hit 21, and I my best was 4:20.9. Why didn't I break 4:20? Easy answer. I just didn't want it anymore. I lacked motivation!
I remember the race where I ran 4:20.9. Half a lap into the race, I thought, "What am I doing this for?"
ten minutes aintthatfast wrote:
5 YEARS of training with full motivation and good coaching, assuming no injuries:
80%. At least.
Without full motivation or accounting for injuries it's probably like 40%.
Stringing together a couple 5 minute miles is something most anyone is capable of regardless of athleticism, a lot of it is work ethic, upper body atrophy, mileage, etc.
This biggest factor for most guys would be the weight (fat) but that drops off with a steady diet of 60-70 mile weeks (easily doable after 1 year) and not eating like the average American.
This guy is insane. I'd like to provide some annecdotal evidence against him. For reference, I really like what Alan/Runningart2004 has said on the subject.
I am pretty much the guy in the OP's scenario: The work I do allows me up to 6 hours of the daylight hours of any & all days to train, so in other words I can get somewhat close to satisfying the "train all you want" premise. In April, 2012 I picked up running, so I'm in my 4th year of running, which is coming close to the 5 given by the OP. I started with a BMI of about 29, so overweight, yes, obese, no. I have never smoked anything or done any drugs. I have no chronic conditions, and my only allergies are a mild intolerance of sulfur and of lactose. I sleep about 7 to 8 hours per night. I eat very healthily (have had fast food only 3 times in the last 2 years, as an example of this). All those things satisfy the healthy or capable of being healthy premise. I am 5'5" and naturally stocky (wide hips, wide ribcage, etc.), so not a body-type that lends easily to fast running. Lastly, I train almost exclusively on a grass & cinder trail when outdoors -- no gravel, no asphalt, no concrete -- and set the treadmill to a 3% incline when indoors, so that I am decreasing the possibility of injuries from impact on hard surfaces in both instances. My age to start: 27, so not quite in my prime, but not terribly far off.
Result: After 3.5 years my 2-mile PR is 12:38. It was run in a 5k race where I set my 5k PR of 19:50. A few weeks before that I solo-ran a 2-mile on a standard track in 12:45, and I estimate that with some competition in a 2-mile-only race on the track I could go sub-12:30. My BMI is now 24.
What happened on the way there? Well, it wasn't until after 2 full years of running that I could run every day. It wasn't until the 3rd year that I could run more than 5.5 to 6 miles per day. If I attempted more than this (or doubles instead of singles) I literally had trouble walking next day. However, very interestingly, in my 4th year I have made excellent mileage gains, and somewhat easily can run 8 miles per day, with an occasional long run of up to 13.
Here is my 2-mile progression:
By the end of 2012: over 15:00 (not well-measured)
By the end of 2013: 13:59
By the end of 2014: 13:22
So far in 2015: 12:38
In the process, I have sustained piriformis, gluteal, and hamstring injuries. So Alan was very correct about chronic injuries (I've had a nagging piriformis issue since September, 2013).
I time myself on a track at 400m, mile, 2-mile, 5000m, and 10,000m at least twice per year, several times in the case of 400m and mile. I also occasionally measure my speed at other distances, like 200m. For reference, my 200m ability is currently 35.5, my 400m ability is 1:19, and my mile ability is 5:51.
I believe I represent someone a LOT closer to an 'average Joe' than most people on this message board, and I have yet to break 12:00 for the 2-mile, let alone 11 or 10.
I'd bet most sub-10 runners have a BMI less than 20...
If this guy is for real, he's gonna break 10 just by dropping his BMI to 20 or less. 24 is still overweight even for an average Joe.
Flagpole wrote:
Reasonable now wrote:I ran 9:57 and was 9th man on my team/couldn't even make my team for state. I had a nationally respected coach and ran up to 90 mpw. When people ask me about my HS running career I have to tell them I never made a varsity team in cross. That would seem to make me thoroughly mediocre. Don't get the 0.2% or even 2% arguments.
For every story like yours, there are thousands of stories where there was only one guy who broke 10 (in my case, that would be me, and we had 70 guys on our cross country team, and of those guys the second fastest ran in the 10:20s for 3200 in track) or where there weren't any. My school had just under 2,000 students, so about 1,000 (a little fewer) males.
I didn't break 10 until I was a junior in high school, and then I did it again as a senior. When I was a freshman and sophomore, no one in the school did it, and when I was a junior and senior, I was the only one who did, and after I graduated, no one at that school broke 10 minutes for 3200 for 16 years.
Your story is anomaly. How many kids were at your school? 1,000? So, 500 boys? 2% of 500 is 10. In a program such as yours that had a nationally respected coach, likely anyone with a modicum of running talent went out for cross country and track.
It is exceedingly difficult for any male to break 10 minutes for 3200 meters let alone when you add 18 more meters for a full 2 miles.
2% MAX, and likely less than that.
The point is with a big enough incentive, the world would look a lot more like his school than yours.
lets look at the differences between HS and this
a) You will be looking at 21-25 year old runners. If you look at elite runners, most of them get 20-30s faster in in the years between 18-22. And that is for elite athletes who you would have less room for improvement. Maturity matters a lot.
b) Incentive. How many kids in HS put in 60-70 mpw? Very few. Heck we were a top ranked program (i.e. we won states and New englands on a regular basis) and we still struggled to get most kids to run over the summer.
c) related to b is with enough incentive, you are willing to put in a heck of a lot more. If you were like a 10:20 guy with 2 years left, would you spend the money to get an altitude tent? Would you find an alterG so you could train more without injyr? How many would do EPO and the like?
In our HS we had ~1% of the males break 10 min. There was ~5% more who ran sub 10:30 (i.e the kids you have a good chance of breaking 10 with another 2-3 years of training and maturity.). That sounds like a low number right? But then consider that it was close to 100% of those kids that ran XC. The other 90% of the school never tried. Now some of that is self selection but there were also a lot of kids that might have been good if they tried.
You can look at countries like Japan to see what type of depth you can get when people try (and not they don't have anywhere near the incentive that we are talking about).
I bet if we set the incentive to that you get to hook up with a victoria secret model for 6 months, the numbers would be well north of 50%:)
Just curious... wrote:
If this guy is for real, he's gonna break 10 just by dropping his BMI to 20 or less. 24 is still overweight even for an average Joe.
I don't know if 24 is overweight for a 'real' runner (I'm not a sports scientist). However, according to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institute of Health, "normal" weight is a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9, with "overweight" starting at 25.0. So, at least on the official BMI, I'm strictly less than the overweight category with my current BMI of 24 (24.3 to be precise).
On a different note, I do very much appreciate your belief that I could achieve such an excellent time some day!
asdadsfa wrote:
Flagpole wrote:For every story like yours, there are thousands of stories where there was only one guy who broke 10 (in my case, that would be me, and we had 70 guys on our cross country team, and of those guys the second fastest ran in the 10:20s for 3200 in track) or where there weren't any. My school had just under 2,000 students, so about 1,000 (a little fewer) males.
I didn't break 10 until I was a junior in high school, and then I did it again as a senior. When I was a freshman and sophomore, no one in the school did it, and when I was a junior and senior, I was the only one who did, and after I graduated, no one at that school broke 10 minutes for 3200 for 16 years.
Your story is anomaly. How many kids were at your school? 1,000? So, 500 boys? 2% of 500 is 10. In a program such as yours that had a nationally respected coach, likely anyone with a modicum of running talent went out for cross country and track.
It is exceedingly difficult for any male to break 10 minutes for 3200 meters let alone when you add 18 more meters for a full 2 miles.
2% MAX, and likely less than that.
The point is with a big enough incentive, the world would look a lot more like his school than yours.
lets look at the differences between HS and this
a) You will be looking at 21-25 year old runners. If you look at elite runners, most of them get 20-30s faster in in the years between 18-22. And that is for elite athletes who you would have less room for improvement. Maturity matters a lot.
b) Incentive. How many kids in HS put in 60-70 mpw? Very few. Heck we were a top ranked program (i.e. we won states and New englands on a regular basis) and we still struggled to get most kids to run over the summer.
c) related to b is with enough incentive, you are willing to put in a heck of a lot more. If you were like a 10:20 guy with 2 years left, would you spend the money to get an altitude tent? Would you find an alterG so you could train more without injyr? How many would do EPO and the like?
In our HS we had ~1% of the males break 10 min. There was ~5% more who ran sub 10:30 (i.e the kids you have a good chance of breaking 10 with another 2-3 years of training and maturity.). That sounds like a low number right? But then consider that it was close to 100% of those kids that ran XC. The other 90% of the school never tried. Now some of that is self selection but there were also a lot of kids that might have been good if they tried.
You can look at countries like Japan to see what type of depth you can get when people try (and not they don't have anywhere near the incentive that we are talking about).
I bet if we set the incentive to that you get to hook up with a victoria secret model for 6 months, the numbers would be well north of 50%:)
First of all, using EPO and other performance enhancing drugs is not acceptable here, so you can't say that.
Second of all, ALL kids know early on in elementary school if they have an aptitude for running. They ALL do the President's Fitness thing or run a mile as fast as they can in PE class, etc. They all play tag (if the school hasn't banned it) and run around at recess. They KNOW if they are good at running, and those that are run cross country and track. There is not a similar percentage of kids in the general population of any given high school who can run what the kids on the CC team do. Those kids in the general population didn't go out for cross country for the same reason I didn't go out for football - no evidence of aptitude or wrong body type, etc.
If only we could get better at things with incentives. The incentive is there now for those who run to become a professional runner -- there's some decent money in it for the top guys, so why don't more just go for it and do that? An incentive might get someone to start, but when progress isn't realized (and it wouldn't be for at least 98% of those attempting to run 2 miles in under 10 minutes), they quit. You could tell me you would give me a billion dollars if I could run 5,000 meters in under 13 minutes, and I would not be able to do it, not today, not at any time in the past, never. We have physical limits.
And, Victoria's Secret model? No thanks. Perhaps they are all pretty when in their own casual clothes, but those commercials make them look ridiculous. They need to stop with the wings thing.
At least 60% of the population lack the natural running talent to break 10min, no matter how hard they train.
A Further 25% have that talent, but lack the necessary mental fortitude required for high level distance training.
So we can dismiss 85% of the population right away. For the remaining 15%, I'm guessing half would fail due to injuries, illness, or just plain bad luck.
Now we're left with 7-8%, but not everyone who can physically break 10min will actually do so on race day. 4-6% seems like the right number, and that might still be too high.
a real average joe wrote:
Just curious... wrote:If this guy is for real, he's gonna break 10 just by dropping his BMI to 20 or less. 24 is still overweight even for an average Joe.
I don't know if 24 is overweight for a 'real' runner (I'm not a sports scientist). However, according to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institute of Health, "normal" weight is a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9, with "overweight" starting at 25.0. So, at least on the official BMI, I'm strictly less than the overweight category with my current BMI of 24 (24.3 to be precise).
On a different note, I do very much appreciate your belief that I could achieve such an excellent time some day!
BMI is not a good indicator of body fat, but it does provide a decent approximation for a person's overall size. Someone with a BMI of 30 is going to be BIG person, whether that's 90% fat, 10% muscle or vice versa depends on the individual.
If you're BMI is 24 there is no doubt you're big when it comes to running. You might be at 8% BF with a nice six pack, but you're still carrying a ton of extra weight. I'd say 90%+ of runners that can go sub 16:00 5k or lower are at 21 or less BMI, and for professional runners the average is closer to 19.5.
If you're 5'10" then you would be looking at losing 25lbs to get down into the 20s for BMI. Which is a TON of weight. In the lower 140s you'd be without a question sub 11, possibly looking at sub 10:30 or better. General rule of thumb reference is that 1% reduction in weight results in a 1% improvement in time, provided you aren't so lean you're dropping below healthy levels of fat.
What I would say is a good estimate is looking at some of the best public school xc programs from around the nation for a given year and compare the amount of kids that broke 10 to the number of kids in the school. Here are some of the best programs that come to mind, Fayetteville Manlius, Arcadia, Woodlands and York. there are definitely more but I cant think of any right now. Not counting CBA because it is private and does not properly represent the population.
I will use 2014-2015 data and for conversions, anyone under 4:40 for 1 mile/1600 I will consider sub 10. One guy from F-M ran 9:44 for a 3k steeple, that is worthy of sub 10 as well.
F-M: 1460 kids/2=730 boys
7 guys under 10 or with equivalent performance indicating sub 10
7/730=0.96%
Arcadia: 3510 kids/2=1755 boys
8 guys under 10 or with equivalent performance indicating sub 10
8/1755=0.46%
Woodlands: 4125 kids/2=2063 boys
19 guys under 10 or with equivalent performance indicating sub 10
19/2063=0.92%
York: 2692 kids/2=1346 boys
9 guys under 10 or with equivalent performance indicating sub 10
9/1346=.67%
avg=.7525%
Take this for what its worth but here is how I see it, these numbers are so drastically low that there is just no way more than 10% could go under 10, the kids running in these programs are pushing the limits of what their body can handle and the majority can't break 10, I also think people would just get injured after a certain point, and this injury problem is even common with runners.
Is comparing the guys under 10 to the entire male student population really accurate? Shouldn't you be comparing to a smaller sample of guys within that same grade level to account for age/training time?
do you do any speed work, even tempo runs? or all distance running, because those are very good times for just running 60 mpw (just over 8 /day is what you said) without any speed work.
Just curious... wrote:
If this guy is for real, he's gonna break 10 just by dropping his BMI to 20 or less. 24 is still overweight even for an average Joe.
Not sub 10. Sub 11, yes. Provided he is able to drop his weight down into the low 20s. I think most people can get down to 21-22 or so BMI regardless of body shape if they really have the discipline. Beyond that it gets hard, not everyone has the body needed to be a small, 6% BF for sustained periods necessary for having a high 19s BMI.
Just curious... wrote:
Here is my 2-mile progression:
By the end of 2012: over 15:00 (not well-measured)
By the end of 2013: 13:59
By the end of 2014: 13:22
So far in 2015: 12:38
a real average joe
In the process, I have sustained piriformis, gluteal, and hamstring injuries. So Alan was very correct about chronic injuries (I've had a nagging piriformis issue since September, 2013).
I time myself on a track at 400m, mile, 2-mile, 5000m, and 10,000m at least twice per year, several times in the case of 400m and mile. I also occasionally measure my speed at other distances, like 200m. For reference, my 200m ability is currently 35.5, my 400m ability is 1:19, and my mile ability is 5:51.
I believe I represent someone a LOT closer to an 'average Joe' than most people on this message board, and I have yet to break 12:00 for the 2-mile, let alone 11 or 10.
It's crazy how much you sound like my friend in most regards. He started running after I helped him get started, and has worked his way up to where he runs 70-80mpw in a focused manner with workouts and trains seriously. His first year was around 40mpw, next year 60mpw, and last two years has been running 70-80mpw. Very durable, as he has never really been injured.
His progression has been
24:19 (about 3 months into his first year)
23:26
22:41
22:08
Overall PRs are:
15.6 (hand timed, flying)
73.1 (hand)
6:18
13:43
22:08
47:11
He just doesn't have much in the way of talent. Obviously no hint of anything that resembles wheels, and doesn't really respond heavily to training. A 6'1" 168 he could probably lose 10-15lbs and get down to 12:30 or so, but I can't really ever see him sniffing 11, let alone 10. He can barely run 400m at a sufficient pace.
these threads are amazingly frustrating - guesses from 5% to 80%.
I'd tend to be in the 5%-10% range...except there exist outliers like Fayetteville Manlius HS. I don't have any facts, but I'd bet they have at least 5 guys, every year, under 10. Probably more. And Christian Brothers probably has 5 guys under 10, every year. Or more.
If it is so hard to run under 10, how do some programs succeed every year, without fail? It ain't luck. if Bill Aris coached eveyone personally, the number of sub10s would be much, much higher than if I did the coaching.