How common is it for HS track runners to not be able to break 5 in the mile?

david45 wrote:

Derderian wrote:

31.7% of the people selected to run their strongest event? Only 25 people ran sub-5 in that league, and schools having 600-900 students means that even if there are only 8 schools, at 750 average per pop, that's 25 out of 6000. Just over 4%. I think that's a little higher than average, but that's not too far off.

It sucks that genetics makes such a big deal

i agree david but that's just the way life is. better to accept it than to dwell on it. if i could i would run 300 mile weeks like lindgren and then become the world's greatest ever distance runner but that is not how life works. the only person you are born to be is urself, fast or slow, which is beauty in itself. imagine a world where everyone is the same and equal. boring, right?

CoachB wrote:

31.7 % of kids who ran the 1600 in CA broke 5 last year.

The high 4, low 5 range really seems to be the thick part of the bell curve. Someone who broke 4:55, would be about 1200 places higher on the list.

https://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/Division/Event.aspx?DivID=98381&Event=52&page=45

In our league, 25 out of 83 did it. We are a small school league in rural central CA. Most schools have between 600-900 students

We still do dual meets and they are great! You really don't get the team aspect of track and field if you just go to invitationals. Nothing quite like when the meet against your rival comes down to the 4x4 and each team is linning the inside curb of the track screaming their heads off.

awesome post. bringing the real information.

I ran outdoor track 3 years in HS in mass. In mass HS runs the mile and 2 mile - not the 1600/3200. I was a soccer and basketball player also and played soccer in college so track was something to stay in shape and I didn’t take it that seriously.

My PRs were:

400m: 57 seconds

800m: 2:03 - league champion junior year. 2nd place senior year. Ran against someone who went D1 senior year from another school.

Mile: 5:00:xx - never broke 5.

2 mile: can’t remember now since I never really ran it but don’t think I broke 10:30.

My team was over all league champion all 3 years I ran and I was the 1st or 2nd point scorer junior and senior years. (I usually did the 800/mile/High jump/triple jump also and 4x400)

No one on my team broke 5 in the mile all 3 years I ran.

There are what...20 leagues? 500 boys broke 5 mimutes in MA last year which is 25 kids per league and many meets don't get into Milesplit so probably more like 25 kids per league. If your league had none, some leagues had 30 or 40 kids breaking 5 minutes.

Great Oak had 42 guys in Milesplit break 5 last year. And milesplit doesn't track JV meets well so they probably had many more. But 42 documented from one school.

predictor wrote:

Great Oak had 42 guys in Milesplit break 5 last year. And milesplit doesn't track JV meets well so they probably had many more. But 42 documented from one school.

And how many did they have that didn't break 5? They have like a 100 man distance team. It is really large school.

Okay? 42 broke 5 and 58 did not. But we have these posters claiming they are winning conference meets with 5 minute miles. Or schools go years with nobody breaking 5. If Great Oak has 40% of their team doing it, it comes down to training and effort.

This was back in the late 90s and early aughts.

predictor wrote:

Okay? 42 broke 5 and 58 did not. But we have these posters claiming they are winning conference meets with 5 minute miles. Or schools go years with nobody breaking 5. If Great Oak has 40% of their team doing it, it comes down to training and effort.

There were a few people in my conference breaking 5 but no one on my team did.

high school xc coach wrote:

CoachB wrote:

31.7 % of kids who ran the 1600 in CA broke 5 last year.

The high 4, low 5 range really seems to be the thick part of the bell curve. Someone who broke 4:55, would be about 1200 places higher on the list.

https://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/Division/Event.aspx?DivID=98381&Event=52&page=45

In our league, 25 out of 83 did it. We are a small school league in rural central CA. Most schools have between 600-900 students

We still do dual meets and they are great! You really don't get the team aspect of track and field if you just go to invitationals. Nothing quite like when the meet against your rival comes down to the 4x4 and each team is linning the inside curb of the track screaming their heads off.

awesome post. bringing the real information.

This is good info, but still doesn't factor dual meets where times aren't entered. Which is likely to show us even more non-sub 5 guys. So the real percentage is probably closer to 25% if you factor in kids who have no results.

The Predictor wrote:

david45 wrote:

How are those people supposed to know if they have running talent?

there are quite a few people who dont, or find out later down the road. it's just the way it is.

personally, i joined cross country because i noticed i had better stamina than almost all my soccer teammates and i also had good sprint ability

That sucks

Hey David,

You seem to be posting a lot of threads regarding a lot of times that are benchmarks for high school runners and then talking down on your own genetics. If I remember correctly from an old thread you are ~18-20 years old and run over 8 minutes in the mile. Everyone here has been offering the same advice to you that at our non-elite levels of the sport, getting consistent training will result in you achieving some respectable times. You are probably a troll, but in the off chance that you're not, I am willing to take some time to try to help a fellow runner out. Post your last 4 weeks of training here and I will give you some textbook workouts and mileage to hit and I guarantee your times will drop. I have run sub 4:20 and sub 15:30 in the mile/5k and I barely broke 5 as a high school senior, so I understand your pain of wanting to be faster. I have also coached my little brother to run sub 5 on less than one year of training, so I have some experience with helping others and understanding different training approaches. If you want to keep beating yourself up that you are slow right now, that's fine, but whether you choose to accept my help or not know that you have the power to change yourself for the better.

im the same person as The Predictor. it's making me wait to post under an anonymous account

predictor wrote:

Okay? 42 broke 5 and 58 did not. But we have these posters claiming they are winning conference meets with 5 minute miles. Or schools go years with nobody breaking 5. If Great Oak has 40% of their team doing it, it comes down to training and effort.

great oak has 3255 students. let's assume there are as many boys as there are girls so that's 1627.5 boys.

that means that roughly

2.58%

boys at great oak broke 5. that is a very small percentage of boys. they probably cut slow guys from the great oak team as well. saying that 40% of their boys track team were able to break 5 does not necessarily mean that most boys can train to be sub 5. all it means is that their track team has a larger population pool to pick from, so a higher % of the team was going to be faster anyway compared to smaller schools.

That is insane. The school I coach at has around 250 students 9-12. So our entire league does not have the number of students Great Oak has! And out of those 250 kids, it's slim pickings after jv and varsity baseball and softball get their kids.

Wasn't it the predictor who estimated that 7% are capable? These numbers fall right in line with that. If every boy in the school trained for the mile, about 100 would do it. Sounds right. I don't know what is going on at these other schools if there are 10 schools in a conference with only 100 boys in each school, there should be 25 guys breaking 5 if the ratio is the same as at Great Oak. I think some posters don't know and most are just scamming us.

i am the same person as the predictor, posting in my registered account.

and yes, i was the one who suggested the 7% number

predictor wrote:

Wasn't it the predictor who estimated that 7% are capable? These numbers fall right in line with that. If every boy in the school trained for the mile, about 100 would do it. Sounds right. I don't know what is going on at these other schools if there are 10 schools in a conference with only 100 boys in each school, there should be 25 guys breaking 5 if the ratio is the same as at Great Oak. I think some posters don't know and most are just scamming us.

let's also assume that EVERY school is like great oak and the 7% rule is THE number.

10 schools x 100 boys = 1000 and 7% of 1000 are

70 boys total who are CAPABLE of doing sub 5.

great oak has 113.925 boys who are capable of sub 5, according to the 7% rule. yet, only 42 boys broke 5.

if every school is the same as great oak, only

36.8%

boys who are capable of breaking 5 will actually.. u know.. break 5.

so 70 people becomes 25.8 people who break 5. or 2.58 people who break 5 from each school.

the number can decline or increase based on how much emphasis is put on the schools' running programs or if the coach is an azzhole or whatever

at my school of 2000 as ive mentioned, only myself and a senior have broken 5 my past two years of being here

it should have been higher but the seniors from my first year didnt want to run track bcuz they didnt like the coach and played other sports. i did the same thing this hear and didnt do track, so only one person broke 5 and he did it by a lot. the number of sub 5s should be higher but people dont want to show up or put in the work