Letsrunners weirdly overestimate distance running abilities of athletes in other sports just based on their general fitness. Running a 16’ 5K takes some training, and it’s entirely possible to be able to walk 85% of the time interspersed by rapid short sprints like Messi does on field without being aerobically strong enough to run a fast 5K.
Kind of like asking how well Kipchoge would do in a World Cup soccer match. My guess: not too good.
Are you seriously comparing a 16' 5k to participating in a World Cup match?
Iowa had an 8th grader run 15:30 last year and had 3 freshmen under 16:30 the first week of the season this year. Iowa has less than 1% of the US population. That would equate to 300 freshmen in the US.
Iowa had an 8th grader run 15:30 last year and had 3 freshmen under 16:30 the first week of the season this year. Iowa has less than 1% of the US population. That would equate to 300 freshmen in the US.
What is the opposite of superhero syndrome called? Someone ran a 5 minute mile in high school so they think Messi can't break 20 minutes in a 5k?
I'd call it "nerdy niche excellence syndrome".
X might have a Nobel prize but how many digits of pi does he have memorized...?
But this is exactly the point. Most Nobel prize winners have memorized very few digits of pi. Despite their prodigious skills, they haven’t put in time doing this specific task, so they aren’t particularly good at it.
If Nobel prize winners were to instead spend their time memorizing the digits of pi, they would undoubtedly be good at it. But even then, I don’t see why they should be the best in the world at memorizing numbers, just because they are perhaps the best in the world at understanding and working with sophisticated and deep concepts.
I'm sure this has been posted before, but I'm curious what people think now. He is known to have a lower work rate than many players and has been moving around 8km per match. I'm not sure how much that means. I think he could still probably hit around high 18:xx for a 5k if he didn't have much notice. He is an elite athlete and has the look of a good runner
We just dont know. Messi 67 kg x 168cm . So of course he doesnt have a Runner BMI . And he doesnt even need it for his sport. But the most important thing is to know if Messi is him an endurance guy or a speed guy? This is the only question we need. Because if we take a population of pro football players the two biggest category are if they are sprinter (yes like Bolt) or anyway very good till 800. This first group( the biggest population) of course when it comes to run a 5000 they will not be so good no matter how. Different case for those pro footballer that are genetically gifted for endurance and are aerobically stronger. I have one teammate, that comes from football (not pro) same Messi heigth but with less muscle , also same age. It took some years of serious training to go from 1:24 half to 1:13 . And to go in a 5k from 18:20 to 16:30. So if Messi is not really a speed guy ,probably he run right now around 18 -19 minutes , but who knows??His quads seems so heavy built for endurance , I mean the guy is fast for a 30 - 60 metres stretch .But to run a good 5k , without a specific training if you are not genetically gifted and very strong aerobically I think is very difficult coming from a sport like football. To run A good 5k I will bet more on this guy Moroccan guy Azzedine Ounahi 1'82cm x 62 kg . this guy can have a talent for distance running but again as coach Canova used to say . Talent is something that we cant see from outside. The guy sure has BMI like a distance runner , and is a great player , but then of course we dont know his real physiological values when it comes to endurance.
I must state that in NO way, shape or form am I intending to infringe rights of the copyright holder. Content used is strictly for research/reviewing purpose...
What sort of school did you go to? I went to a public high school with 1600 kids or so and almost no one on the crosscountry team could run 16 flat. One guy in my four years broke 16. If we had 7 guys who could break 18 most meets, that was a good year. We were a very average school and the vast majority of our varisty soccer team were not running sub6 minute pace for a 5k in any world.
About 3000 kids when I was there, regularly a top 4 team for state in soccer. Usually 3-4 of our varsity squad were soccer guys. We usually had about 15-16 boys breaking 18. Typically you’d need to be breaking 17 to run varsity by the end of the season. One of those soccer guys quit, got dedicated and ran 15:50something and sub 2:00 in the 800m for track. We actually had a soccer kid who would run in his cleats or barefoot and hit low 17:00s. I wouldn’t underestimate soccer players abilities in the Vo2Max/speed endurance realm. They literally just run fartleks, pure speed, and aerobic runs with a ball involved for training.
For that reason I’ll double down on my claim that most pro soccer players would wipe the floor with most highschool athletes from 800-5k. Soccer pulls from a strong genetic pool as compared to running, this argument will further piss people off, but I bet if most high schools switched soccer and distance squads, and trained them, the soccer team would on average do the distance running better than the original distance squad, while the distance squad would underperform at soccer.
I have been coaching for a long time now. I coach XC and track. We have the top soccer program in the state. They are decent 400 and 800 meter runners. They can not compete with our XC guys in the 1500 and over unless they switch over and run XC. I doubt it is different anywhere else.
There are always outliers of course but a team of soccer players are not going to beat a team of XC runners at the same school unless the XC coach is completely incompetent.
I'd put him in the 18 - 20 minute range. He's fit in the sense that he can recover and consistently perform short bursts of speed, but he's much more of a fast-twitch athlete.
For reference, In Australia, AFL is the most popular sport - and the players often do a 2k Time Trial in the offseason to track their fitness progression. This is a sport much more akin to distance running (bigger fields and a faster pace, free-flowing game), and all the "experts" lose their sh*t when someone breaks 6 minutes. They'll often call players that achieve such a feat "elite runners".
So, given that Messi isn't renowned as a high caliber aerobic athlete within the sport of football, I doubt he is anywhere near the level mentioned above.
most of you guys have no idea how fast Messi is. for a soccer player, a six minute mile does not seem like you are running fast. not at all. Messi is incredibly quick. ok, he is not trained for a 5k, but he would easily do it in under 18 minutes. a little training and he's under 16 for sure.
If at any point in the race any other racer bumped into him even a little bit he would throw himself onto the ground and roll around screaming for 10 minutes.
When I watch a 5000 meter race, I am always struck by the beauty of that pure running form. But Messi exemplifies a different kind of running form, adapted to a different purpose. Specifically, what strikes me, watching Messi, is how incredibly balanced he is as he runs. He has amazingly quick feet with sometimes almost comically short steps that allow him not only stay on his feet but to control the ball as he dribbles into contact. He has a running form that wouldn't translate particularly well to distance running but allows him an extraordinary mastery of the ball. When I watch him, I never think, "wow, this guy can run" like I do when I see Mbappe open up, for example. Rather, I see Messi as more of an artist, a dancer, than a pure runner.
His assist to Julian Alvarez in the Croatia game is a perfect example:
Follow FIFA World Cup & FIFA Women's World Cup: 👉 https://www.instagram.com/fifaworldcup 👉 https://www.instagram.com/fifaworldcup 👉 https://twitter.com/FI...
Bournemouth are not Messi level as soccer player, but I don't think Messi is necessarily in a different class in running fitness (at least not compared to their best runners). More importantly, sub 6 min mile is a rather low threshold. I'd expect some high level soccer players, especially midfielders to run around/sub 5 miles.
I recall in my youth at school 14-15 year old boys running around/sub 3 min 1k just from soccer training (of course these were among the best runners among the soccer players, not average). But that's quite a bit from 17-18 min 5k and I'd expect soccer players to be relatively best at 800-mile or even 400-800.
Few if any would run 16 min. 5k, more would run sub 10 3k or 5 min mile. But I think considerably better marks to be very rare although more would get there with a few months of specialized training.
Exactly, letsrun just assumes someone who is pro in a sport is also a genetically gifted running god that is faster then non pros in that sport.
Messi is pro at football because he kicks balls better than your high school buddies, not because he necessarily runs faster.
Its like saying shaq can run a faster 5k then your high school friends because shaq can play better basketball.
In most of the world, the people with the most distance running ability play soccer.
The fastest people in the gym class mile were soccer players
Soccer is incredibly cardiovascularly demanding. Doesn't matter that they're doing some walking when they're fully sprinting much of the time
These guys have more athleticism in their pinkies than 90% of the posters in this thread
There were guys who came off the high school soccer team and easily broke 18:00
Messi is so fit I have absolutely zero doubt he would break 17:00
Bunch of delusional people with big egos in this thread who run an hour a day and think that makes them light years better than the world's most gifted athletes playing the most cardiovascularly demanding major sport. They would absolutely murder 99% of you in running with 6 months of training
it's strange how you think there is a correlation between dribbling/scoring ability in football and 5k PR.
Bolt was a lot fitter than Messi, do you think he would run sub 17:00 5K?
Again, Messi is one of the less fit pro football players as he is at the end of a 20years long carrier. Moreoever, He has an awfull running form. He has a lot of useless muscles for running that would obvioulsy hurt his 5k time. His height/weight ratio is awfull for distance running. He is very good at changing direction which is the opposit of running as fast as possible for a given distance. He even sucks at sprinting now. Your high school football guy is probably fitter than Messi.
Footballers are far from being the most gifted athletes. A lot struggle to run 10km in 90mn. They are gifted for playing football, which requires above average fitness at a high level but nothing extraordinary. Many footballers were famous for partying, drinking, smoking, etc and still be among the best of their sport. That could not happen for a runner/swimmer/skiier/cycling pro etc
So you are the delusional one here. A lot of people here are more talented for running than football pros and would smoke them everyday even if those football pros trained 6months for running. You can't excel in everything. Kanté can probably do sub 16 without specific training but I don't think there are many more. Many pro football player can ran sub 17 but not Messi.