Can most (50% or more) of guys run a 5 minute mile?

I don't think FW is arrogant, he's just overcompensating a bit for all the false modesty you see on this fourm. "Oh well I know I suck I've only run 14:45 for 5k, but..."

If it's true and relevant to the discussion (saying you scored a 1600 SAT on this particular thread would be arrogant), then it is not arrogant.

kartelite wrote:

I don't think FW is arrogant, he's just overcompensating a bit for all the false modesty you see on this fourm. "Oh well I know I suck I've only run 14:45 for 5k, but..."

If it's true and relevant to the discussion (saying you scored a 1600 SAT on this particular thread would be arrogant), then it is not arrogant.

fair point. i myself noted that i thought it was relevant when one guy posted that he tried but failed to break 5:00.

in running everything is relative. in some contexts, yes, 14:45 isn't much of an accomplishment. in other contexts, it is quite impressive.

i can honestly say that my times weren't very good. and i can honestly say that my times were very good. it just depends on what you are comparing them too. i imagine it's the same for just about every runner.

JEH wrote:

Let's say someone has a ceiling to reach 4:50. To me, that's not very talented. Now, why would such a person fight for and persevere and train zealously to reach this mark? I mean, train like a TOTAL pro... livelihood depending on it? Just about no one does. In fact, their livelihood can't depend on it because no one pays to see what a modestly-talented person can do. So, it is only in the very highest echelon that we can really see someone pushing themselves hard. Everyone else, even when they train pretty hard/well really is only 75% there in terms of effort.

Some people just want to test what their limits are. I ran one year of track in high school with a 5:05 1600 being my best time. This came in the first meet of the season, and I never got any faster so I quit. Ten years later I decided to start running again, at first merely for exercise purposes, but as I got back into shape I started training harder and "racing" in local road races. I decided that I wanted to see how far I could go, and whether I could break 5 minutes for the mile. I finally did two years ago at age 30 with a 4:57 in a road race in Boulder. I would still like to go faster, and think I may be able to with the proper training. I train like a pro (80 to 100 miles a week, three hard track workouts) not because of some delusion of granduer that I will some day become an Olympian, but rather because when I'm 50 I want to be able to say I maximized my talent to the best of my ability. Perhaps 4:57 is it. I won't know until I try as hard as I can.

That being said, the work it took to break 5 minutes for someone like myself who I consider to be moderately talented based on running a 5:05 1600 on no training in a first track meet leads me to believe that it takes more talent than most here believe. My guess would be that 10 to 15% of the male population is capable of it if they desire to do so.

I don't think there is more than 10% of the male population that could run a 5 minute mile.

First and foremost, you have to take into the consideration your own perspective of what a 5 minute mile is. Some would say fast, others would say slow, some would say, its in between. Obviously if you're a fast guy, a 5 min mile isn't anything to brag about, but then again, look at where you stand in relation to the rest of the runners on your team, then the rest of the runners in your conference, then the rest of the runners in the state.

I'm sure the bigger pool of athletes, the more you'll find that being a 5 minute miler is pushing you further and further to the faster side of the standard deviation.

Also, people keep talking about how if someone trained 100 miles a week and did workouts that they could obviously run a 5 minute mile, but you forget the simple fact that it takes talent to even train half as hard.

To even train at a specific level usually requires some amount of talent. It would be similiar to saying that if we all trained like El G, we could all run miles under 4 minutes, but the difference is, even many of our best athletes couldn't train as hard as el g.

Are there kids in other sports that could potentially run 5 minutes. Probably, but you also have to add in all the other kids from those sports that can't, and i'd be willing to bet that even though you'd get higher numbers of men who could run 5 minutes, you'd still be losing percentage points because most of those mens teamates couldn't do it, at best, they would have the same percentage of sub 5's as the cc and track team, once again, at BEST.

I'd say 10% at best, no more than that.

I think its interesting when people describe their highschool teams how few kids break the 5-minute mark. My team (which probably had less than 40 athletes including field events) had four guys that could go under 5:00 and two of us were well under. That is four guys out of about 10 total 800 and up runners. Of those four, two guys played soccer (instead of cross) and two ran cross country. So at least in my situation it seemed like 5:00 was pretty attainable. Just to clarify, my school was by no means a distance powerhouse. I would tend to feel that at least 25% of the population, and maybe even more should be able to get under 5:00 It just isn't that hard. I think on letsrun more people tend toward the half and marathon and the type of training necessary to excel in those sports and forget that the mile isn't necessarily about volume but quality. After taking two years off from any sort of consistent running I was able to get back under 5:00 within two months of starting off of at most 30 miles per week. Just my two cents.

kaitainen wrote:

that said, it certainly sounds like you are among the 50% that i am positing have the necessary talent to break 5:00. it sounds like you never ran with a team, and it is doubtful that you ran in competitive mile races on a track, with a similar level of competition, more than a couple of times. my assumptions are based on the fact that you trained from approximately age 22-26 and ran a 5:07 race at age 26. i'm not sure who you would be racing against at that age on a regular basis. you probably ran more road races than track races.

Just to follow up here, some background. I swam competitively in high school and at the Div. 1 NCAA level. I ran periodically through college as cross training, but never with an organized team or training group. After my third shoulder surgery, I found that that my competitive swimming days were over, and I picked up running as a way to stay fit and for a competitive outlet.

I certainly have the athletic genes required for success at some level (swimming), and I know how to work hard -- staring at the black line on the bottom of the pool for 2-3 hours a day. When I ran my 5:07 pr, I was coming off my best training ever. I'm 6'0", and weighed about 155. It was a perfect night, and I ran the time in an all-comers meet where at least a half dozen guys dropped sub-5:00. After that race, I really thought I get under 5:00, but I never even broke 5:10 again. I spent the following year using plans found in several books to try and get under 5:00, no dice. I think I ran 5:12 that year.

I'm 35 now, and could probably still drop under 5:40 if I tried really hard, but I don't think I'll get a whiff of sub 5:10 ever again. I have come to greatly respect the "talent" that goes into running. I think a lot of folks on this site think that because they ran sub-5:00 as a high school kid, that it's easy, and anyone can do it who tries. Unfortunately, that is not the case. I see a lot of weekend warrior types out there who are in my age range and training much harder than I am, and can't break 40:00 at the local 10k -- they simply lack the talent, it's surely not the desire as many run daily and use specific workouts to try and meet their goals.

As to what % of those can actually go under 5:00, I couldn't guess. Suffice it to say that those of you who can do it easily have a significant amount of talent, whether you wish to admit it or not!

It is an interesting question, in a bar argument kind of a way, since there is no way to really answer it.

I would say that middle aged jogger, even the one who runs and trains seriously, is no indication of the percentage of guys who could break 5. I say this because I took up running again at age 35--2.5 years ago. In this time I've build my training up to a solid and consistent 60+ miles a week, with some weeks a good bit higher. Mostly tempos and focused on road races, so no specific mile training. But my half marathon time is the equivalent on McMillan's of a 5:32. That's probably pretty accurate within a couple of seconds. I hope to get under 5 next summer at 38, but it is by no means a sure thing.

Many years ago I broke 5--first as a fifteen year old ninth grader and last as a seventeen year old junior, eventually getting down to 4:36 (1600). I did this off of crappy training--very little off season running, cross mileage peaking at about 40 mpw with heavy intervals, and a lousy track program. Running fast for a mile sure was easier at that age than it is at this age.

My guess is that if all high school boys were really committed and trained well for four years that 25% or so could do it. It takes some natural talent, but not a ton. You just could never get that many people to stick with it for that long.

Is this ridiculous message still going on. At that very least only 1.5% of the general population is capable of running a 5 minute mile. Get over it and face reality. If you believe 50% of active males can run 5 minute for the mile then you also can be convinced the world is flat!!

Noddles wrote:

Is this ridiculous message still going on. At that very least only 1.5% of the general population is capable of running a 5 minute mile. Get over it and face reality. If you believe 50% of active males can run 5 minute for the mile then you also can be convinced the world is flat!!

are you aware of the question being discussed? it certainly doesn't seem like it. maybe you should be sure that you understand what we are discussing before you start throwing around insults.

I'm a little late to this thread, but no way on the 50%. I looked at some of the better high school distance programs in Oregon and while most over half at an equivalent 1500m time some didn't. There is a great website in Oregon (actually available for the whole country) called www.athletic.net It had 1830 1500m marks input for Oregon last spring. Of those, about 1/3 were the equivalent of a sub 5 minute mile. Most of those athletes were at least doing some distance specific training. Add in sprinters, throwers, etc. and you're a far cry from 50%. That's before you add in all the non-track athletes that aren't athletic at all.

I ran a 15:22 5k 6 weeks ago which on this board puts me maybe in the 25th percentile or so (assuming all the liers are telling the truth) but in the real world probably puts me in the 99.999 percentile. Anyway, I got sick for a week and got out of shape. I just did a workout 3xmile in 5:04, 5:06, 5:12. I'm obviously in shape to break 5 minutes, but if an out of shape guy who's been running for 8 years and is in the 99.999 percentile of the population can't break 5 minutes when he's doing a 3x mile workout, then it can't be so easy. I don't care if you are Bekele, 5 MINUTES IS NOT JOGGING. It might be easy for us when we are working hard, but what's easy for us is impossible for most people.

Most people can't run a 5k in 30 minutes if their life depended on it. If your HR goes above 100, it means you are running faster than most people could run all out.

FW,

You were being facetious in your "Heart of a Lion Post" from a few days ago, weren't you?

I went out for HS cross country and got 5 of my friends to go out with me (6 total). None of them had ever run before and all five of them ended up breaking 5 minutes in the mile (roughly...4:30, 4:30, 4:40, 4:45, 4:45, 5:00). We all took 4 years to get to this point...but we all did it. That 1 percent prediction is crazy. At least 1/2 of hs boys could do it.

I have little speed (60pr)and no distance star either. I ended up having knee and general arthritis problems and am 6'2. I was somewhat active as a kid. Trained moderately my sophomore year of HS, hard in the summer and in xc and ran a 4:54 1600 dirt track at the end of xc. It's a cool accomplishment but it's my guess that 85% of guys could do it if they really tried hard, about 10% failing because of injuries or chronic problems.

kaitainen wrote:

Noddles wrote:

Is this ridiculous message still going on. At that very least only 1.5% of the general population is capable of running a 5 minute mile. Get over it and face reality. If you believe 50% of active males can run 5 minute for the mile then you also can be convinced the world is flat!!

are you aware of the question being discussed? it certainly doesn't seem like it. maybe you should be sure that you understand what we are discussing before you start throwing around insults.

my apologies, i see now that you posted on this thread earlier. it still does seem to me that you are discussing the percentage of people who in real life could currently run a sub-5 mile. that wasn't the OP's question.

on my hs cross team (ranked 8th in california for division V (small schools) my senior year and 3rd in the southern section), we only had two people who could break 5 minutes--and this is a team that trained 45-75 miles per week for a few seasons in a row (we didn't have track). there was a guy who was one of the best bball players in division V southern section on my team and he trained his butt off for a xc season and only managed a 5:01. And he was a great all around athlete in his best running shape!

All the arguments that use as evidence the posters high school/college experience where "oh we only had 5 sub-5 milers in our school of 300 etc." are completely invalid for this question.

The conditions specified in the original question were UNDER IDEAL CONDITIONS, what percentage of the male population could run sub-5? I postulate that by the time people get to high school if they haven't had some significant physical activity in their lives they have not been exposed to ideal conditions.

Complying with the OP's terms would constitute, in my opinion, taking all children at age 5 or so, enrolling them in a daily physical activity program with soccer, running, etc., then in middle school beginning more specific running work, then more substantial training into high school and college. Under these conditions, if EVERYONE partcipated until the age of 27 or so, I would think that a fairly significant percentage (maybe 60%?) of the population could run a mile in 5 minutes. Of course, these conditions would be impossible, but the question was a hypothetical one.

Flagpole,

BTW- I went to Worthington HS and we had 13-15 guys break 5:00 (out of 30) in the early 90's (and we weren't that great). NONE of us trained as we should...and all but one or 2 at MOST could've broke 5 with the appropriate dedication.

The soccer teams had 4 teams (Vasity,JV Red, JV Blue, Frosh) and those guys ran 5:30 in practice without blinking (another 100 guys). They all could've busted 5. The xc guys were the ones who weren't talented enough to tackle SOCCER...let alone football or basketball.

Give me 10 random male babies born tomorrow at Riverside Hospital and let me start training until they are 20 (1 million bucks to each person who busts 5). D you honestly think after 20 years that 5 of them haven't broken 5 minutes?

seriously.com wrote:

Give me 10 random male babies born tomorrow at Riverside Hospital and let me start training until they are 20 (1 million bucks to each person who busts 5). D you honestly think after 20 years that 5 of them haven't broken 5 minutes?

Seriously.com, that is very similar to what I was saying earlier when I wrote:

"Here's another hypothetical way to look at it. If Bill Gates selected a random sampling of 10,000 male babies and wrote a contract that stated that he would give $10mil per child that breaks 5min in the mile in the next 30 years... what percentage of these guys would eventually do it? I think it would be a good amount."

I'm with you... I TOTALLY think a lot more would do it than the 10-15% being suggested above.

And, to one of the people above, I am not saying that people would be able to train EXACTLY like El G. I mean, that they would train with the seriousness / dedication of El G. I'm really surprised by all the folks using themselves (or people that they know) as THE examples of serious training. C'mon and get real (smile)! Your (and my) training is child's play when it comes to maximizing-full-potential training.