What is the average mile time of the GENERAL population for a 30 year old male?

I love how you used logic and past results to support your hypothesis. What are you, a freaking scientist?? This is LR, LOGIC DOES NOT APPLY!!!BTW, I ran that race with my 20 year-old nephew. His EPIC 5k turned into a death march after about a mile and half. My brother is anti-athletics, so his kids never did anything physical growing up. Watching/cajoling/threatening a college junior to try and beat 35 minutes in a 5K was a surreal funny/sad moment. I can't imagine how slow he'll be by the time the kid is 30.

foo wrote:

Ok, I took the biggest mass-appeal race I could think of, the Silicon Valley Turkey Trot 5k, and took the median times for the 25-29 and 30-34 age groups. They were 36:00 and 37:42, respectively. I then averaged the time to come up with 36:51 as the estimated median 5k time for a 30 your old.

Then, I plugged this into the Runner's World race time predictor:

http://www.runnersworld.com/pace-calculators/race-times-predictor

which results in a 1 mile time of:

11:05

I'd assume that the general population as a while is less fit than you average turkey trot runner (open for discussion on that), so my conclusion is the average 30 year old male will run a mile slower than 11:05.

ai se eu te pego wrote:

I'd guess 9:xx range in the US. That's about what a skinnyish but not in shape person can do. Lots of fat people around 15, and a good number of decently athletic / somewhat active people under 7.

This is the correct answer above..

A wide range of times....but if you average them all together, it's gotta be between 9:xx-10:xx

I was low 4:30s for the 1600 in high school. Last year, age 36, I started running again after at least a 5 year layoff. I had put on some weight but was nowhere near obese - 5'11" and 165 lbs. I hadn't really exercised but I did walk a fair amount and would normally go hiking on the weekend so probably above average activity level compared to the GENERAL population.

I jogged a couple of miles every other day for two weeks, then hopped on the treadmill for a mile time trial. Managed 7:14 and nearly killed myself to do so.

Now I can happily go 7 minute pace on my regular runs. Had I stayed fit I might have assumed, like some of you, that even the fattest slob under 30 could run around 8 minutes. I certainly don't think that now. I would say no faster than 9 or 10 minutes, and I wouldn't be surprised if it were slower.

Shamika wrote:

ai se eu te pego wrote:

I'd guess 9:xx range in the US. That's about what a skinnyish but not in shape person can do. Lots of fat people around 15, and a good number of decently athletic / somewhat active people under 7.

This is the correct answer above..

A wide range of times....but if you average them all together, it's gotta be between 9:xx-10:xx

INCORRECT!

If you average them (i.e., take the mean) you will get infinite time (all it takes is one who does not finish and the average is infinite).

If you take the median (the middle time, half slower or DNF and half faster) it would be somewhere over 12 minutes.

Average times for 30 year old males at the 5th avenue mile over the last 5 years:

2012 6:18 (116)

2013 6:06 (122)

2014 6:09 (153)

2015 6:08 (150)

2016 6:08 (132)

I used to bike about 500 km per week. Once every few months I would go out for a 10 k 'run'. It took an hour, and I wasn't breathing easy. I do much faster now 20 years later during my every-other-day jog. Specificity matters. I might have been able to do a quickish mile back then, but that was with strong heart, lungs and legs. Don't think running is easy. To many who don't do it, it is very hard. Also, it's not just will power. Many whose muscles, joints and ligaments are not built up can easily injure themselves.

I say you should expect 10:00 per mile at a minimum.

(Public service bulletin: will the 'average of infinity with anything is infinity' people please stop. We get it, already.)

some biased stats wrote:

Average times for 30 year old males at the 5th avenue mile over the last 5 years:

2012 6:18 (116)

2013 6:06 (122)

2014 6:09 (153)

2015 6:08 (150)

2016 6:08 (132)

These times are totally irrelevant to a discussion of the fitness and running ability of the gen. pop. Most 30 year old Americans cannot run a mile without walking, either do to obesity or back and knee problems. I am 36 years old,slender as can be, and have run and played sports my whole life (including running 800 in college), and I would struggle to run the times you've listed.

what the heck?? There are a few fit kids at my school who ski or play soccer and they go and run 10k's in 40 min for fun at random road races, i bet if they went and ran a mile they could go 5:30-5:35... I am guessing 7:45, come on, the average 30 yr old isnt super fat

teamgoesfast wrote:

what the heck?? There are a few fit kids at my school who ski or play soccer and they go and run 10k's in 40 min for fun at random road races, i bet if they went and ran a mile they could go 5:30-5:35... I am guessing 7:45, come on, the average 30 yr old isnt super fat

Sorry junior. Go to your average local sportsbar and grab the five guys sitting on stools directly in front of the bartender. This is your average population. One of those guys may be a former athlete who could knock out 7:xx. Three of them are overweight heavy drinkers who may or may not smoke and could t do a 12 minute mile if their life depended on it. The fifth is morbidly obese and couldn't do a 20 minute mile, nor would he ever try.

Quit pretending the average American 30 year old is a casual runner who just isn't very talented. We as a nation are far worse off than you'd ever believe.

I looked up the CDC tables, which are as of a few years ago (and Americans haven't gotten thinner in the meantime):

From that, I can see the the median weight for a 30-year-old would be somewhere in the mid-180s, and the median height is 5-9 1/2. (Yes, you have to go with medians. Means and modes wouldn't give correct "averages" for this question.)

The median 30yo American male, as someone said above, probably can cover a mile on foot, but he wouldn't like it. His absolute all-out performance (remember, he couldn't cover a lap--at any running speed--without having to stop and walk) would be somewhere between ten minutes and twenty. Absolutely no way he breaks ten.

Now that I think about it more, he's not going to break twelve. He should crack fifteen with a solid effort, though.

Most LRCers just don't encounter the median American male very often, so some of them come up with *crazy* estimates. It's a class thing.

Well, in 1984, 7:04 was the 50th percentile mark for a 17 year old boy in the U.S. Not sure if that helps in this discussion, but I thought I'd put it out there.

Let's suppose that we are interested in the random variable T = mile time of a randomly selected person. In this case, the expected value u = E[T] is not well defined since some people cannot complete a mile. So, we can instead let T = mile time of a randomly selected person given that the selected person completes the mile (a conditional random variable).

What can we say about the distribution of T? For one, it almost assuredly is not symmetric around the mean u = E[T]. In fact, it is heavy-tailed and 'more' of the distribution is to the right of the mean u.

What else? Well, it is multimodal, meaning the density of T will have multiple peaks, since different sub-populations will have their own unique, non-overlapping characteristics. I expect there to be modes at around 4:02 (for pro milers), 4:30 (for college milers), 8:00 (for hobby joggers), and 12 (for non-runners).

Moves Like Jager wrote:

8:00-8:30 would be my guess for those who are regularly active - we are talking playing tennis on the weekends, pick up basketball once a week, ultimate frisbee with their girlfriends.

I'd say 50% of 30-year old American males couldn't finish a mile. Take a stroll through your Facebook friends and tell me how many of them could actually run for more than 10 minutes.

I agree with this.

Mathematically, the correct answer is infinity. A small percentage of the population can't walk or can't walk that far. That makes the average infinity.

Cutting out those outliers, about 30% are obese with some being morbidly obese. They'll be lucky to cover a mile in less than 15 minutes.

Probably 70% of the general population of 30 year olds could not run a mile nonstop. They'd be in the 9-12 minute range.

Probably 90% couldn't run faster than 7 minutes.

fisky wrote:

Mathematically, the correct answer is infinity. A small percentage of the population can't walk or can't walk that far. That makes the average infinity.

I dont know what is more obnoxious:

- people feeling the need to repeat this when it has already been beaten to death

Or

- the fact none of these wiseguys seem to remember that "average" could mean mean, mode, or median, and only the mean is assured to be infinity (mode may or may not be infinity, depending on significant figures used in the measurement and the actual distributation. Median would also be infinity if more than half fail to finish, a scenario I doubt to be the case if they are sufficiently motivated).

fisky wrote:

Mathematically, the correct answer is infinity. A small percentage of the population can't walk or can't walk that far. That makes the average infinity.

Cutting out those outliers, about 30% are obese with some being morbidly obese. They'll be lucky to cover a mile in less than 15 minutes.

Probably 70% of the general population of 30 year olds could not run a mile nonstop. They'd be in the 9-12 minute range.

Probably 90% couldn't run faster than 7 minutes.

What about middle-aged guys? I'm an old broken down arthritic stiff with more injuries than Carter has pills but can still hit 6:35 at age 57. I know the young bucks will laugh at that as a "HJ" effort and all that crap. But I would imagine as you get into the 50s & 60s age demographics in this country not many people, on average, could even run a mile?

p.n. wrote:

The median 30yo American male, as someone said above, probably can cover a mile on foot, but he wouldn't like it. His absolute all-out performance (remember, he couldn't cover a lap--at any running speed--without having to stop and walk) would be somewhere between ten minutes and twenty. Absolutely no way he breaks ten.

Now that I think about it more, he's not going to break twelve. He should crack fifteen with a solid effort, though.

Most LRCers just don't encounter the median American male very often, so some of them come up with *crazy* estimates. It's a class thing.

All of this^^^.

1. Yes, you have to go with the median (not the mean or mode) to get your "average" thirty-year-old American man.

2. I agree that he can cover a mile on foot.

3. That will be a noticeably-long way for him, though.

4. If he attempts to run the whole thing, his time will probably be slower than if he just mostly walks, right from the outset.

5. His best strategy might be to try to jog a straightaway, or maybe half a straightaway, on each 400m lap. That should be short enough that he won't have to slow down his walking on the rest of the lap.

6. With that strategy I think he'd be under 4:00 a lap, but not under 3:00--with the possible exception of *extreme* motivation.

7. So I agree that the time would be somewhere between 12 and 15 minutes.

8. And I agree that most LRCers have *no* clue about the median American man who's 30--none.

9. Yes, it's class. LRCers don't see their privilege, and tend to assume it applies to all.

Take a look at these stats and let me know if you still think the average American 30-year-old male can crank out a 5, 6, or 7 minute mile with no training at all. It most certainly won't even be 8:30.

65% of Americans are overweight (BMI > 25).

35% of Americans are obese (BMI > 30).

http://ncdrisc.org/country-profile.html

In 2015, America's mean BMI was 28.8.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_body_mass_index

By 2025, this is projected to rise even further, with 45% of all Americans being obese.

Before long, the average American is going to be a balloon-shaped obese person (BMI > 30), not just an overweight one with a pot belly.

We're screwed.

Average time: DNF, likely before the 400 m mark.

how can so many people on a running website be so ignorant about running?