Can an athlete from another sport step on the track and run a 4:30 mile?

I remember when this happened back when I was in school there. It was probably a 1600m, but still impressive.

https://news.gcu.edu/2013/04/big-dan-on-campus-majerles-heart-is-for-phoenix-and-now-gcu/

Antonio Bryant

On Hard Knocks the Madden guys were talking to him, and he had the most yards running where they clocked his speed to be over 12 mph (in full pads) for the year, by far. He had the top speed, and ran that fast more than anyone else.

No doubt he could run 4:30 once is cryo-feet are healed.

I agree. Remember Jason Stewart from West Point. He was a soccer player before he ran track in HS. His 3rd XC race ever he was 3rd in the Pa State Championships.

Stewart wrote:

I agree. Remember Jason Stewart from West Point. He was a soccer player before he ran track in HS. His 3rd XC race ever he was 3rd in the Pa State Championships.

Right, but would he have gotten 3rd in the state of it was his first XC race?

That's the main question here. No one is doubting that with a few training sessions and races non-runner elite athletes can run sub 4:30. The real question is with NO PRIOR specific race training or actual racing if one these guys can step on the track and do it. And my thought is that it's nearly impossible to do it without a pacer or prior training/racing

Football ( soccer to Americans) and Gaelic Football/Hurling players, animals them boys.

seasoned ranker wrote:

You also idiotically thought that world-class midfielders wouldn't be able to do it.

How can someone be idiotically 100% correct? That's quite a feat.

The pacing is a valid point. I think we should certainly allow pacing. Because the point of the test should not be that someone from another sport could judge pace well enough to run close to his best mile effort but that their general running ability would be there.

I also think that a (paced) 800m in 2:05 or 1000m in 2:40 or something like that (whatever would be roughly equivalent to a 4:30 obsolete imperial distance) would be easier for soccer, field hockey or basketball players because the extended effort for a mile or 1500 seems especially hard to match without specific training.

In soccer and similar sports, they must have some endurance tests (like a 12 min Cooper style or similar). One could try to get data like that and convert to mid-distance ability. (According to Jack Daniels formulas a 4:30 mile corresponds to almost 4000m in a 12 min test.)

Lots of triathletes do run that fast. There would be a lot who would have been running faster as juniors than 4.30 mile

Belaying The Inevitable wrote:

Ruth Lee wrote:

Taekwondo ??? Name one!!!

The inclusion of sport climbers in there is just as absurd.

Hobbs Kessler, duuude.

Lots of sports use the Bronco test - basically a series of sprints line to line adding up to 1200m.

https://www.topendsports.com/testing/tests/shuttle-1200m.htm#:~:text=The%201200m%20Shuttle%20Test%20is,to%20calculate%20maximal%20aerobic%20speed

.

Best Bronco test in New Zealand was a 4:12 by New Zealand All Blacks Brayden Barrett. Sam Tanner for fun beat that time with a 4:01. Tanner is a 3:36, 1500m and 3:54 miler and only beat Barrett by 11s. I'd imagine that over an extra 400m Barrett wouldn't drop an additional 20+ seconds, especially if in spikes and/or paced. So yeah, it looks like the very fittest rugby players could do a sub 4:30 mile.