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

This question is actually more in-depth than people are giving it credit for being.

Why?

Yes, there is the conditioning aspect, previous exposure to the distance regard and the sedentary lifestyle level involved.

Yes, there is natural genetics involved (or not)

But none of these would successfully show how quickly your average 30 year old could run a mile.

Here are the factors missing:

1. Adrenaline Rush. If a 30 year old male was running on a track with a stopwatch on, the natural adrenaline would be nowhere near where it would be if the same male had to run a mile to seek help for a friend, a child, or his loved one or child. It is also not what it would be to escape someone who is after them or to escape the law after committing a crime.

2. Incentive. What would this man be able to run for $50? $500? $50,000??

3. Socioeconomic level. For every man who can afford the best shoes is a man whose shoes aren't best for running. To have an average, you would have to fit everyone with the same shoe.

4. Race scenario. When I was 30, I could be just below or just above 6:00 per mile if a race needed it. Put me on a track by myself without the race and I'd have been lucky to break 7:20 or have even cared to.

There are too many levels by which to achieve a common number.

Rez wrote:

Yeah but I actually saw this guy do it ....

Okay....but when you say "very obese," what do you estimate his weight at? About his height?

Incarnate Word Runner wrote:

The median would be 8:30 for a fit 30yr old male, overall population would be 15 minutes+ with a lot of DNFs

Someone with a bit of sense.

My lifetime PR was 4:52 honest and a 4:47 medley split at 16. At age I 30 I was 9 years removed from any running and exclusively used weight training for exercise, which I did religiously. One day I had my own verson of a mid life crisis , went to the track on a whim and threw down 5:51. I was impressed with myself and think less than 10% of 30 year olds then or now can match that. I don’t want to know my current time now at 35, though.

My lifetime PR was a tick under 5:30 just racing the other swimmers in xtraining one day when we decided to race eachother. I was around the 70th percentile. In 8th grade with a cast on the right arm (still only a swimmer) I managed a tick under 6:30 in PE

Was never a runner until hitting 40 (outside whatever xtraining demands swimming put on me which was like 3-5 mpw tops and only in season, I was a sprinter so I just lifted in the offseason), and today at age 45 I'm a couple ticks below 6:00 off 20 mpw and year 4 of adult-onset hobbyjogging

I've always felt I had no talent whatsoever in distance or sprints, but an ever so mild spike in my sad running natural talent occurs somewhere around the 1500 (like every other white dude on the planet)

Anyways my single digit of precision guess to this question is 10:00/mi

I think this is a time we can pretty much narrow in on for a sedentary/overweight 30 yo American male (which is the median male, as mentioned previously)

There's nothing amazing about a decent mile btw, I'm more impressed by the guys at the Y playing pickup bball (eg a real sport). If jogging around is your hobby --great for you though.

picked up some nice boys in my time on the bb court. the real sport aspect only started @ home tbh, if you know what i mean

afdsafd wrote:

Keep in mind:

1) ~60% of population is overweight

2) ~30% of population is obese

For the obese, no way they cover a mile in less than 16 minutes. For the overweight, no way they cover it in less than 12.

I am 5"10" and weigh 212lbs. According the BMI charts, I am obese. My BMI isn't high because I lift weights, it is high because I have a gut. I can still run a sub 6 mile.

ObeseOne wrote:

afdsafd wrote:

Keep in mind:

1) ~60% of population is overweight

2) ~30% of population is obese

For the obese, no way they cover a mile in less than 16 minutes. For the overweight, no way they cover it in less than 12.

I am 5"10" and weigh 212lbs. According the BMI charts, I am obese. My BMI isn't high because I lift weights, it is high because I have a gut. I can still run a sub 6 mile.

Are you trying to imply that most people who are labelled overweight and obese are actually really fit weight lifters or are you just adding noise to the conversation?

Extra Medium wrote:

I think the median would be around 8:00 assuming decent pacing.

It is only a mile, anybody with any endurance that isn't way fat could probably gut out a 7:00. There are a lot of fatties, so I'll go with 8:00

It is only a mile, yes, but racing a mile is extremely difficult for a sub 4 miler. For an untrained man..... well it's extremely extreme.

notafatty wrote:

ObeseOne wrote:

I am 5"10" and weigh 212lbs. According the BMI charts, I am obese. My BMI isn't high because I lift weights, it is high because I have a gut. I can still run a sub 6 mile.

Are you trying to imply that most people who are labelled overweight and obese are actually really fit weight lifters or are you just adding noise to the conversation?

I said that I DON'T lift weights, so how could I be implying that? I said that I am obese and NOT a fit weight lifter type yet I can still run sub 6.

notafatty wrote:

ObeseOne wrote:

I am 5"10" and weigh 212lbs. According the BMI charts, I am obese. My BMI isn't high because I lift weights, it is high because I have a gut. I can still run a sub 6 mile.

Are you trying to imply that most people who are labelled overweight and obese are actually really fit weight lifters or are you just adding noise to the conversation?

I'm literally the same height and 50 lbs heavier than that guy and I just ran a 5:42 1600.

I'm 32 y/o, 5'9'' 310 pounds and run 1600m on the track in 6:23 (collapsed after running) . At the local high

school track I am known as 'thunder lizard' I am a combination of muscle (max bench 190) and fat

(centrifugal rather than centripetal obeisty).

However another morbidly obese guy I know in his 30s from our support group can't even run 800m in 5 minutes without stopping to gasp for air. He claims he has a heart condition so that might be his problem. This one time he fell over asleep at the gym and his defibellator (sp?) thing shocked him awake, it was hilarious. We started calling him the 'Cardiac kid' after that.

In the Army Cross-fit PFT challenge, I ran a 5:38 mile while stopping to do 100 pushups and 100 pull-ups and 100 body weight clings. I think that is pretty good considering that I am 6', 260 lbs, and smoke 2 1/2 packs a day.

Global- 7:30

American- 8:15

American (In Shape)- 6:30

American (Runner)- 6:10

DNR

I'm 5'8, 37 YO, 360# and too am a powerlifter [bench 1-rep max of 175#] and have recently run the mile in 6:21

I smoke 3.5 packs/day and do no cardio beyond whatever the xfit WOD is

For dudes i’d say sub 8 for sure if they arent overweight but maybe not by much (7:55)

For women i’d say between 9 and 10 minutes. (9:30)

Overall population average for 30 year olds: about 8:40

Everybody should be aiming for 7:30 or under. If people did this it would really help eliminate most problems with the obesity/heart disease/diabetes crisis. 7:30 mile isnt rapid but it takes fitness. Basic fitness but still fitness. Fitness that everybody under 50 should have. And as long as you have basic fitness you shouldnt really have any problems like needing to go on meds for blood pressure or anything like that. Obviously, some people can be sub 10% body fat and run fast miles all day and STILL get heart disease but that is genetic. Most people who have heart disease it isnt caused by genes its caused by terrible lifestyle choices.

I am from the UK and from what i read Americans are dead fat and put loads of sugar and salt in EVERYTHING to a ridiculous extent so maybe times are worse ovr there for the general population im not sure,

If you are under 40 years old and cant run a mile in under 8 minutes you cant really call yourself healthy. That goes for both men and women (might be harder for women but even ladies should aim to be capable of a sub 8 mile). 8 minutes i would say seperates the healthy from the unhealthy. Every second under 8 minutes you run your risk of heart disease decreases. Every second after 8 you run your risk increases.

President Fitness wrote:

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.

That is outdated and over 30 years ago when kids didnt have ipads and computers to play with after school so they actually went out and played football or rode bikes or did something active. Obesity wasnt as much of an issue 34 years ago as it is today because lifestyles were more active. Kids today have no motivation to exercise because theyre too busy with their iphones.

If the average mile time was re-tested again today in 2018 then the average percentile would probably be like this for high school boys:

99 5:15

90 6:10

80 6:40

70 7:10

60 7:30

50 8:05

40 8:30

30 8:45

20 9:00

10 9:30

01 12:00

The 70-99 percentiles would be the only group out of this lot who would be active. 30% of teenagers are active these days. Back in 1984, i’d guess a good 70-80% of teenage boys would be active.

Taking these percentiles, 30 year olds are even less active than high schoolers so you can half a minute onto each percentile to covert to the equivelent for 30 year olds.

What u skinny little distance runners dont understand is that even tho ur more cardio fit than average, the average person has a lot more muscle power and mass than u lot even if they are untrained and trust me sometimes muscle really can make up for lack of cardio especially in shorter distances like 100 meters.

Average people (average bmi is 25) may be fatter than u but most average males at the ripe age of 30 have a decent amount of muscle and aerobic power due to being young to compliment that. And muscle power and age counts for a lot in a mile because it is also an anaerobic event. Males with muscle are naturally anerobically fit. So even if 30 most year olds have rly let themselves go aerobically, the muscle makes up for it and makes them stronger anerobically.

I bet even tho i cant run a 5k in under 27 minutes that i could smoke all u 17 minute 5k runners over 100m. I bet half of u couldnt even break 15 seconds.

Most males at 30 can still sprint fast even if inactive.

I never do cardio, my bmi is 26 combination of fat and muscle and i have not done any cardio in 5 years. I can run a mile in 7 minutes 30seconds just on anaerobic power alone because i tried the other day. Bet if i got aerobic trained like u fags i could get down below 6 but i dont want to because that would kill my lifts and make my sprints slower and condition my muscles to not work at full power.

Most ppl havent conditioned their muscles to not work full power like u lot so they are going to be stronger than u think. Im about average for cardio so there u have it average is 7:30. I am 25 years old not 30 so if u want to get picky add about 15 seconds for a 30 year old.

Most men can run sub 8 thats a fact. Dunno about women coz women are weak and slow and dont try as hard and that stands even for fitter women.