Can an 18 year old male that can barely break 20 mins in the 5k ever make it to the Olympic marathon trials?

My college times indicated I could have run close to 2:20. After just 2 weeks in my very first season of HS XC, I ran a 2-mile equivalent of faster than 20:00 for 5K.

I assume the OP is talking about someone who ran a few seasons of XC and track and not someone 30 pounds overweight that ran a TT his senior year.

Anyone that participated in competitive running knows that you're not someday going to run over 8 times farther, at over a minute a mile faster than your HS 5K PR.

The answer is yes.

And it probably has been done several times.

A 20 minute 5k guy can make the Olympics, if he can also throw 23 meters in the shot put.

No. I ran 19:32 in my first 5K at age 15 and could never have come near qualifying for the Olympics no matter how hard I trained.

You may make it to the Olympics !

If you stick to dressage or curling.

Don't listen to all the negativity on this thread. You'd be surprised how fast you improve if you seriously put the training in! My half marathon pace today is roughly the same as my 5k pace from 3 years ago, and I remember that being a very painful, all-out effort. You can easily do it if you train consistently for the next decade.

95% of the population can't run 1 mile at 5:20 regardless of how much they train. 99% can't run 5k. 99.99% of the population can't run a marathon at 5:20 pace no matter how much they train.

It can be done wrote:

Don't listen to all the negativity on this thread. You'd be surprised how fast you improve if you seriously put the training in! My half marathon pace today is roughly the same as my 5k pace from 3 years ago, and I remember that being a very painful, all-out effort. You can easily do it if you train consistently for the next decade.

Improving from 20:00 to 2:20 is increasing mile pace by over a minute. You managed to run the same pace for a half-marathon.

My Sophomore year in HS, we had a couple of guys run 20:00ish and from a competitive distance running perspective, they were really bad runners. They couldn't even keep up with us on easy over distance days. There was no way they were going to qualify for the trials someday.

Hi there, it's possible. It will take a long time (probably at least 10 years) and you will not only need to train hard but smart, starting from where you are not where you want to be. For most people this would be infinitely easier with a coach who has previously coached slow-twitch runners to the trials. What are your 400/800/mile times? Assuming the standard stays at 2:19 (and I bet it will get quicker but don't lose faith when that happens), you would need to get near 66:00-66:45 at least for the half or <5:06 pace, and near 30:00 for the 10k or 4:50. I would work on progressing towards 4:30 for the mile (and hopefully faster) and lo 9's for the 2-mile before I thought about the marathon.

slower marathon pr than sara hall wrote:

Hi there, it's possible. It will take a long time (probably at least 10 years) and you will not only need to train hard but smart, starting from where you are not where you want to be. For most people this would be infinitely easier with a coach who has previously coached slow-twitch runners to the trials. What are your 400/800/mile times? Assuming the standard stays at 2:19 (and I bet it will get quicker but don't lose faith when that happens), you would need to get near 66:00-66:45 at least for the half or <5:06 pace, and near 30:00 for the 10k or 4:50. I would work on progressing towards 4:30 for the mile (and hopefully faster) and lo 9's for the 2-mile before I thought about the marathon.

The OP will also need to add about 30 units to his VO2 max and make major improvements in his stride efficiency. That's going to take one hell of a coach.

Yes, if you are extremely talented and overweight. Otherwise no.

SDSU Aztec wrote:

I assume the OP is talking about someone who ran a few seasons of XC and track and not someone 30 pounds overweight that ran a TT his senior year.

.

That seems like a poor assumption since the odds of that person doing this is about zero. It would be a lot more reasonable to assume the OP is talking about a guy who has never run before. Shows up and runs a 5k in 19:32. They start training and 3 months later they are running a 16:40. And then they keep improving.

It is a gotcha you type question. If I asked you what the odds of a sophomore with a 5:20 mile PR breaking 4 in 18 months, you would go impossible. Of course Jim Ryun did that. Leaving out the fact that that 5:20 was off basically no training is an important detail. The gap between that 5:20 and a 5:20 of a kid who has been running for 6 months is huge.

Rhodium Nights wrote:

There was another dude at the Trials who I know about (Tyler Underwood, ig: tunderface), who ran 4:2X in his first marathon when he was in his early 20s. And he qualified by running 2:18 at CIM.

There are probably several others. If you put in the necessary training over 8-10 years, are extremely dedicated, and have the right coaching, I'm sure most U.S. men could run around 2:19.

HOWEVER, 99.9% will not, or do not achieve this, because they lack the requisite drive, get injured, or life takes over.

It's the lack of training ar 18 which is key.

asdffjkfk wrote:

If they are getting to sub 20 5k on little to no training then yes it’s possible.

Seems pretty unlikely to me. With almost no training, maybe a month and half at about 20 miles a week I was running 18flat for 5K's in XC as a 14 year. From a talent perspective, I am definitely towards the lower end for OT qualifiers. Most of the guys at the Olympic Trials were running in at least the mid 15's in high school XC.

The standard for the next trials will also likely be 2:17-18 given the change shoes has brought around. I felt 2:19 was appropriate when USATF set it but it didn't account for a shoe that would take 2-3 minutes off a runner's time.

At 18 years old, most males have at least 10 to 15 years of prime running ahead of them, so, yes, ceteris paribus, it's not beyond the realm of credibility.

coach of coach wrote:

95% of the population can't run 1 mile at 5:20 regardless of how much they train. 99% can't run 5k. 99.99% of the population can't run a marathon at 5:20 pace no matter how much they train.

I don't know if those statistics are correct but I believe the sentiment is. I was part of a cross country team that had a future Olympian on it. I ran with this person starting in middle school into high school. I just couldn't keep up. My times were never amazing. 18:34 was my fastest 5k at the end of my sophomore year. I left the team after my sophomore year because it was really clicky but did other sports and kept running.

My big problem is I just can't train enough without getting injured. People who tell you just put in the mileage don't realize how much staying injury free is a big part of the genetics of long distance running.

My body really struggles to handle more than 40-50 miles a week. I have to absolutely baby it. I do strength training, roll my muscles, went to pt a few times, cross training. I still end up injured. I even got a gait analysis. Ive tried everything. There is nothing more that I would want to do then be able to train 80 miles+ a week but my body won't let me. I love the distance but I just can't.

Impossible for 99.99% of the population. Even very talented former college runners who ran 14:30 for 5k never get there. Former sub 4 minute milers don't get there. Talent beats training and it takes tremendous talent to run 5:20 pace for a marathon.

Possibly but you would have to be seriously committed for many years. You would probably need to improve your diet, flexibility, and core strength. You would have to probably increase your mileage significantly as well as your turnover. If you work on improving on your mile/800 m PR that will eventually have dividends for longer distances. Having said that, people tend to extrapolate too high from stronger distance performances to longer and vice versa. They have been so so track runners that had more of a niche in the marathon and great track runners whose times did not reflect that in the marathon. Personally, I am not convinced about the pay off at just making the qualifying time. It is a tremendous investment in time and energy and only 3 people (at best) will actually be able to make the team--here you are talking about 2:10 or faster which is an entirely different ballgame than running around 2:19.

ex-runner wrote:

Only one way to find out

In response to my own post, I would like to add the following important information.

If you allow anonymous posters on Letsrun to discourage you, then you simply don't have the demeanor and perseverance required to be an Olympian, even if your first 5k was 14:00.

The closest example I can think of would be Brian Sell. His High School PR for 3200M was 10:06. He ran 2:11 at the 2008 Olympic Trials to make the US team. To put that in perspective the other 2 Olympic qualifiers that year had High School 3200M PR’s of 8:41 (Dathan Ritzenhein) and 8:55 (Ryan Hall).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Sell