If Bekele was a farmer and didn't train a single time in his life, what would his 5k time be?

Not sure how they farm in Ethiopia, but during lockdown I have been working on a farm in a remote mountain area where most of the work is manual and roads are almost non-existent. Without even trying, my fitness tracker gave me north of 10 miles every day and over 2000 calories burnt. Often, I would be jogging or sprinting, just because I had to chase some animal or go rapidly from A to B. With this type of baseline physical fitness, I guess a random dude would break 19 and a talent like Bekele is going to be close to 15 minutes without even trying.

Pappy wrote:

Bekele would probably be under 16 in his first attempt. Sub 15 with in a month of half hearted training. Sub 14, there would be a good chance in 100 days. I hate talent. lol

He was stuck at around the 13:20 mark for three seasons between 18 and 20, despite training for years. The next year he started running the crazy times, presumably due to EPO under Jos Hermanns. His fiance, also a runner under Hermans, dropped dead suddenly during this time.

Those saying he would be running sub 14 after 100 days training are ridiculous. Maybe sub 15 after 100 days full throttle EPO AND world class training, assuming he was slim and fit as a farmer at the start.

You have to speak about what you know, but probably for you is too much difficult.

Kenenisa had very little training till 2000, and started a REAL training only during the winter 2000/2001. In 2001, he won WCCCh as Junior, and achieved the second place in the short race competing with seniores. During the track season, he ran 13'13"33, but especially 7'30"67 in 3000m, with the last 300m in 38"5, moving from 7th position with 300m to go till the second place, few cm from the winner Hailu Mekonnen.

Ithe winter 2001/2002, he suffered a stress fracture, and in 2002 competed once only, in Milan (5th June), running in 13'26"58 with one month of preparation, and after that he understood it was not possible to recover a full shape in short time, and decided to train for the next season.

What happened is history : his results were because incredible talent and, finally, REAL training, not for EPO or other medicines that always Kenenisa refuses to get.

Renato Canova wrote:

You have to speak about what you know, but probably for you is too much difficult.

This is very savage. Well explained Renato

Now that's interesting. So you have talent. And nowhere near bekele talent.

Ok I revise my estimate. Sub 16 maybe lower

Renato,

Do you have any results of races that Bekele ran before 2000. I'm curious what his times were for certain distances in the mid 90's if they are available. Would he have just done mostly 800m and things like that when he started running in school. Bekele is the greatest and my favorite runner. I'm curious to know more about his earlier races that I can't seem to find anything about

JamesD2 wrote:

Who was the Kenyan marathoner who basically did this - was an adult farmer when he started running competitively? Dennis Kimetto?

You mean the Dennis Kimetto who ran 3 miles to school in the morning, back home for lunch, and then back to school for the afternoon (dude was running 60mpw just from commuting)? The one that was dominating youth races ? Kimetto is like the footlocker winner who drops out of college, goes gets a job, and then gets back into running.

This stuff will all depend on what type of training doesn't count? Play 2 hours of soccer every day from 6-16? Thats a real solid base if you want to be a runner later in life. Sit on your ass and play xbox from 6-16? Not so much. It is easy for us to talk about the kids who went out for XC as 14 year olds and ran sub 19:00. But a lot of those kids were coming off summers of running around outdoors for a couple hours/day.

Amory wrote:

Renato Canova wrote:

You have to speak about what you know, but probably for you is too much difficult.

This is very savage. Well explained Renato

+1

Awesome

this is the difference in a lot of answers we are getting. i think the spirit of the OPs question is that Bekele did nothing for athletics as a child and that as a farmer he is maybe walking around some buckets of feed and hopping on and off a tractor. Obviously these are not realistic scenarios, but i think readers were to assume a very inactive Bekele. Perhaps the type of inactive person you might find in America, not Kenya.

Maybe i'm wrong and OP can clarify.

Didn’t Kipchoge say he knew a farmer who was better than him —-would randomly join him on long runs and keep up easily, then run back home. Kipchoge implied the guy had no desire to train, but that if he had he would’ve been the best.

Maybe 18-19 mins . After going to hard in 530

Since he would have no clue about pacing, form, breathing, how to work hills, etc. he would probably go out too fast and fade badly at the end (I am speaking from personal experience here). Mile splits of 5, 7, and 9 for 21:30 5k.

15:30 worst case. The people saying 20:00+ are idiots. Fourteen year old American kids can break 20 running like 10 miles a week.

He'd be running under 14 within 6 months.

I’d say mid 19’s to flirting with sub-20

Absolutely agree

y'all are crazy. He won't have ANY idea of his talent level and will have no idea of what kind of pace to run. He's not going to know how to push himself and will probably do like 9:00-10:00 miles . He will finish between 28-30 min

Day 0: 20 minutes. He probably has natural aerobic endurance, but his legs will get sore after a mile and his stride will shorten.

1 Week: 17 minutes. His legs will be used to the running but he still cannot hold the high speed for more than a few minutes.

2 Weeks: 15 minutes. Okay, his legs are getting better

1 Month: 14 minutes. His legs can handle the speed but his aerobic endurance needs building up.

Afterwards, his time will slowly drop down to 13 minutes as his aerobic endurance and speed gets better. Starting at 25, he missed crucial days in body development so he is too old for 12:37 speed.

Starno wrote:

If he hasn't run a single mile since a very long period of times, his joints, etc. wouldn't be used to running that much, at an intense speed.

So I will say 20:10.

But after only 8-10 weeks of serious training, I think he could run sub 18min.

Sub 16 min after 6 months.

Sub 15 min after a year.

After 6 weeks training he could at least do 16. I did, 37:30 6 weeks after starting training and the fastest I ever did was 33 after 2 years. The point being you can get fit very quickly with training or at least some people can.

Bekele would break 17 his first time out, and if he started training seriously, would improve rapidly.

I'm assuming he ran a lot as a kid, and was leading a physically active life as a farmer.

Here's my reference point: in high school I tried to run cross country, and had enough talent to run a varsity time (on a good team) in my very first race. But I never got a letter because I was so injury-prone and couldn't do the training.

In my mid-20s, living in a city and having done NO EXERCISE AT ALL for several years, I noticed a track nearby and on impulse decided to time myself for a mile using my wristwatch. I ran 5:50.

Bekele was way more talented than I was, probably ran a ton more as a kid, and I'm assuming his imaginary career as a farmer required him to lead a physically active lifestyle. If I could run 5:50 for a mile on no training at about age 25, Farmer Bekele could certainly break 17 for a 5K at the same age.