How many years of training would it take a sedentary 18 year old male to break 16 minutes in the 5k?

runnER/DR wrote:

Simply asking this question highlights how much if a relent bubble you're in.

Sub 16 is blazing fast for a normie.

As an example, the marine core fitness test points MAX OUT at 21 minutes for a 3 mile run. Do you realize how fast a 7 minute mile is for a normie? it's fast.

If you're surrounded by people who can break 16 in their sleep, you're in a talent bubble.

That's false. Max for marine PFT is 18:00.

weather_guy20439 wrote:

something wrong wrote:

I was 38 - into my career and family. I hadn't run a step in 10 years. Took me 60 days to get to 16 minutes. Ran about 50 miles a week, with an occasional long run. No speed work. I was 3:40 1500 guy in college. Biggest challenge was watching diet and getting my weigh down. I ran my best a 132 lbs. Only got down to 145 then, which likely explained why 16 minutes was my limit at that age.

^^Example of born on 3rd. :-)

2 mos of nonspecific running at age 38 does it.

Nice work though, seriously. A 3:40 1500 requires effort even if you're born on 3rd.

Have you ever exercised before?

bartholomew_maxwell wrote:

runnER/DR wrote:

Simply asking this question highlights how much if a relent bubble you're in.

Sub 16 is blazing fast for a normie.

As an example, the marine core fitness test points MAX OUT at 21 minutes for a 3 mile run. Do you realize how fast a 7 minute mile is for a normie? it's fast.

If you're surrounded by people who can break 16 in their sleep, you're in a talent bubble.

That's false. Max for marine PFT is 18:00.

Correct. And most Marines can't get anywhere near that time.

These questions make no sense, and are unanswerable.

david45 wrote:

128k wrote:

This - no one cares that you're a runner outside of Let's Run, especially considering you're not in any high school/club team.

Except if I started in my freshman year, I could have gone to college for free and have stories about me in the local news.

No one gets their entire college paid for just because of how little money track and field get, even guys who run under 15. Newspaper stories r cool but no one honestly cares. Watching ur attempt to get a pity party started on a website of a group of the most toxic people ever is really fun tho, keep up the good work!

Justuraverage16flatboy wrote:

david45 wrote:

Except if I started in my freshman year, I could have gone to college for free and have stories about me in the local news.

No one gets their entire college paid for just because of how little money track and field get, even guys who run under 15. Newspaper stories r cool but no one honestly cares. Watching ur attempt to get a pity party started on a website of a group of the most toxic people ever is really fun tho, keep up the good work!

At my school, all of the popular kids ran in XC and track.

david45 wrote:

Justuraverage16flatboy wrote:

No one gets their entire college paid for just because of how little money track and field get, even guys who run under 15. Newspaper stories r cool but no one honestly cares. Watching ur attempt to get a pity party started on a website of a group of the most toxic people ever is really fun tho, keep up the good work!

At my school, all of the popular kids ran in XC and track.

How do you know there weren't popular kids in other sports (football, basketball, etc.)? You say you don't talk to people, you're always alone and lonely etc. You're just speaking from your own convoluted perspective.

Not uncommon at all for third string football guys to get more attention and popularity than top xc/tf athletes.

david45 wrote:

How many years of training would it take a sedentary 18 year old male to break 16 minutes in the 5k?

16 min for 5k is just under 5:10 for a mile. I'm going to guess you would be lucky to develop 10-15% of untrained 18-year-old males to run 5:10 for a mile.

Now from that group you've got to find those who can string together three of those 5:10 miles.

I think you're going to be very lucky if you can train 5% of untrained 18-year-olds to ever break 16:00.

My personal experience: I wasn't the most physically mature 18-year-old, but in England I had won the area schools x-country championship and a 3000m track championship, and qualified to run for the area in the all-England schools x-country championship, so probably had more talent than the average 18-year-old, if only being fairly average for a serious runner.

I don't recall having run a 5k race at that point (x-country courses were not exactly measured and were longer than that anyway), but on my best mile and 3000m at that age, I think I'd have been pushed to break 16:00. I was in one of the softer counties (equivalent of state in the US), but you still had to be in the top six overall from a race which had the top six from each school that sent a team. I'd guess if you weren't a close to 16:20 type you weren't making the county team.

So that's the upper end of a group of boys that are the upper end of their schools. That leads me to think that it's a relatively small group that could run 16:00 at 18, and not a much bigger one that one do it eventually with any amount of training.

thiscupisnthaflfull wrote:

david45 wrote:

At my school, all of the popular kids ran in XC and track.

How do you know there weren't popular kids in other sports (football, basketball, etc.)? You say you don't talk to people, you're always alone and lonely etc. You're just speaking from your own convoluted perspective.

Not uncommon at all for third string football guys to get more attention and popularity than top xc/tf athletes.

In schools that are good at XC, their top XC runners are more popular than the football players

david45 wrote:

thiscupisnthaflfull wrote:

How do you know there weren't popular kids in other sports (football, basketball, etc.)? You say you don't talk to people, you're always alone and lonely etc. You're just speaking from your own convoluted perspective.

Not uncommon at all for third string football guys to get more attention and popularity than top xc/tf athletes.

In schools that are good at XC, their top XC runners are more popular than the football players

Nice, another baseless claim that comes from your deluded world!

Hey David. Remember when you were whining on Reddit because you were banned from every forum for karma farming? And then you apologized for making up stories because you thrive the attention. And then just before you created this fake persona for LRC, Rojo was looking for an intern that could ask leading questions to increase traffic to the website? How much are the Brojos paying you?

In my alternate reality horse girls are cute, not at all smelly, fun to talk to, and not at all crazy. The most popular guys are the marching band, but the distance runners are a close second.

Cavorty wrote:

16 min for 5k is just under 5:10 for a mile. I'm going to guess you would be lucky to develop 10-15% of untrained 18-year-old males to run 5:10 for a mile.

I'm pretty sure that at least half of untrained 18-year old males would be able to run 5:10 or better given enough training (35+ MPW at a minimum) and time (4-5 years). There are plenty of 7-8 minute milers who end up running 5 flat or better by the time they graduate.

Heck, there have been people who've done this at older (30+) ages as well, despite having no or minimal track or XC experience:

On the sprint side, there are cases of people training themselves to run sub 12 (better than a sub 5 mile) despite having no sprint background or regular access to blocks or weights:

Never underestimate your potential for improvement.

Depends on talent/history/body type. My son (OK so he's 19) could do it in 6 months I'd think.

Ran a 6:04 mile untrained at age 16. Now is 6'6", 190 lbs. Half sedentary. Video games, you know.

Big Red wrote:

Depends on talent/history/body type. My son (OK so he's 19) could do it in 6 months I'd think.

Ran a 6:04 mile untrained at age 16. Now is 6'6", 190 lbs. Half sedentary. Video games, you know.

Then how the hell as an 18 year old who is 6'0'' and 150 Ib who has the body shape of a runner, I can't run anywhere near a 6 minute mile untrained?

david45 wrote:

Big Red wrote:

Depends on talent/history/body type. My son (OK so he's 19) could do it in 6 months I'd think.

Ran a 6:04 mile untrained at age 16. Now is 6'6", 190 lbs. Half sedentary. Video games, you know.

Then how the hell as an 18 year old who is 6'0'' and 150 Ib who has the body shape of a runner, I can't run anywhere near a 6 minute mile untrained?

This again? Everybody's different. You didn't even read the first sentence it seems. Big Red's son would be on the more talented level. Most people completely untrained probably can't hit there.

And for the record, BW shouldn't be a used to determine 'runner body shape'. Body fat should be more important.

thiscupisnthaflfull wrote:

david45 wrote:

Then how the hell as an 18 year old who is 6'0'' and 150 Ib who has the body shape of a runner, I can't run anywhere near a 6 minute mile untrained?

This again? Everybody's different. You didn't even read the first sentence it seems. Big Red's son would be on the more talented level. Most people completely untrained probably can't hit there.

And for the record, BW shouldn't be a used to determine 'runner body shape'. Body fat should be more important.

By body fat is 10.4%

So the guy in your high school who broke 16min in the 5k took the girl you had a crush on...

If that's why you would like to break 16 min in 5k, then you're doing it for the wrong reasons and you probably should not even try.

If you do not like running, don't run. I mean, you can run for your overall fitness, but breaking 16 mins, even if you're talented, will test your will power to levels you can't imagine. If you don't like running you will hate each and every workout.

I broke 16 my freshman year at 14 years old after training for 2 months.