Can a sub 4:30 mile be done without any speed work?

The speedwork is not necessary if one of them is talented. The odds are against it though if none of them have broken 6 minutes.

Ryan Evans2 wrote:

The speedwork is not necessary if one of them is talented. The odds are against it though if none of them have broken 6 minutes.

Maybe they are 6th graders? But sure I have no doubt you could break 4:30 without ever running faster than 6:00. I bet you could break 4:00 if you had like a 3:50 miler to start with.. Obviously you would end up doing odd training (i.e. doing all your interval workouts in a pool so that you get the effort of running race pace intervals while not going faster than 6:00 pace. Doing your aerobic runs up a hills to increase the effort, doing lots of gym work to build anaerobic abilities,...) to stay with in the constraints but you would be fine.

As a 4:33 miler, I think it's impossible unless you lift a lot of weights.

It helps if you’re Kenyan

I mean maybe for sub-elite half marathon runners and up, id say 10k guys but even they do a bit of real speed work.

I ran a 4:18 certified mile without doing any speed work for at least 8 months (3 months were with no exercise at all let alone running), so yes it is possible if someone is talented enough.

6:00 pace up the steepest hill you can find should suffice for speedwork. Include some plyos and sprint drills, and you probably could.

Why not do the logical thing and run 4:00 pace instead?

If you’re a 4:30 miler now, you could potentially shave off 1 second per day and become a sub 4 minute miler by mid February.

Sorry boys, that was meant for Sham’s thread.

Only a sub-2:12 Marathoner could race sub-4:30 one mile sans any speed work. First, it is would be extremely rare to race sub-2:12 Marathon and never have done speed work.

We know the answer the other way. Lon Myers was a sub-4:23 one miler on zero mileage.

A 431 miler wrote:

Suppose you get to pick a large group of people who have never run a sub 6 mile before and get to coach them. The only rule is that none of them can ever run faster than a 6 min/mile pace except for during their one and only sub 4:30 mile attempt.

So that pretty much means no intervals, no strides, no hill sprints, and no time trials or races over short distances.

Given that constraint, would any of them break 4:30 given sufficient motivation? Or is speed work required to run that fast?

Grant Fischer, a 4:03 Highschool miler ran his best highschool mile time off of zero speedwork... according to this article.

"Consider the following words, which offer the surprising revelation that Grant Fisher became a national champion and a 4:02.3 high school miler without doing any speedwork at all."

Yes. I was a 4:30.7 high school miler.

I went to college and joined the cross country team. We did some repeat miles and ran about 45 mpw. Do you consider repeat miles speedwork?

Anyway, after two months we lined up for a mile time trial, and I ran 4:21.9. No track intervals were involved.

I guess I'd run under 6:00 already, however.

No those are not speedwork for the mile. Speedwork is something done at race pace. You probably did those miles at 5 minute pace and then were able to race at 4:20 pace.

Big Boy in the NCAA wrote:

No those are not speedwork for the mile. Speedwork is something done at race pace. You probably did those miles at 5 minute pace and then were able to race at 4:20 pace.

I am sure Fisher in high school did 1/2 mile to one mile repeats on grass but did not consider said repeats speed work. I am sure Fisher did hill workouts and did not consider said hill workouts speed workouts. I am sure Fisher did strides but did not consider strides speed work.

During hs track & field, I am sure Fisher did (6 or 7) x 800m at 3000m or 3200m race pace but did not consider it speed work because as you say it slower than one mile pace.

Poster, you responded to another poster who stated he was a 4:30.xx high school miler. Said poster did not state he raced 4:30.xx mile sans speed work. O.P. did not allow your definition of speed work. I was forced to be hs team's 3200m guy one season. I did 800m repeats at 3200m race pace. I also raced 1600m. According to you, I did not 1600m pace work so no speed work.

Interesting question, lets be clear though, GF didn't win Footlocker on no speedwork, he had a number possibly 6 races throughout the fall, where he was running at 440 something pace, this is surely no different to vo2 workouts or tempo workouts, and at his level it's likely that is all they were. I am only guessing, but presumably he may well have done strides/drills with his runs that probably wouldn't be counted as speedwork, but would be beyond most mere mortals.

Big Red wrote:

Yes. I was a 4:30.7 high school miler.

I went to college and joined the cross country team. We did some repeat miles and ran about 45 mpw. Do you consider repeat miles speedwork?

Did you ever run faster than 6 min/mile pace on those repeat miles? If so, then yes.

In general, no.

The exceptions would be people with extreme talent (e.g. sub-4 potential) or if you bend the rules as someone else suggested and have workouts that are technically at 6:00 pace but much harder in reality (whether that's using very steep hills, very high altitude, wearing heavy weights, etc)

I doubt it. My experience and that of everyone I have run with is that you won't run that fast if you don't know HOW to run that fast. And the only way to know how to do it is to actually do it in practice, albeit for shorter distances.