What is the minimum 1600m time to run a 9:59 3200m?

As a full on distance guy who has ran 9:23 for a 3k which roughly converts to somewhere around 10 flat (depends what conversion you use) my mile pr is only 4:45 from the same season as the 9:23

We have already had a 4:58 and a 4:52 reply, so were not the purest distance guy.

Per Iaaf Points table

Event Performance Points

Men (Outdoor) 3000m 9:16.50 655

Men (Outdoor) 1mile 4:38.39 655

Men (Outdoor) 2miles 9:59.55 655

Men (Outdoor) 1500m 4:18.00 655

At my best I ran 9:39’for 3200m and at that time I was about 4:28 for 1600m but I was not a good pace racer. I would say 4:39 1600m is about 9:59 for 3200m but depends on strength your base mileage etc. I would say based on your question the least would be 4:42

I ran 4 minutes in the mile but for some dam reason best 2 mile I could do was 10:01. No endurance I guess

I was 4:40 and 9:58 my 10th grade year.

Iowa knows all wrote:

We have already had a 4:58 and a 4:52 reply, so were not the purest distance guy.

The guys who have posted that actually ran in HS have topped out at 4:45. The 4:58 guy might as well have claimed PRs of 5:05/10:00.

Probably 4:59.5

Slow twitch kid I coached was 4:49/10:02. Don't think he could break 60 in the 400.

Agreed. I did It as a frosh. Ran 4:48/9:56.

That being said, I ran 4:45 enroute to a 9:56 that year, so my unofficial 1600 pr that year was technically 4:45. I consider myself an aerobic guy tho, so take it as you will

4:59.9

I'd say 4:59.99. If you can keep that up for another mile, then you've got it!

westsouthrunner wrote:

Not Jordan T. wrote:

So many of you don't understand this question that is asked several times per week her pertaining to various distances. He didn't ask for equivalencies or what some of you did. He wants to know what the minimum is. I say the minimum is 4:52.

That is the most sensible way to determine the answer. Crowd source our answer from our experiences.

That being said I think that hs girls seem to be able to run sub 10 with the true absolute minimum 1600 speeds. I just don't have the time to fact check that

Right. I posted this once, but to reiterate, it appears that on average, or for most high school boys out there, 4:40 and 10:00 are approximately equivalent. So most boys wanting to break 10:00 should also keep in mind they will likely need to be about 4:40 for 1600m. Some slower twitch types could get away with perhaps 4:45, but slower than that either indicates the kid is an extreme outlier or they haven't run their best at 1600m yet. Even the very slow-twitch guys I knew were still 15 seconds/mile slower over 3200 than 1600m.

Someone also mentioned girls. Women tend to slow down less than men as the distance goes up, so they could be a bit of model for slow-twitch boys. I think most HS girls that run ~10:00 are typically low 4:40s at 1600m, like 4:40-4:43. Don't have stats on that. Just going off of memory here and there of girls who've done it over the years.

I was a rare case in high school with PR's of 4:39 and 9:38. Went out in a 4:42 for the 9:38.

I didn't drop that mile time for a while, until taking up lifting my junior year of college and seeing a significant drop to 4:22, which was much more in line with my 8:41 PR.

I ran just under 4:30 in late May of my senior year of HS. I had actually graduated a few days earlier, this was at state, which came after our school year.

Three and one-half months later, in college, basically on a whim, I ran under 4:10 being dragged along by some fast guys. That's my mile/1600 actually, record to this day.

My story wrote:

I ran just under 4:30 in late May of my senior year of HS. I had actually graduated a few days earlier, this was at state, which came after our school year.

Three and one-half months later, in college, basically on a whim, I ran under 4:10 being dragged along by some fast guys. That's my mile/1600 actually, record to this day.

That makes no sense. If you had benn running for 3-4 years, a jump like that would have been impossible and if you had started running your senior year, a 4:10 so soon would have meant you were on your way to about 3:50.

Why make stuff up?

This isn't a ST/FT thing as much as it is that high schoolers are aerobically underdeveloped compaed to their anaerobic base. Most research suggest 70-90mpw (or 6-10 hours) for like 18 months to max out Vo2Max (ignore things like LT and economy) which most HS kids aren't close to. Take a guy like Brian sell with his 4:30 mile and 10:00min 2 mile. It wasn't cause he was FT. It was cause he was running like 35 mpw for 6 months of the year. Bump the mileage up into the 40s/50s and most people get down to 20s. Start running 70mpw (i.e. college) an you start seeing lots of 15s (i.e. guys running 4:02 miles and 8 min 3k).

If you are a strength runner, you could break 10 minutes off a 4:45 - 4:47 mile.

Not me! I ran 4:30 in high school but could only come up with 10:04...

You might get a better sense of this if you include your 800 time in the equation. I ran 2:05/4:42/9:56 as a junior. So 4:42 is enough if you’re a relatively slow 800 guy but If you’re running 2:00 then you better be more like a 4:35 guy