How fast should 10:00 2 milers be in college?

70 mpw for a 10 minute two miler will not leave a lot of room for improvement to over 90 percent of college coaches.

The possible bit is too much a variable. I was a bit faster than 10 at half the mileage, and reached the 14/29 level.

A good rule of thumb is to run your high school 3200m PR during your collegiate 5k PR. So a 10:00 high schooler should be able to run 15:30s for 5k in college. A 9:00 high schooler should be looking to break 14:00. This is assuming you work equally hard in high school and college, receive roughly equal quality of coaching, and have the normal bump of 20-30 mpw from high school to college.

I mean this is impossible to guess at. All of these are possible except maybe 13 min.

But a 70 mpw high schooler who is fully developed and is posting on letsrun is likely doing all the little things to improve already so I would say 15:45/32 is most likely.

I personally was a 10 min 2 miler in HS on 35 mpw, fairly dedicated, but was still growing into SR year and I ended up at 15/31 in college. Wasn't the most dedicated in college but I wasn't dogging it either.

Yep. Most 10:00 3200m people go 14/29. Lol!

Veritas wrote:

Yep. Most 10:00 3200m people go 14/29. Lol!

Did I say "most?"

No, I did not. I only mentioned what I did.

Fair enough. You are probably am exception.

my two pennies wrote:

A good rule of thumb is to run your high school 3200m PR during your collegiate 5k PR. So a 10:00 high schooler should be able to run 15:30s for 5k in college. A 9:00 high schooler should be looking to break 14:00. This is assuming you work equally hard in high school and college, receive roughly equal quality of coaching, and have the normal bump of 20-30 mpw from high school to college.

You should be able to split your high school 2 mile pace during a 5k your freshman year.

15:37 as a freshman easily.

I think a more ambitious goal is high school 2 mile pace during a 10k. 31:14 by senior year.

You’re older, doing more mileage, faster paces, stronger, faster. After 4 years that shouldn’t be a problem.

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You should be able to split your high school 2 mile pace during a 5k your freshman year.

15:37 as a freshman easily.

I think a more ambitious goal is high school 2 mile pace during a 10k. 31:14 by senior year.

You’re older, doing more mileage, faster paces, stronger, faster. After 4 years that shouldn’t be a problem.

I think thats a bit optimistic. A 10 flat guy in high school would run like 16:30ish in XC so like 16:10 on the track. You really expect an improvement of over 30 some seconds? Especially for a guy hitting that high of mileage, they've likely already begun approaching their ceiling. Not saying its impossible but I'd say more realistic would be like 15:50 range as a freshman. Something like 15:20/33:00 as an upper classman. Obviously this is a highly varied scenario and it would depend on the specific athlete but thats my guess.

Frank Shorter did not race sub-10 2 miles in high school. Dick Beardsley did not race sub-10 2 miles in high school. Steve Holman did not race sub-10 3200 in high school. [Holman was needed for 4 x 400m relay junior & senior T&F seasons. Holman never raced 3200m past 10th grade.] Did Steve Scott race sub-10 2 miles in high school? It is hard to image, Scott in high school, then an 880 yard specialist bothering to race 2 miles in high school.

I’m sorry if you are 70 mpw and can only run 10:00 you need to rethink your training.

I think sub 15/31 jr or sr year would be pretty good. Maybe sub 1430/30 by the end of 4 years would be excellent.

Definitely possible to reach the mid and low 15s, and then some outliers could run in the 14s

No. That happens to many guys because they go from 40MPW in HS to 60 as a college freshman. A kid doing 70 already isn't going to improve much.

Kvothe wrote:

I think sub 15/31 jr or sr year would be pretty good. Maybe sub 1430/30 by the end of 4 years would be excellent.

Agreed. Don’t beat yourself up just because you didn’t win the genetic lottery

Juice Springsteen wrote:

Definitely possible to reach the mid and low 15s, and then some outliers could run in the 14s

Running 10:00 on 70 mpw indicates a slow-twitch guy with 400 speed of maybe 62+ or someone with inferior aerobic strength such as low V02 max. Neither scenario indicates any potential to be competitive in college and which is why most 10:00 guys do not run competitively after HS.

Bythebay12 wrote:

Kvothe wrote:

I think sub 15/31 jr or sr year would be pretty good. Maybe sub 1430/30 by the end of 4 years would be excellent.

Agreed. Don’t beat yourself up just because you didn’t win the genetic lottery

Those were the times I had in mind as well.

Something like 15:45-15:20-15:10-14:59 would be a solid progression. Personally, I would kill to own a 14:59 5k PR.

The pace per 3200m, as a point of comparison, would be 10:04.8-9:48.8-9:42.4-9:35.4–not an insignificant improvement from 10:00 all-out.

10 minutes on 70 miles per week in high school hmmmm..lets me know how it goes!

Uni predicted times

1500 4:02

3k 8:48

5k 15;20

10k 31;50

Good luck!

i think this question is more interesting if we're talking about a more typical 40-50 mpw kid who runs 10:00. is this partially because that's pretty much exactly what i was? yes lol. also i don't think there are that many kids hitting 70 outside of the real meat grinder programs.

FWIW, i ran a 9:01 3K indoors my junior year then my college career took a nosedive that i never pulled out of. combination of illness, questionable coaching, and mental weakness. never ran a 5K until i was already in that nosedive and the best i managed was 16:13.

i still hold out hope that i could crack 16 one day, but i turn 32 soon and have struggled with injuries in recent comeback attempts.