Starting to run at age 19- too late to become elite?

No Mark Kiptoo started in his mid-late 20's and ran 12:53 for 5000, 26:54 for 10000 and 2:06.00 in the Marathon also ran 2:07 and change at age 43 or 44 which is the over 40 Record

I would think it has to be a longer distance starting with Marathon.

Train for a proper Half Marathon and work your way up over time.

Just go for it and see what happens.

Good luck.

Keira D'Amato. 37.

I used to have his book The Ancient Marathoner.

Was a recreational cyclist. Started running at 32. Ran a 2:11 marathon. Held the over 40 WR for a while.

Alan

Although your 10k and 5k times are not auspicious theres no reason not to set goals for yourself. Before considering times think about consistent training. First get your 10k down to under 45 and 5k down to under 20 minutes then reassess. Don't set limits at this point.

Sub-21 5k would be a good starting goal. In six months, you can assess your situation and see if this is too conservative or too optimistic.

In spite of all the posters here, sub-20 or so is a pretty good achievement at most local 5k races in my area. Not winning, of course, but in the top 5%-10% of all finishers.

I believe Michael Wardian started running after college and he got to pretty high level (2:17 Marathon) and a crazy ability to not break down after running like 100-200 races per year.

I'd recommend you start at 21 and you'll be a Savage in no time.

Give it a go. Train the best you can.

The previous LRC posters are all useless and trying to sugar coat. I'm going to give you the real truth. You say you have a competitive swimming background and are 19 years old and have been working out at the gym, meaning you already had several years of intense aerobic training. Yet, despite all that sports background you could only run a 10k in 55min and 5k in 26:30. I'm sorry, but you are firmly a hobby jogger.

You don't have natural elite running talent and never will (short of taking PEDs, which is a possibility). I could casually run a 10k in 45 min off of no running for years just doing other sports and I'm far from having any running talent.

* 50m freestyle is very close to 200m dash;

* 100m freestyle is very close to 400m dash;

* 200m freestyle is very close to 800m run.

There are high school athletes who grow up swimming and participating in T&F. Some can do both equally well. Most athletes do not swim and run equally well.

Runningart2004 wrote:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Foster_(athlete)

I used to have his book The Ancient Marathoner.

Was a recreational cyclist. Started running at 32. Ran a 2:11 marathon. Held the over 40 WR for a while.

Alan

I have this book greetings from nz

Not to late at all. I currently work with an athlete that came to me at 21 and in 4 years he has gone from 2:16 to 1:49 for 800m. Find a good coach with a good group and who knows what you can do. My biggest advice is to be patient and consistent. Good luck.

For some reason, competitive swimmers are usually not great runners and competitive runners are not great swimmers.

You’re still very young, but you have a long way to go. Anything is possible, but it’s it’s likely you’ll have to go with distance running at a much faster pace than your 5K.

For comparison, I started running at age 22 and ran a 45:45 for my first 10K. The fastest I ever achieved was a 36:30 10K. That said, I never followed an elite type training schedule, but that progression took me about 5 years. I also held a full time office job my my entire career and was married 3 years into it, with kids a couple years later.

You’ll need to read a lot of running books or get a coach.

No worries. Theoretically we peak at raw strength and speed around at 23 years of age (but it is individual). But aerobically you would need more than 4 years, probably 10 to peak based on enough training. So this depends. I would not worry. Just go on, train. Aerobically is most important as it takes time. Then see how your strengths show up and what distances you have the most talent in.

Yes, these times are very slow for a fit 19 yo male, even if it was just jogging. I ran this before any training at 12-13 and after less than a year of moderate training I was at 21-22 5k and 11:30 3k at 13 yo.

Talented teenaged males will run sub 20 min 5k without systematic training

Either running mechanics is very bad or you didn't really try.

Try a shorter distance like all out 2000m on a track which is a pretty good vo2 max race.

Jon Arne Glomsrud wrote:

No worries. Theoretically we peak at raw strength and speed around at 23 years of age (but it is individual). But aerobically you would need more than 4 years, probably 10 to peak based on enough training. So this depends. I would not worry. Just go on, train. Aerobically is most important as it takes time. Then see how your strengths show up and what distances you have the most talent in.

In addition. Swimming has developed some of your central aerobic capacity, like lungs, heart and this comes handy when starting training the legs. It takes a lot of running to develop the aerobic capacity of the legs (pheripheral capacity) and also you must train the running economy. This is a question of running a lot at different intensities. The swimming might give you a head start and a steep improvement the first year.