Could Ricky Henderson break 5 in the mile in his prime

You're either trolling or delusional; Henderson in his prime was a thickly-muscled mesomorph with a body and physiology perfectly suited for the short, explosive bursts of speed needed for base stealing. I met the man in his playing days, and his physique was so chiseled, vascular, and solid he looked like you could've stuck a match on him. As a miler he would've been as good as any halfback or elite sprinter, which is to say not very good at all.

I was security at arenas, ballpark and stadium when Ricky Henderson played for about a year and a 1/2 which covered two M.L.B. seasons. I was in close proximity to him a couple times per season.

> Henderson was capable of sub-11 100m.

> Henderson was capable of sub-23 200m.

> Henderson was capable of sub-37 300m.

I would not dare guess his 400m and longer ability.

Um...no.

Like, without training at all? It would be close. Give him a couple months to train and no question he could.

Fwiw, he actually did run a 9.4 100-yard dash in high school. That’s a 10.3 100-meters.

“Nothing's impossible for Rickey. You don't have enough fingers and toes to count out Rickey.”

-- Rickey Henderson

He must have been gym rat to play such a long career in as good a shape as he was. Lots of speed oriented decathletes do the equivalent of sub 5 without specific mile training. With a couple of practice time trials to learn pacing, maybe he would go sub 5 easily, maybe not.

With specific training for a month or two, very likely.

If the bases were a mile apart, maybe.

bio Domer wrote:

He must have been gym rat to play such a long career in as good a shape as he was. Lots of speed oriented decathletes do the equivalent of sub 5 without specific mile training. With a couple of practice time trials to learn pacing, maybe he would go sub 5 easily, maybe not.

With specific training for a month or two, very likely.

I don’t know why LRers think distance running is so easy and that anyone with good sprinting speed could run sub-5:00. Henderson had the wrong body type and would suffer starting with the 200m. His strength was explosive acceleration which wouldn’t help him in the mile.

For the record, he ran 9.6 and not 9.4.

Maybe with help from Chuck Norris. Chuck could change the distance of a mile, and it would be the new standard.

Nothing is easy, but a 5:00 mile takes talent equivalent to like a 12:xx 100m. It’s bit a high bar.

Bryan Clay is one of the best (the very best?) Dec throwers ever and had very good speed, yet still ran the equivalent of sub 5. It’s not a super high bar.

compared to most cross fitters he was actually kind of slim and most of them can run sub 5 easy. i wouldnt put it past him. usually these topics are "could richard hamilton run a 420 mile?" or something like that, but sub 5 seems pretty attainable for someone that hit the genetic lotto and probably in the 99.9th percentile of physical ability.

They absolutely can not. Rich Froning barely broke 6 in the mile. Crossfitters are extremely slow and generally not that great of athletes though. The conversation is always about nfl players being able to compete with sprinters but I think it would be hilarious to see any pro athlete go in and kick abunch of CrossFit guys around in their sport. Honestly most of them would struggle in their own sport against the majority of d1 athletes. Most of the lifter xfit crowd are failed high school athletes.

I bet Jerry Rice could have broken 2:00 in the 800, certainly 1:30 in the 600. He actually did serious hill training out in the Bay Area.

I am sure there are some heavily muscled guys who can break 5 in the mile without much training. My college track teammate, Mark Clayman, threw the hammer and ran the 400 hurdles. In one indoor meet, he jumped into a random 800 ran 2:03. He could bench press a million pounds and was about 5'9, 180.

Rickey ain’t runnin no mile. You can’t steal a mile.

I love how runners pound their flat chests about how other pro athletes couldn’t beat them.

Most other pro athletes would be in the top tier of running compared to society. Most pro runners would be in the bottom quartile of society in any other pro sport.

It’s like you people forget no one is watching you or cares.

I am not sure why there is such a bias against people who aren't twinks being able to run a fast mile. Peter Snell once held the mile world record, won the 800 and 1500 in the same olympics and was chiseled. 5'10 and 175 pounds and just look at how muscular he was. Henderson was 5'10 and 195 in his prime. Snell ran a 3:54 mile over 50 years ago and Henderson only outweighed him by 20 pounds and as it has been shared Henderson was all muscle too.

It is hard to judge Henderson's cardio capacity but nothing about his physique would prevent him from running a sub 5:00 mile.

Shiftering wrote:

I bet Jerry Rice could have broken 2:00 in the 800, certainly 1:30 in the 600. He actually did serious hill training out in the Bay Area.

I am sure there are some heavily muscled guys who can break 5 in the mile without much training. My college track teammate, Mark Clayman, threw the hammer and ran the 400 hurdles. In one indoor meet, he jumped into a random 800 ran 2:03. He could bench press a million pounds and was about 5'9, 180.

Jerry Rice is not a good comp for Henderson. He ran 4.59 and was 6’2, 200lbs compared to Henderson’s 5’10, 195. Henderson’s best distance might have been 60m and it’s possible it was the 400m for Rice. At 1-mile it would been like Houston Mctear and Alberto Juantorena

ArthurNotInMyYard wrote:

You're either trolling or delusional; Henderson in his prime was a thickly-muscled mesomorph with a body and physiology perfectly suited for the short, explosive bursts of speed needed for base stealing. I met the man in his playing days, and his physique was so chiseled, vascular, and solid he looked like you could've stuck a match on him. As a miler he would've been as good as any halfback or elite sprinter, which is to say not very good at all.

You're overestimating what it takes to run 5 min mile. Even 4:30 for men. I saw a St. John's University basketball playing jogging on lane at close to 6 min pace for about 10 laps wearing gym shoes and basketball shorts. His lanky physique doesn't look like he can run distance but he sure fooled me. He wasn't even trying to go fast.

Moo G wrote:

ArthurNotInMyYard wrote:

You're either trolling or delusional; Henderson in his prime was a thickly-muscled mesomorph with a body and physiology perfectly suited for the short, explosive bursts of speed needed for base stealing. I met the man in his playing days, and his physique was so chiseled, vascular, and solid he looked like you could've stuck a match on him. As a miler he would've been as good as any halfback or elite sprinter, which is to say not very good at all.

You're overestimating what it takes to run 5 min mile. Even 4:30 for men. I saw a St. John's University basketball playing jogging on lane at close to 6 min pace for about 10 laps wearing gym shoes and basketball shorts. His lanky physique doesn't look like he can run distance but he sure fooled me. He wasn't even trying to go fast.

I'm not "overestimating" anything; a 5-minute mile is out of reach for the vast majority of the world's population, even with training. There were two kids who joined my high school track team, thin guys who had self-selected into the sport because they liked it and were dedicated to it. They did all the work asked of them, including running on weekends, school holidays, and Summers, they pushed themselves to their limits -relative to their abilities- and you know what? After 3 years on the team one of them ran a 5:07 mile and the other a 5:03. You'll find similar situations replicated on teams around the country.

The better someone naturally is at the sort of short, fast, explosive efforts that Henderson excelled at, the less suited they will be to endurance efforts, and the longer the effort gets, the more their ability will drop off...precipitously, at a certain point. The notion that " If someone can sprint the 100 in 10-point, then a 5-minute mile would be jogging for them" is a complete fallacy. And just because you allegedly saw a basketball player running at 6-minute pace doesn't mean Henderson could go sub-5.

Peter Snell was mentioned above; as muscular as he was compared to most other mid-D runners, he was a wraith

compared to Henderson.