Do you think the average person can string together three consecutive 5:38-pace miles to run 17:30? It's not even average amongst most runners.
I ran a lot of races in the 17:30 range when I was 30-35 and went under 17 a few times on "5K courses" that were mis-measured at 3.07 or 3.031 or something.
In my running community, I was known as a "fast" guy.
Now, on Letsrun, if you don't break 15, you aren't considered "good". But that's just LR.
If you roll a 17-flat, you will be win a lot of smaller, local 5K races and I'm proof of that.
The average value in a data set can be obtained by a simple formula. Sum all the quantities and divide by the number of them.
17 can easily be an average result. For example, if 3 runners finish in 16, 17, and 18 minutes respectively, then 17 will be the average.
Well...if you are doing it mathematically 17 min starts getting WAY better then average. I would say somewhere between 85% and 97% of all runners run slower than 17 min. On a college team? No.
Ignore the age grading. Who cares if some random pro runs 13 minutes at your age on your course, or some HS'er runs 16 minutes in his sleep. Run your own race.
There's a huge wall at 20-21 minutes for "hobby joggers" where an average person needs to put in actual effort to drop below it and the easy gains stop. I think that's where the average runner stops for their 5K.
Average adult on little to no training is even higher in the high 20's
The average value in a data set can be obtained by a simple formula. Sum all the quantities and divide by the number of them.
17 can easily be an average result. For example, if 3 runners finish in 16, 17, and 18 minutes respectively, then 17 will be the average.
Well...if you are doing it mathematically 17 min starts getting WAY better then average. I would say somewhere between 85% and 97% of all runners run slower than 17 min. On a college team? No.
False. The average is specific to the dataset and in my simple example is exactly 17. If you define a different data set, especially a huge one of "all runners" then of course you'll get a different result. For some specific set such as the OP's running group, it's entirely possible that 17 is average.
The main point is that given how simple the formula is, the OP should calculate it for the set that they care about.
Do you think the average person can string together three consecutive 5:38-pace miles to run 17:30? It's not even average amongst most runners.
I ran a lot of races in the 17:30 range when I was 30-35 and went under 17 a few times on "5K courses" that were mis-measured at 3.07 or 3.031 or something.
In my running community, I was known as a "fast" guy.
Now, on Letsrun, if you don't break 15, you aren't considered "good". But that's just LR.
If you roll a 17-flat, you will be win a lot of smaller, local 5K races and I'm proof of that.
I'd agree, up to my mid-50s, I could still knock out a 17:30ish 5k and that does win a lot of local events, and that's against people who are actually training and the lower end of local high-school x-country teams.
We need some context here. How old are you? Male or female.
I'm male, 36.
I cut down to 4 hours of running a week and adopted the 20/80 rule. Now consistently running 17s. I feel better after races/parkruns as well. Not wrecked like I used to. I have lots of days off. Before this I must have run 18 about 30 times and did 36 10k a few times.. It was easy to run 18 but 17 was a big jump.