What is more impressive, a 4:59 mile, a 17:00 5k or a 35:59 10k?

I think the 16:59 5k and 35:59 10k are about equally impressive. 4:59 mile is less impressive than either imo though might be harder to achieve depending on how good your speed is.

4:59 > 17:00 > > >35:59 (25yo +)

17:00 > 4:59 > > 35:59 (highschooler)

I was thinking similarly, for a young kid with poor aerobic development, the 17:00 and 35:59 are much more impressive as speed comes naturally to them. For an older guy or gal the speed leaves the legs quickly and running 4:59 will be more impressive.

I’d say if your social circle is runners of any age that a 16:59 and 35:59 will get you a little more street cred as nearly “everyone” (washed up runners) broke 5:00 at some point in highschool.

If you’re trying to impress Joe Schmo at the office a 4:59 mile is probably the only number that would remotely mean something to him, in which case, “Whoa! That’s pretty close to the world record!”

17:00 minute 5K.

your average 4:59 miler in high school is likely mid to high 17s in cross. 38 give or take in a 10k. but could honestly be much worse. like maybe not even sub 40 for some.

Mostly agree with this but I think any high schooler running under 36:00 for 10k is pretty decent. Arguably better than a sub-5:00 mile. Most high schoolers are woefully underdeveloped aerobically.

So something like 17:00 > 4:59 >= 35:59 for high schoolers.

I did the first two, but never the third one, but I also raced the first two a lot more, so experience might be a factor. IMHO, the 10K is a harder feat, because it requires more endurance.

4:59 mile is the weakest.

In track practice most guys running around 17 min can run under 4:50 without much issues.

Even outside of track I know a bunch of soccer player who can run 4:50-5:00, but wouldnt be able break 18 for 5k and struggle af to break 40 on 10k.

17>35:59>4:59

17:00, closely followed by 35:59.

Go check on youtube the number of casuals "200lbs gym rats type of guys" who manage a sub 5 mile as a challenge.

These guys wouldnt come near 17:00.

I'll chime in as someone for whom each of these was anything but easy, and the 10k is impossible. But 4:59 was something I finally hit my senior year of high school, after nearly breaking 5 in my last race as a junior it took another year and a few tuneup races to finally crack it. That previous fall I had been running around 18:30ish for 5k xc. I only broke 17 in college when my mile was in the mid 4:40s (from a 1500 conversion) and, though I never raced a 10k at this point, I had done a solo time trial 10k to see if I could hold 90 second per lap pace and ended up barely cracking 38 minutes.

Now, in my late 20s/early 30s I've had a few closer calls with 5 minutes in recent years but can't imagine getting back under 17 or coming close to that 10k. This year, far from in shape I managed a 5:22 mile, just scratched under 20 in the 5k, and 10k in the 43s. So, for me at least, the 10k is by far the hardest, then 5k, then mile.

A pretty standard rule for 5K -> 10K conversion is:

5K time x 2 + 1 min = 10k time.

So a 17:00 5K runner should be able to run around 35:00. It's a much better time.

I never broke 17:00 on an XC course, but I ran 4:36 as a senior. However, I could run 17:10 and also ran 35:38. I had aerobic development, it's just that the 4:59 is a far easier mark to hit.

17:00 > 35:59 > 4:59.

A better conversion is:

17:00 5K time x 2 = 34:00 for 10K. Then add 4 seconds/minute in 5K = 35:08.

I ran high 34 6 mile and 15:50 5k in high school. Low lifetime mileage really hurts 10k.

I've never run a sub 5 mile but did run a 36:00 10k in October on a hilly course and am close to breaking 17 in a 5k. Definitely slow twitcher. Mile PR is 5:16.

I don’t know what’s more impressive but what I do know is when I went under 36:00 for 10K it felt like an accomplishment and I felt tremendous satisfaction. Going under 17:00 felt like a weight finally lifting off my shoulders and going under 5:00 was just a thing that happened.

For comparison the biggest thrill I had was going under 2:00 for 800.

4:59 mile is far less impressive to a sub 17:00 5k which is a 5:30 mile average. 35:59 10k is a 5:48 mile pace which is more impressive than a 17K 5K.

As a 1:51 800m guy, I've run a 4:20 mile based off only 800m training. Never broke 17:40 in a 5k. Even if I committed, not sure I'd get under 17:15. 36 in the 10k is impossible

I would be most proud of the 17 minute 5K.

As a washed up late 20s runner who could only ever manage 4:48, and 17:40 in high school but never managed to break 40 for 10k (ran one as a freshman in 41:34), I'd say 17:00 5k is generally more impressive and here's why:

A lot of people have run a mile, a lot of people have run a 5k, but not many people have run a 10k. So when speaking to the average everyday person, they're typically going to be familiar with mile times and 5k times, but not 10k times. To a normal person a sub-6 mile is fast and a sub-20 5k is fast, but they'd have no standard at all as to what is fast for a 10k. Going off of this logic, if you tell somebody you ran 4:59 for a mile, that's about a minute faster than what they consider "fast" so they'd be impressed; BUT if you told them you ran a 17:00 5k (or 16:59) well that's three minutes faster than what they consider fast. They're not going to do the math in their head and figure out your pace, they're just going to say "Wow! You must've been flying!"

Furthermore, I spent years chasing sub-17 and it never came so I am personally biased on this point. I just always thought the standard of what made somebody good was sub-17 and sub-4:40 but never cared much for the 10k.