Talent needed for 5:30 miles?!?

i have no talent at all and I ran 4:56 as a junior, my freshman pr was 6:11

I started XC when I was a junior in high school. I ended up running around 18 minutes for the 5K by the end of the season, off 15 miles a week and general slacking.

In my first race, I ran mid 19s. In the second race, I ran 18:30 with the first mile in 5:15.

As a senior, I decided I cared about running, put in consistent training, and went 15:30.

A 5:30 mile is not amazing. Almost everyone I started running with, or knew, even when they started younger, was a little faster than me. Sometimes a lot faster than me.

My dad was fast -he ran a 48 second 400. He couldn't run anything longer. My mom had a 13 minute mile. I'd say I didn't have any particular disposition to racing, even if I might've had slightly higher than average.

I agree with your coach.

Hate to break it to you but I coach at a mediocre HS in CO as far as distance goes, but I generally have at least one girl break 5:30 each year. I would say that 90% of my boys will break 5:30 by end of JR year, if not by then, then they wont SR year either it seems.

I would say that any given boy that works hard and has the right attitude should break 5:30. I do have a few disabled (mentaly) runners with the right attitude,all of which were inable to complete a mile w/o walking when they started, by end of freshmen year they were under 6:15, and should be sub 5:50 this year. The key is being enthusiastic about running.

5:00 mile I think is much harder, and is where talent breaks in. Sorry about my typos in advance.

I agree with you and your coach: when I was a frosh and wasn't that serious about track, I ran under 5:30 for the 1500 and two other frosh on my team were reasonably close. Those two quit after that year, and while maybe they were slightly more athletic than the average hs frosh, they weren't absurdly so. They had shitty attitudes though. I bet with a better attitude and reasonably consistent training even at that low level (which I was at until soph year) they could have broken 5:30 well before senior year. Attitude, especially dedication, is probably the most important thing at that level. You can walk/jog/cut practices and suck, or suck it up and actually do those admittedly short runs at a decent pace. If you can gut it out in practice racing becomes more than just finishing those four laps because you have to.

I ran a 6:00 mile @ 14yrs, before I could get better I quit because my crappy coach (like yours) had an attitude and wouldn't, or couldn't help.

More than 30 years later, self coached from a book and while training for a marathon, I ran a 5:54 mile with some left in the tank. So yea, I think I would've run 5:30 with good coaching/training and I have limited "talent".

So I agree many can do it but I put more blame on the coaches than the kids.

i ran 4:36 in the mile as a sophmore i was wondering if that is good or not

I ran 5:10 as my first mile ever. No training.

Aren't you the guy that's really just the sophomore at the moment?

And besides, if you're a dad, how were you running in college or later? That should answer your question.

Even if you're the sophomore yourself, are you winning races or not? That should answer your question. Did you come in first or not?

my league is pretty damn hard, have to run like 4:24 and below to win certain races

its not like those crappy northenr high schools who run a 4:45 and make it to cif finals coming in dead last that really pissses me off

It seems you're a sophomore then.

I do understand though -winning races meant coming in 4:20 to 4:08. 4:08 down to 4:03, if you happened to be going against certain schools.

But no, a 4:36 is not bad.

ahh a post your mile time thread. 6:06 6th grade. 1 mpw for 1 week, although i was active on the playground. Steal the flag. Running home after dark. Flag/tackle football. Chasing 6th grade broads. etc.

i would say 5:30 mile for a girl shows a high level of talent... below 5:30 in the mile for a girl in high school is right on the border of state meet material.so while you may have 1 girl per year, i would say that is probably 1 of maybe 3 girls in the whole school with the talent and drive to run that fast

sorry wrote:

Hate to break it to you but I coach at a mediocre HS in CO as far as distance goes, but I generally have at least one girl break 5:30 each year. I would say that 90% of my boys will break 5:30 by end of JR year, if not by then, then they wont SR year either it seems.

I would say that any given boy that works hard and has the right attitude should break 5:30. I do have a few disabled (mentaly) runners with the right attitude,all of which were inable to complete a mile w/o walking when they started, by end of freshmen year they were under 6:15, and should be sub 5:50 this year. The key is being enthusiastic about running.

5:00 mile I think is much harder, and is where talent breaks in. Sorry about my typos in advance.

As to the original question. I've never had a senior NOT break 5:30 if they were a guy. That includes the Freshman that come in barely under 8 for the mile. Even with mileage under 20, they should be under 5:40 by sophomore year. Right now I have a soph at 5:44 who ran 7:33 in his first meet last year and one who just broke 5 who ran 6:00 in his first meet last year. As far as girls go, it takes some talent to break 5:30 but any girl who runs 20 MPW 10 months a year should be able to break 6 by senior year.

The funny thing is that compared to the WR our talent level barely registers. I think true talent is when someone runs under 5 with little training. There are just too many lazy unmotivated runners out there who give a bad idea of what should be considered talented.

from 5:47 (7th grade) to 4:11 my senior year. A single 5:30 should be reachable by most kids assuming they did the amount of training you indicated.

jeebus wrote:

i have no talent at all and I ran 4:56 as a junior, my freshman pr was 6:11

Dude, don't try to be all humble. 4:56 won't get you much, but put against the general population of high school kids, it indicates talent. You can find guys who have been running for years who can't run a sub 5:00 mile. You may not have world-class talent, but you have talent.

ahaha wrote:

I started XC when I was a junior in high school. I ended up running around 18 minutes for the 5K by the end of the season, off 15 miles a week and general slacking.

In my first race, I ran mid 19s. In the second race, I ran 18:30 with the first mile in 5:15.

As a senior, I decided I cared about running, put in consistent training, and went 15:30.

A 5:30 mile is not amazing. Almost everyone I started running with, or knew, even when they started younger, was a little faster than me. Sometimes a lot faster than me.

My dad was fast -he ran a 48 second 400. He couldn't run anything longer. My mom had a 13 minute mile. I'd say I didn't have any particular disposition to racing, even if I might've had slightly higher than average.

I agree with your coach.

Dude, you've GOT to be kidding me. A high school runner who goes from 19 minutes to 15:30 from their junior year to senior year with no previous running experience and you are holding this up as evidence that you don't have talent? Bogus! Dude, even I have decent talent and I ran only 15:48 in high school (14:58 later) after having run steadily since age 8.

There are many states where 15:30 would win a state championship. What are you even talking about?

I don't think running a 5:30 mile requires a lot of talent. But running a 5:30 mile off of 15 - 20 MPW is totally different. The lower the mileage your running the greater the talent required to get a certain time goal.

Hell, at 36 and no talent I can run about a 5:10 mile. But I train for marathons with quite a bit of speed and pace work. If I was running as little as 20 miles a week I probably wouldn't be able to go sub 6:00.

Either talent or a bit of hard work (not saying a lot) is required, extra bonus points if you have both.