Can most (50% or more) of guys run a 5 minute mile?

I know hundreds of runners including several olympians and if you can break 5 while 30 pounds overweight hardly running for months then you are 1 in a million. Fully fit and trained you must be close or under 4 min mile. Not really relevant to compare to average joes.

kaitainen wrote:

most of us on here that ran in college could run at least 3 sub-5 miles consecutively in our sleep. i think it's beyond arrogant to think that other athletes couldn't run one sub-5 mile.

again, it's just not that fast.

Why are you saying 'other athletes' ? we aren't talking about athletes , we are talking about average joes.

All the fast division athletes don't increase the running potential of the average high school or university class. I don't know why you are calling me arrogant.

Yes, DIV 1 guys can run 15:30 5kms in their sleep, snore though a 4:20 mile but it doesnt mean squat when you are talking joe blow.

JEH,

Usually your opinions with me are like BUTTA, but I'm going to have to seriously disagree with you here.

I know that what people DO and what people CAN do if trained properly are two different things, but even so, gotta tell you, there's NO WAY 50% of American men (high school and older) can run a sub 5 minute mile. I think that for some of us who have averaged that pace for several miles that it seems like it's no big deal, but it really is.

Some things:

1) Only 5% of Americans adults can run a mile without stopping AT ALL. Of course if you trained more people, then maybe 95% could, but still, that's a big thing to consider. I, of course, have run WAY under a 5 minute mile (4:32 in high school and then capable of faster than that in college though I never raced a mile or 1500 again in peak shape), but I've had periods of time when I let myself go, gained 50 pounds, and I could still step out the door and run 10 miles or more if I wanted to (not without being really sore the next day though). I could do this because I have some natural talent. MOST people do NOT have the talent to run even a 7:00 mile let alone a 5 minute one, and there's a WORLD of difference between those two times.

2) When I was in high school, there were 40+ guys on the cross country team. Most of those guys were there for 4 years -- that's what they did. They ran. They trained. My senior year, there were 3 of us on the team out of 40+ who could break a 5 minute mile -- that's 7.5% maximum of high school aged guys who ran a lot and were on the cross country team in part because they were good at running. I ran with a couple guys in college who could not run a sub 5 minute mile.

3) I've talked to many a runner -- runners who have been running since they were 20 -- running for 30 years. They are fit and lean and run 70 miles a week including more intense days and so on, and they can't run a sub 5 minute mile.

I think oftentimes people here don't count their lucky stars enough that they were given some talent to run fast. Lots of fit healthy thin people couldn't run a sub 8 minute mile to save their lives, let alone a sub 5 minute mile.

While I think we established that between 1-2% actually DO run faster than a sub 5 minute mile (though I think it's even less than that), I bet the max would be that 5% could even after a few years of intense proper training. It's just not that easy.

I'm sure your next post will be once again like BUTTA! :)

Anyone that seriously suggests even 5% of population can run a 5-minute mile is simply not living in reality. At best 3% of the population is capable of such a time.

Those are just the facts folks. This one message could be substituted for this entire thread

I agree with you Facing Reality. However, if we are talking about the 6 minute mile then I would say 15% of the populaton is capable of such a time with "vigorous" year round training.

Change thread title to RE: Can most(50% or more) of guys run a 7 minute mile. Now that is realistic!!!

kaitainen wrote:

and to coach D, thanks for the information. now was that a study of the overall population, or the population of males at or near peak athletic years?

Running USA's Road Race Information Center tracks a lot of statistics, which you can find here:

It has changed a bit from what they used to have (I think my data was from 2000 or 2002) and they don't specifically list the number of runners that competed in a race (obviously adding all the finishers for all races overpredicts), but nevertheless the number of runners competing in a race is a relitively small percentage of all those who say in surveys that they run.

I think many people on letsrun would find some of RRIC's numbers interesting.

dont need talent to run a 5min mile, junior girls can run that..

most americans are fat f***s so probably why only 1% can..

i've posted on this thread far too much. this will be the last entry.

please, please, please address the question raised, not some other question in your head. FW, a well thought out post, but one that doesn't address the question raised.

i'll restate it again:

"A friend of mine that is not a runner asked if it is possible for most guys to run a 5:00 mile if they were motivated and began training for it at an appropriate age. At first I thought this couldn't be true but then I thought, well maybe it is possible. Obviously an obese person cannot run a 5:00 mile, but assuming that they lost enough weight and trained for it could most guys (more than half) run a 5:00 mile? Assuming they train properly?"

in sum, the assumptions are: male, appropriate age, motivated, trained for it properly.

so while comments like the following:

"I've talked to many a runner -- runners who have been running since they were 20 -- running for 30 years. They are fit and lean and run 70 miles a week including more intense days and so on, and they can't run a sub 5 minute mile"

might be relevant for a baseline of how difficult a 5 minute mile is, it has almost no value in determining whether or not those same runners could have broken 5 minutes for a mile in their prime.

and FW, do you truly believe this: "MOST people do NOT have the talent to run even a 7:00 mile let alone a 5 minute one." i suppose if you are saying "people" rather than males, it's not quite as patently absurd.

and as for your high school anecdotes, did those guys "train properly" as we were told to assume?

I think the original question is flawed as it is rooted in fantasy. It is describing an ideal population: ideal age, ideal health, ideal training, ideal motivation. The number of people breaking 5 minutes from that population should be 100%.

Most of the people on this thread address reality. How many people, today, could go out to a track and run a sub-5 mile. These numbers are much easier to estimate, although there is still a large amount of disparity.

The most promising statistics so far are from the VO2 max numbers. Although a specific VO2 max is not always an indication of running success, it provides a idea of what percentage of the population has the physical ability to handle a sub 5 mile.

Man, this thread popped! I was just away for a couple of hours.

W.Mitty, I liked your post a lot! Well done. Still disagree, though. When I see college guys, I see a whole lot who are NOT running their potential (I don't think I reached mine), but they are amongst the most motivated in the states. When I look at myself now, or the road running fitness community, almost no one is CLOSE to running their potential. Just look at their lives! While I agree with your idea of trying to get objective data, I don't think we're going to get it. If we boil this down to what physiological attributes are required, we will still disagree in regards to who all could train to attain those attributes (same question just stated differently). Because of your post, though, I will recant my looney-speak comment (I already felt kind of bad about that, even though I still think along the same lines as I did before). I will say, that the comment you made about "verging on the metaphysical" was very compelling as I don't have data to use. I am essentially arguing that people have the potential, but it is evident that it is unrealistic for them to develope it because there is no appropriate incentive (unfortunately, proving me right will not stack up compared to something like having their lives depend on it)... I think we all agree that people do not reach their potential... the disagreement is to what degree.

Obviously, kaitainan and I agree that some are more talented than others. No doubt. Take a look at El G for example. Best ever. Think of how far 4:05 is from 3:59. Wow, then 3:43-3:50 is wayyy beyond 4, right? Then, how different is 4:05 to 4:20? Tons, right? and 4:20 to 4:40? A lot again. I just think that if all guys trained in their prime and not super-sized with the diligence and dedication as El G, more than half would break 5. That is the essence of the question, right. That's just my own observation/feeling on the matter, but unfortunately, I don't think we will be able to find objective proof, so I do see room for people to disagree. I don't think giving me stats about underacheiving HSers will do much to sway me the other way.

FPW, I never feel all that threatened when you disagree with me, so no worries! While I think you provide a better perspective than most, I typically don't think yours is as good as mine (smile). I don't hold that against you, though!

I'm in high school now, and after seeing all the shitty, uncoordinated kids on the team who couldn't even break 6 with good training, I have come to doubt the 50% of the population, even with the proper training, could break 5.

former diii steepler wrote:

I think the original question is flawed as it is rooted in fantasy. It is describing an ideal population: ideal age, ideal health, ideal training, ideal motivation. The number of people breaking 5 minutes from that population should be 100%.

Nope. 100% do not have the talent. That is the question. The original poster is trying to remove all the other variables (assigning them ideal values) so that the talent alone is left. It is an unrealistic proposition requiring assumptions, but I am not sure I would say it's flawed.

It's kind of like how some people look back and say how they would do this or that differently to achieve a different/better result. Unrealistic? Yes, we can't go back in time. Flawed? I am not so sure.

Mandingo wrote:

I know hundreds of runners including several olympians and if you can break 5 while 30 pounds overweight hardly running for months then you are 1 in a million. Fully fit and trained you must be close or under 4 min mile. Not really relevant to compare to average joes.

Well, by 30 pounds overweight I meant 30 pounds over my racing weight from college, I was still pretty lean by normal standards.

Another thing is that different people respond differently to training. Just cause I could beat someone when out of shape who has also put on weight and not trained in 4 months doesn't necessarily mean that at our peak shapes I'd beat him. And I would never be close to breaking 4:00 in a mile, but gutting out 1 mile at a pace a little slower than your 5k PR pace shouldn't be anything unbelievable, even if your only exercise over the past few months has been pickup games of soccer, basketball, etc.

Is their poor coordination genetic or is it more due to how they were raised?

JEH wrote:

Is their poor coordination genetic or is it more due to how they were raised?

It could be the "I just had my growth spurt and I don't know to deal with my long limbs" poor coordination. You know, the 6'2" skinny gangly guy with glasses who flails his arms...

I was commenting on omurphy's friends, not about you. You'll get used to your growing & changing body! Keep up the good work, and don't let people make fun of you.

I think that's my main problem with the question...talent is not something that can be empirically measured. You can't take a person and say he was XX amount of talent.If you subscribe to the belief that talent can be nurtured but not trained, then you must think there is some way to measure talent in order to predict future performances. The Chinese are famous for doing this...having large groups of children perform simple athletic activities...those who excel go to sports school to develop their athletic skills. However, the large washout rate at these school must mean that even these tests are not predictors of talent.I guess what I'm trying to say is that since talent cannot be measured (or even effectively estimated), there is no way to predict what percentage of "ideal" athletes could break 5 minutes for the mile unless some kind of large study were conducted. Therefore (in my mind), since talent cannot be measured, the question is flawed.

JEH wrote:

Nope. 100% do not have the talent. That is the question. The original poster is trying to remove all the other variables (assigning them ideal values) so that the talent alone is left. It is an unrealistic proposition requiring assumptions, but I am not sure I would say it's flawed.

It's kind of like how some people look back and say how they would do this or that differently to achieve a different/better result. Unrealistic? Yes, we can't go back in time. Flawed? I am not so sure.

Ah, I see now. You're right... that is THE problem. No way to measure it, leading to subjectivity.

One thing I would listen to would be several good coaches (Hadd, Rubio, Daniels, Malmo, etc. etc. ) who have been in this game a long time and who have coached a lot of people of all levels of ability. They would be more likely to have seen and assess the effort and estimate the basic ability of those they have coached. Still subjective, but it would at least utilize expert opinion.

Just one anecdote from me, I was privileged to coach this girl who just started a few years ago... ran a first marathon of 4:40something and I think both she and I would agree she is not supremely talented... probably average. Last summer, she ran a 6min/mile while we were not training for the mile. She definitely could run the male equivalent of a sub5.

kaitainen wrote:

also, you really had 8 guys who trained year round for four years who couldn't break 5 minutes in the mile???

Definitely. Here was the breakdown:

1 guy above 6:00

2 guys between 5:30 and 5:59

4 guys between 5:10 and 5:29

1 guy between 5:00 and 5:09 (me - I ran a 5:04 as my high school PR.)

The sub 5 guys in my school were running 4:41 and 4:53