something I dont understand

Here in the Toronto-Hamilton-Niagara area of Southern Ontario, you don't have a prayer of winning a 5k in 15:50-16:30 unless you normally run faster but you're running that slow because the weather is horrible, or it's a small race of under 200 people that no one that's a serious runner cares about.

must run in the wrong races wrote:

How come so many people on here are running sub 15 or even sub 15:30, yet the overwelhming majority of races I enter are won in 15:50-16:30?

Is everyone running in college,running in the same elite races, or what?

my guess is the OVERWHELMING majority of posters are over 16 minutes for the 5k.

i would also bet the median time when you take into account all posters is around 20 minutes. or higher.

I figure the guys who are running those times are in college x-c track, and don't bother with rinky-dink road races.

I think these same guys struggle after running in college, because the competition in public is weak enough where they aren't challenged in races, they get a little "out of shape," can't deal with the fact that they are winning local yokel 5ks with times a full minute slower than they usually run, read about guys running sub-13, say "what the hell and quit running altogether.

easy one wrote:

I figure the guys who are running those times are in college x-c track, and don't bother with rinky-dink road races.

I think these same guys struggle after running in college, because the competition in public is weak enough where they aren't challenged in races, they get a little "out of shape," can't deal with the fact that they are winning local yokel 5ks with times a full minute slower than they usually run, read about guys running sub-13, say "what the hell and quit running altogether.

i agree that many/most of the college runners dont bother with "rinky-dink" local 5ks.

the "the competition is not good enough for me" reason they give is just an excuse to quit running and not do the work to maintain the level they were running at. i have no respect for that excuse.

in reality, they simply do not want to keep doing the work to run those times. nothing wrong with that. college students have no idea how much time they really have. in the "real world" it is much harder to find time for lots of running.

bill rogers once said, "no man with a 9 to 5 job will ever beat me." he understood this.

my feeling is that many of the college runners/letsrun poster types spend so much time mocking the fitness runner who does it for the joy of it, that when they find themselves with a job and less time to train and slower times, they simply quit. they dont have the structure/discipline to keep training on their own. and so they make up the "i am too good to run these road races with the penguins" excuse.

but hey, whatever gets you through the night.

It's because everyone likes to break out their PR's when it comes to "who is fastest" discussions, yet in reality, today these people are running much slower.

I think it may be the fact that many college guys dont partake in local 5ks. Very few people aged 18-25 even enter races. They might think they are overtraining or if they do run, it would be during a base phase. Also the races are in the morning right when everyone has woken up. With so may races, there is a diffusion of talent.

I agree. It's a shame to see talent go to waste. Last summer I ran into someone who used to run cross at my high school who went on to run college x-c. He had recently graduated and was talking about how hard it was to run having a "day job," asking me how I trained. I replied that I did most of my runs at 5 a.m. except for speed sessions which I saved till after work.

He ran some local races, winning easily or placing very high in the more competitive races, despite only running 25-30 mpw. Eventually he disappeared. Occasionally I will see his name in the results but every time it's slower and slower, and I figure it's only a matter of time before he quits.

Even if there are 300 guys on this board that regularly run sub 16:00, when you spread that out across the 1000's of 5K's that occur each month, the competition thins out. This is why I can almost always place in my age group with an 18:00 flat. Unless of course they offer 1000 to the winner, in which case I have no shot.

A college student running PR pace at the local road race in June or July is 1% likely to be making a huge breakthrough and 99% likely to be burning out early. When I ran the local summer 10K, I would run almost a minute slower per mile than my track PR.

Someone in Canada wrote:

Here in the Toronto-Hamilton-Niagara area of Southern Ontario, you don't have a prayer of winning a 5k in 15:50-16:30 unless you normally run faster but you're running that slow because the weather is horrible, or it's a small race of under 200 people that no one that's a serious runner cares about.

Here in the Boston area, there are so many 5ks on any given weekend, there are so many road races of all lengths on any given weekend, that that talent is diluted. There's a ton of talent here, yet you sometimes win a 5k with time over 17:00.

I'm in the Portsmouth NH area, and while most races have a couple of guys in the low 16's or some 15's, there are certainly enough races going on that the talent gets thinned out. A training partner picked up a cheap win with a time over 18 minutes a few weeks ago. I think there was a more popular 10K going on that day.

Sam, this should be posted on letsruns front page.You have perfectly nailed a good portion of the "fast" guys who post on letsrun who accuse elites of taking drugs, lie about how much they run in all weather conditions in a singlet and call a 3 hour marathon jogging while ripping the way wejo runs the site.

I disagree with Sam's view. As a mediocre post collegiate, I knew a group of several former All Americans, D-1 Nationals contender types who were still competing at a high level. They didn't enter the local road races for several reasons:

1.) They'd be competing against each other, and they could do that as a workout.

2.) They didn't want to keep the next level runners from winning races, getting disheartened, and quitting.

3.) They could get some appearance fees for some races, and they'd go there. They'd drive hours out of town for a good race, rather than staying in town to rob some other hard training, but less talented runner, of their chance for a little victory.

I don't think there's any harm to one's running desire if you don't enter the races aimed at a different level of runner. Mind you, I don't think they ever went around saying "I'm too good for that race", but everyone knew it.

Mind you, these guys would WORK at the local races, directing traffic, handing out water, or what not.

They would enter a couple of fun local races every year. Then they'd direct a race of their own, and use all the trophies that had piled up over the year as awards for the kid's runs, by replacing the placards on them.

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