What is a decent 10k? What is a decent half marathon?

Good as in at your local fun run? Good as in college-level? Good as in a big annual city half marathon?

Take you own PB's and add a minute or two...

Ask the 1st place finisher at xc nationals that question.

then.....

Ask the last place finisher at your local 5K that question.

Also try these out:

Ask a pro NBA player what is tall.

Go to a midget convention and ask what is tall.

Go to a mensa meeting and ask what is smart.

Go to a special ed school and ask what is smart.

Go to NYC and ask what is a good salary.

Go to Podunk, KY and ask what is a good salary.

You get my point?

That's a really subjective question. When I ran my first 1/2 (@14) it was 1:52, now I'd consider myself 'good' if I could dip under 75 minutes (still no where near 'world-class')

Good as in respectable among club runners. Times that show you didn't just roll off the couch and run them. Times that show you put a bit of work in and are a lot faster than the average member of the general public.

A local half-marathon with no prize money can usually be won in 1:10-1:15.

donm - it's really impossible to answer that question here. If your club's fastest 1/2 marathoner is running a 1:25 and you show up and go 1:22, they're going to think you're friggin amazing. Conversely if you're at a club with a bunch who routinely run 1:08, that 1:22 isn't so impressive.

I remember one year I was traveling on business up to bangor, ME and decided to do a local 5k on the weekend. I was in possibly the best shape of my life and ran a 15:4x 5K and won the race by about 3 minutes. A person from the local newspaper was there and asked me if I was training for the olympics. See my point?

Now if I go to san diego this weekend and run that same pace I'd probably be in the bottom 10% of the field. I don't think any reporter from San Diego would ask me that same question.

This in my opinion is a sensible question.

I think Most average athletic people could run around 60 mins for 10 miles .

so to my mind any one who can run 55ish is a good runner.

I think this time equates to a 33/34 10k and a 1.16 half.

Taking the population as a WHOLE there are not many people who can get to this level.

Remember we are not talking about the Africans or the elite here the Peles or Don Bradmans or Tiger Woods , just the general population.

Now there's a sensible response. I assume the times you quote are based on the "good runner" having trained properly?

I think Most average athletic people could run around 60 mins for 10 miles.

I don't know where you live but in our local 10 miler about 20 people out of hundreds run <60mins for 10 miles. If that's average your standards are a heck of a lot higher than mine!

Panty Hose wrote:

I think Most average athletic people could run around 60 mins for 10 miles.

I don't know where you live but in our local 10 miler about 20 people out of hundreds run <60mins for 10 miles. If that's average your standards are a heck of a lot higher than mine!

I think he must mean "could" as in "could with training". There's no doubt that if we put all members of the local rugby team, football (soccer) team, cycling club, and swimming club into a 10-mile race, very few would run anywhere near 60min. For that matter, most of the local running club wouldn't go under 60min.

Panty Hose wrote:

I think Most average athletic people could run around 60 mins for 10 miles.

I don't know where you live but in our local 10 miler about 20 people out of hundreds run <60mins for 10 miles. If that's average your standards are a heck of a lot higher than mine!

I think he must mean "could" as in "could with training". There's no doubt that if we put all members of the local rugby team, football (soccer) team, cycling club, and swimming club into a 10-mile race, very few would run anywhere near 60min. For that matter, most of the local running club wouldn't go under 60min.

Panty Hose wrote:

I think Most average athletic people could run around 60 mins for 10 miles.

I don't know where you live but in our local 10 miler about 20 people out of hundreds run <60mins for 10 miles. If that's average your standards are a heck of a lot higher than mine!

I think he must mean "could" as in "could with training". There's no doubt that if we put all members of the local rugby team, football (soccer) team, cycling club, and swimming club into a 10-mile race, very few would run anywhere near 60min. For that matter, most of the local running club wouldn't go under 60min.

Just to clarify.

Take the people from your swimming team ,football team etc.

Train them ,put them on a diet to loose excess wgt and and i believe that they would run 10 mile in 60 mins.

Don,t get me wrong here ,i am not talking about 2/3 months jogging i mean 2/3 years running, long runs, hills and speed work etc and your average athletic 25 year old MALE (Female equivalent may be 70 mins i havnt really thought about that !) should crack the hour. Therefore in my theory anything better than this would be better than average ergo a good runner.

i have a theory wrote:

Just to clarify.

Take the people from your swimming team ,football team etc.

Train them ,put them on a diet to loose excess wgt and and i believe that they would run 10 mile in 60 mins.

Don,t get me wrong here ,i am not talking about 2/3 months jogging i mean 2/3 years running, long runs, hills and speed work etc and your average athletic 25 year old MALE (Female equivalent may be 70 mins i havnt really thought about that !) should crack the hour. Therefore in my theory anything better than this would be better than average ergo a good runner.

We could complicate this even more by adding not only "good" times for women but also for various age groups. Then, of course, there's age grading. For instance, if a sixty year old woman ran 10 miles in 1:20, her age graded time would be 1:01:03--so there's your one-hour ten miler... in a sense. You can try some of your times using this calculator:

Train them ,put them on a diet to loose excess wgt and and i believe that they would run 10 mile in 60 mins.

Has to be one of the dumbest posts this week. Nice job.

Care to explain why it's so dumb?

Yea, most average 145 lb waifs could eventually run 10 miles in 60 minutes. This also applies to the average Fairy and Elf (the Lord of the Rings variety, Keebler elf's excepted). You may want to pull your head out of your Daniels book long enough to look around at what the average person is like. I know guys that have been training and racing for years and are exceptional athletes that still haven't cracked this barrier. Of course if you mean 1% of athletic people as "average" then I take it all back.

I ran under 60 for the first 10 miles of a half at 180 lbs. You don't have to be a 145 lb waif to run 6 minute miles. You just have to train.