What is a greater acheivement? - 16:XX 5K or sub-3 marathon?

Perhaps you're comparing apples and oranges - by this I mean the training versus the actual race (and aftermath of the race).

Maybe...

Your average just under 3hr guy is going to be hurting to achieve this time, and in considerable pain for days afterwards (under the assumption that most 3hr people are just squeaking by, training wise).

Now, hard 5ks are miserable while you're doing them, but they are much shorter and with less long term pain. Training for a good 5k is probably more intense than what most 3hr marathoners do. The training is arguably more painful.

I'm not sure if I even agree with these statements but it might help make sense of the situation.

It depends on whether you're talking about the race itself, or everything that goes into running the time. Assuming adequate training, the act of actually running a sub 3 marathon is harder than the act of running a sub 17 5K. In terms of training, though, the sub 17 takes a lot more effort.

Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

I don't get it. For the same person? No duh.

If a person can run 16:XX in a 5K a than 2:59 is a joke.

What do you mean by "harder" anyway? 16:XX is a better time than 2:59. no doubt, but running a hard marathon is much much harder than running a 5K. I think that is the same thing for training. 5K workouts are hard. they kill me while I'm doing them, but f you are properly training for a marathon there is this constant ache and fatigue. For days after a hard workout.

I guess the point I was trying to make to my co-worker that I failed to say to him at the time was "How many people who finished JUST UNDER sub-3 have ever touched 16:XX?

FWIW - the McMillan Calculator puts a 2:59 at a 18:22 5K equivalent.

I believe that reaching 16:XX is more talent/innate ability. While sub-3 is more effort and will come with more miles.

A lot of HS kids run sub 17. Difficult, but I'd argue less of an achievement than someone who runs sub 3. Milesplit shows 6300+ HS boys have run sub 17 in cross already this year. You don't see many HS kids running sub 3. Usually a sub 3 effort is the culmination of a lot of running over a long period of time. For a full grown, age 25+ adult sub 17 is possibly the greater achievement however. It takes a lot of dedication to maintain/improve speed as one ages.

I think the general consensus of this thread so far has been that 16:XX is probably better than 3 hours in a time conversion, but it is much easier to run a fast 5k than it is a marathon because marathons are extremely long and extremely painful.

Depends on the individual, and at what point in their training/career/lifetime. There are lots of people who can easily do one but would have a very hard time with the other.

When I was 18 years old, I could run a 5K in under 17 minutes without any real trouble (PR 16:18, usually ran about 16:40). I attempted my first marathon at age 18, thought I trained reasonably well, and waddled home in 3:06.

Now I'm in my 30's. I haven't done a serious interval workout in 10 years. Right now I could run a marathon in about 2:55 without too much difficulty, but I would need several months to prepare to make any serious attempt at even a 17:30 5K...

It should be painfully obvious to anyone with half a brain that the answer [to which is more difficult] is, "it depends."

Obviously, someone who can run a 14-minute 5k can run a 17-minute 5k during their coffee break and barely break a sweat. However, a 3-hour marathon would no doubt tucker them out and involve a fair bit of physical discomfort - and that's even true for a 2:05 guy who runs 110 miles a week, as that much running in a stretch will get to anyone.

But as you move along the spectrum of slower 5k guys, whille the 3-hour marathon will generally also get more difficult, many people there will find themselves on the other side of a "cross-over point" where the extreme toll of a 3-hour marathon in still in the realm of physical possibility, but a 16:59 5k is either out of or just (yet painfully so) in the reach of their physical capacity.

Anyone who's done a 2:59 has my respect, but many people running 16:59 are just hoping to make varsity next year.

I'm a 50 yo male and can still go sub 3 marathon. No way on the sub 17 5k. Havent seen that number in many years.

greater acheivement needs to be defined

If you can run 16:xx for 5k, you should be more like 2:45 marathoner or faster marathon, provided you are able to train for it seriously (mileage). Most women, for example, who can run a 5k that fast (17min or faster) should be (and probably are) shooting for an Olympic Trials qualifier.

The issue is, most people do a marathon off relatively low mileage or only enough mileage to be able to finish marathon, thus for these people there's a pretty big falloff in marathon time compared to their 5k.

Sub 3hrs is should be a goal for people around 18-19min for 5k. people at 16-17 for 5k do sub3 if they only train like weekend warriors, have a bad day/bonk, and/or do not do enough mileage for marathon training (for whatever reason).

I think just running a marathon is a greater acheivement for most PEOPLE, even though a 16:xx is a superior time for the distance than 3:00:00 is. Running 26.2 miles is much more difficult than running a 5k, so even though 3:00:00 is not as good of a time for the distance, it could be argued that it's more difficult. It is kind of apples to oranges though. I wouldn't worry about it though. You might say something like "a greater percentage of the general public could be trained to run <3:00:00 than <17:00." But yeah, not really a big deal.

I think running a fast 5k is much more painful than running a marathon. I don't think running a somewhat decent marathon time in good weather is very painful at all. In fact, I've run two marathons (in 2:50 and 2:40 respectively) and found both of them to be quite enjoyable. During the last 5 miles my legs felt rubbery and my body felt drained of energy but I never experienced anything close to the pain associated with racing 5 and 10ks. My 10k pr of 33:40, which I ran shortly after my 2:40 marathon was much more painful for sure.

I think a lot of people start out way too fast in marathons. It's pretty common to see 15:30 5k guys go out at 5:30 pace and come hobbling across the line at 8 minute pace in order to barely break 2:50. It's all about how you pace yourself. Most good 5k /10k runners tank in the last half of a marathon because they had too lofty a goal. If they had aimed to break 2:35 they probably would've run in the low 2:30s. Instead, they aim for 2:25 and hit the wall 18 miles in and run 2:45. It;s good to be ambitious, but it's easy to start to think that you can accomplish more than you're currently ready for. My break through races have always come when I accept the shape I'm currently in do the workouts based on my current fitness level and then attempt to run as even a pace as possible during the race.

idiots bragging at work wrote:

The issue is, most people do a marathon off relatively low mileage or only enough mileage to be able to finish marathon, thus for these people there's a pretty big falloff in marathon time compared to their 5k.

This.

Assuming adequate preparation (decent base, marathon-oriented mileage and workouts, taper, etc), a person who has run 16:59 (or under) should run around 2:45 or at the worst 2:50.

Most people do not adequately prepare for marathons, skewing thier perception of what should be possible at certain fitness levels

Sub 16:00 5k is harder. The typical sub-16 person is probably capable of a marathon close to 2:40.

At 46 I would be happier to break 17 than break 3 even though I ran in the 15s when I was younger and have never broken 3.

Cellular wrote:

idiots bragging at work wrote:

The issue is, most people do a marathon off relatively low mileage or only enough mileage to be able to finish marathon, thus for these people there's a pretty big falloff in marathon time compared to their 5k.

This.

Assuming adequate preparation (decent base, marathon-oriented mileage and workouts, taper, etc), a person who has run 16:59 (or under) should run around 2:45 or at the worst 2:50.

Most people do not adequately prepare for marathons, skewing thier perception of what should be possible at certain fitness levels

JUST TO ELABORATE ON THIS FURTHER say that your average corporate watercooler blowhard "marathoner" does a marathon in 4:30hours. He/she may even be capable of running ~20-25min for 5k. But their marathon time is pretty shitty in relation to their 5k time, for the simple reason they don't train adequately (mileage) for the marathon (most likely) or just decide to wear a costume and treat their marathon like a big f*ckin joke.

This falloff in performance at the marathon (and at the longer distances in general) is obviously more common in slower runners (because they generally choose not to train as seriously as a faster runner in order to get that VDOT equivalent performance). I see the falloff also in recent NCAA graduates with PRs around 14-15 mins who stop training like they did in college for a bunch of months, start drinking heavily and merely have the goal of breaking 3hrs in a debut marathon. There's nothing wrong with this except for the blowhards at work who piss me off but I'm just stating the obvious.

'FWIW - the McMillan Calculator puts a 2:59 at a 18:22 5K equivalent.'

I never trust these tables as I think the 2:59 is much harder to achieve than 18.22

Off moderate talent most young runners could rattle off 3 6 min miles off little training and not that much talent. The sub 3 at least takes hard training

Then again some older runners struggle for speed on the 5km

The op should have specified the xx

I'm sure the charts for comparative times would show that the 16:xx is quite a bit harder.

25 years ago, I ran a 2:53. My best 5K time was 17:27. I trained appropriately for both events--although never on the track; just lots of hard 60-second hill repeats in Central Park for the latter event--and felt that I'd come close to reaching the bottom of the barrel for both events, given my moderate talent level.