What is considered to be an "AVERAGE" mile time for male D1 runners?

what happened to d2?

For indoor last year, a 4:15 would have put you:

7th on the WAC performance list

9th on the Summit League performance list

5th on the Sun Belt performance list

18th on the Patriot League performance list

28th on the SEC performance list

4th on the Ohio Valley performance list

5th on the Northeast Conference performance list

18th on the Mountain West performance list

16th on the MVC Performance list

42nd on the MPSF Performance list

So, in about half the conferences (okay, I only checked 10) a 4:15 would be a top 10 performance in indoor. I guess if those conferences have around 20 people that could be considered "average."

I am going to guess around 4:25 there are way more kids who are on d1 teams that run between 4:30 and 4:40 than kids who are in the top tiers. You'll be surprised how many d1 athletes would have a hard time beating average high schoolers. Especially in the North East.

The guy above is totally correct. People think all D1 runners can lay down 4:10 and it's not true. I ran D1 by the way.

I would say average would be 4:25 mile. 4:15 would be good, 4:05 to 4:10 would be very very good and sub 4:05 would be elite level D1.

I agree with you. If I had walked on to my college team (D1, Northeast region) and kept my same PRs from High School, I wouldn't have had a problem beating probably half the kids on the team, if not more.

*And I was not fast, mid 16s for 5k XC*

Speed Matters wrote:

Based on your own interpretation of the term "average," what do you think would serve as an average mile time among male mid-distance runners in D1 colleges? And i'm not talking solely good D1 programs...I'm referring to ALL D1 programs.

And in D3 colleges?

D1 - 4:15?

D3 - ??

What do you think?

Nah, D1's much faster - more like 4:00-4:01. D3's probably more like 4:15.

I was the slowest miler on my D1 team at 4:28. Most of them averaged about 4:15 (or whatever a 3:50-3:55 1500m is).

banana bread wrote:

I was the slowest miler on my D1 team at 4:28. Most of them averaged about 4:15 (or whatever a 3:50-3:55 1500m is).

20sec/100m seconds is 5:20 pace, i think

Not so fast budday wrote:

I am going to guess around 4:25 there are way more kids who are on d1 teams that run between 4:30 and 4:40 than kids who are in the top tiers. You'll be surprised how many d1 athletes would have a hard time beating average high schoolers. Especially in the North East.

That is very surprising and also....well, what else can I say...very slow.

D1= 4:30

D3= 4:35

I would say it would be in the low 4:20 range.

I ran at a MAC school 8 years ago just before the conference went to hell. I ran 4:18 and was one of the average guys on my team.

One of the former high school runners we coached was told by a D1 school that they would not be interested in him unless he could run 4:25 or under.

4:18 and top guy at d3. i think 4:15 avg for d1

this is based on shaky assumptions, since i don't know the exact number but it's a good range:

about 300 xc/track programs in D1 with lets say 20 kids per team- 6,000 athletes. average/median would be 3,000th. based on this i would GUESS 4:25 is probably about average

D1 is a big pool. Oregon and Wofford are both D1. It's awfully hard to get recruited by a "big" D1 program without being under 4:20 in high school. But there are guys at the smallest D1's who never broke 4:40. If you want to talk about a real average, there are probably a lot more of the latter than the former, we just never talk about them. So maybe an average of 4:35 or so coming out of HS, but then we assume that they get better in college. And the average includes freshmen through seniors, so 3/4 of them have been getting better for a nice long while. Maybe 4:25, all told?

I guess you'd have to ask this question first:

Are we talking about the average for the guys who are part of the distance squad, or are we talking about the guys who have been recruited to mile for he school.

If we're talking all the guys on the distance squad, then I'd say 4:25. This would include the 800 guys all the way up to the 10K specialists.

If we're just talking about the milers, then I'd say it's closer to 4:15/4:16.

Just because the NEC is one of the slowest conferences in the nation doesnt mean that all D1 schools are that slow.

I think you are overestimating how many crappy D1 schools there are. 4:15 is probably average for bigger schools (BCS auto conferences), but there are much more smaller schools (also with larger mens rosters since they don't have to balance Title IX football numbers) bringing that average way down. I would be very surprised if it was much faster than 4:30.