What could the top 100/200 guys run 400-Marathon and what could the top Marathon guys run for 800-10k?

No for the sprinters - yes for the marathoners.

Sprinting is by its nature not an activity that allows for versatility in terms of competitive duration.

buckminster badger wrote:

No for the sprinters - yes for the marathoners.

Sprinting is by its nature not an activity that allows for versatility in terms of competitive duration.

No way the distance runners would run under 1:55 800. 12.8 is pushing it too. These guys aren't 10,000 meter runners, I doubt they could break 57-58!

Hall ran I think 1:50 in HS, he is far from the top of the world marathon rankings.

Meb ran I think 3:42 @1500

KK ran 3:42

Others I am not sure - but 1:55 will not be a problem.

12.8 - probably actually somewhat harder for them but still would be doable given a few tries out of the blocks and a few easy days.

buckminster badger wrote:

Hall ran I think 1:50 in HS, he is far from the top of the world marathon rankings.

Meb ran I think 3:42 @1500

KK ran 3:42

Others I am not sure - but 1:55 will not be a problem.

12.8 - probably actually somewhat harder for them but still would be doable given a few tries out of the blocks and a few easy days.

Hall also ran a 3:42 1500 in highschool, and can not run within 15 seconds of that now. So we know that he has lost a lot of speed. You really think he can run sub-1:50 now. Doubtful. These are very very unlikely.

Hit or miss for the sprinters. Every one of them is theoretically capable of those times, but unless they're doing lots of miles in addition to their sprints which is unlikely, they wouldn't be able to do right it now in reality.

As far as the marathoners you list every single one of them would break 12.8 and 1:55. Question would be more appropriate to ask if they could break 11.8 and 1:52 in which case some yes, some no.

I never said hall could break 1:50 - though he did run AROUND there in HS. Despite is stupidity-based training he can certainly break 1:55.

buckminster badger wrote:

I never said hall could break 1:50 - though he did run AROUND there in HS. Despite is stupidity-based training he can certainly break 1:55.

1:55 is not as easy as it sounds. Neither is 12.8. The distance runners nor the sprinters could do any. Distance runners have no explosiveness and flying starts help A TON with them.

1:55 is still 3:51-3:52 mile pace, and you have to say with the kind of endurance they have it would be equal to a 4:05-4:06 mile, and I doubt these guys could run that. None of them have any speed besides maybe maybe Geoffrey Mutai.

As for 20 minutes in 5k, No. Sprinters would absolutely die. The difference between distance and sprinting is huge.

No way a sprinter could even finish a marathon, let alone under 4 hours...So I think the distance runners would be relatively closer compared to sprinters, but I don't think any of them could do that other than maybe Geoffrey Mutai.

triplexblader wrote:

1:55 is still 3:51-3:52 mile pace, and you have to say with the kind of endurance they have it would be equal to a 4:05-4:06 mile, and I doubt these guys could run that. None of them have any speed besides maybe maybe Geoffrey Mutai.

4:06? I'm not sure where you're coming from.

I have a friend who hit 1:55 this summer, his fastest 1500 was 4:14 (~ 4:31 mile). Admittedly he's speedy. Another friend also hit 1:55 with a 4:03 1500m (~ 4:20 mile) - he's pure endurance, not much speed at all. Anyhow, 4:06 is out of this world compared to either of those marks, no way that sort of mile speed is necessary.

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if a couple guys on the list could manage a 4:06 anyway.

sigkill wrote:

triplexblader wrote:

1:55 is still 3:51-3:52 mile pace, and you have to say with the kind of endurance they have it would be equal to a 4:05-4:06 mile, and I doubt these guys could run that. None of them have any speed besides maybe maybe Geoffrey Mutai.

4:06? I'm not sure where you're coming from.

I have a friend who hit 1:55 this summer, his fastest 1500 was 4:14 (~ 4:31 mile). Admittedly he's speedy. Another friend also hit 1:55 with a 4:03 1500m (~ 4:20 mile) - he's pure endurance, not much speed at all. Anyhow, 4:06 is out of this world compared to either of those marks, no way that sort of mile speed is necessary.

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if a couple guys on the list could manage a 4:06 anyway.

True, but these guys are marathoners. I mean they have great endurance but not great speed. I just can't see them sprinting faster than a 56-57 second lap..I just don't see it I don't think the speed is there for these guys.

I think most of these estimates are a long way out.

I saw Mick Gratton - London Marathon winner - later on running for his club in a league track meet at Maidenhead, Berkshire, in England. He ran the 800m and 1500m (don't remember the times), but then did the last leg of 4 x 400m and ran down one of our own 400m guys, in around 51.00 on a bad cinder track.

I wasn't within miles of that ability, but as a 3000m steeplechaser could run under 12:00 for 100m with a rolling start, and ran 12.5 with a crouch start (no blocks) on a grass track, so I'm sure a lot of world-class distance runners would be a lot quicker.

triplexblader wrote:

sigkill wrote:

4:06? I'm not sure where you're coming from.

I have a friend who hit 1:55 this summer, his fastest 1500 was 4:14 (~ 4:31 mile). Admittedly he's speedy. Another friend also hit 1:55 with a 4:03 1500m (~ 4:20 mile) - he's pure endurance, not much speed at all. Anyhow, 4:06 is out of this world compared to either of those marks, no way that sort of mile speed is necessary.

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if a couple guys on the list could manage a 4:06 anyway.

True, but these guys are marathoners. I mean they have great endurance but not great speed. I just can't see them sprinting faster than a 56-57 second lap..I just don't see it I don't think the speed is there for these guys.

Plenty of these guys come from a track pedigree, which usually means some speed.

Not to mention you need a pretty decent amount of speed if your going to have 71s ish laps feel MP relaxed.

uppity wrote:

triplexblader wrote:

True, but these guys are marathoners. I mean they have great endurance but not great speed. I just can't see them sprinting faster than a 56-57 second lap..I just don't see it I don't think the speed is there for these guys.

Plenty of these guys come from a track pedigree, which usually means some speed.

Not to mention you need a pretty decent amount of speed if your going to have 71s ish laps feel MP relaxed.

The fastest 400m in a Marathon is usually around 65 seconds. I just can't imagine athletes being able to go more than 10 seconds faster for a lap sprinting I mean...I just don't think so.

I you look at the pr's of haille, you can see he has ran 1:45 for 800m. not during his marathon time, but i still think he could run under 1:50 though.

The sprinters who weigh in the 170 range could probably break 20 in the 5k and go sub 4 in the marathon. The much larger guys would have some problems. Now the top marathoners could probably all do 1:55 and 12.8. It seems like there are many people who think that the top marathoners don't have good leg speed? We might ask, what is good leg speed? A mid 12 100m is about "average" for a HS boy sprinter. Low 11 gets you in the top 2%. World champion class marathoners are fast runners period. There is no good reason to think that they can't match the raw leg speed of the average HS boy sprinter. I suspect that many could break 12 sec in 100m. And running a 1:55 just seems like that would be quite easy for this crowd.

World champion class distance runners are the best all around runners. Let's think about the top 10 sprinters from IAAF annual list and see if any one of them could perform equally in a range of race distances from the 100m to the marathon as the top 10 marathoners. We could use 11.0 100M as base, which is equal to a 846 in the IAAF scoring tables. I've listed equivalent times in the other races. Who would do the best overall.... a sprinter or distance runner?

Time Sprinter Distance runner

11.00 yes maybe

22.29 yes maybe

49.77 yes probably

1:55.3 maybe YES

4:16.1 NO YES

14:48:15 NO YES

31:19:36 NO YES

2:29:04 NO YES

I think it far more likely that a marathoner might do the 11 FAT than a sprinter running the 2:29.

buckminster badger wrote:

1:55 is not as easy as it sounds. Neither is 12.8. The distance runners nor the sprinters could do any. Distance runners have no explosiveness and flying starts help A TON with them.

1:55 is still 3:51-3:52 mile pace, and you have to say with the kind of endurance they have it would be equal to a 4:05-4:06 mile, and I doubt these guys could run that. None of them have any speed besides maybe maybe Geoffrey Mutai.

Actually most of the world class (let's call that under 2:12) marathoners can run a mile in 4:06 or faster. Of course 1:55 is "not as easy as it sounds" but if we're talking about world class distance runners, well actually for them it is quite do-able. As far as the 12.8, well that actually is quite easy. The typical, in shape, young adult would run a time similar or pretty close to that, and the world's best marathoners while not as fast at sprinting as Olympic sprinters are still quite a bit faster in sprinting than the average, in shape, young adult male.

Hnedrik Ramala dropped like a 4:17 in the middle of the New York Marathon. I'm pretty sure he could have knocked off a 1:55.

As to the sprinters, Maurice Greene ran 17:35 at a 5k Turkey Trot one year.

New Urban Legend wrote:

Hnedrik Ramala dropped like a 4:17 in the middle of the New York Marathon. I'm pretty sure he could have knocked off a 1:55.

As to the sprinters, Maurice Greene ran 17:35 at a 5k Turkey Trot one year.

If true that would be impressive. Any link to results or knowledge of the race?

12.8 is a bad high school time. Event though these guys are distance runners, they are still elite athletes and could easily get low 12s if not 11s in the 100m. Now some guys like Hall are obviously slower guys but Haile in his prime, I'd put him at low-mid 11s. And as for sprinters going sub 20 minutes in the 5k, 20 minutes is what 6:28 pace? They are still in very good shape and could probably run sub 19 at least.