What is more difficult sub 17 or sub 5?

Ye Olde Farte wrote:

51 - 5:00, 17:01

54 - 5:04, 17:17

Yeah yeah. Old slow, I suck (are you happy now letsrunners?) and it's bloody hard to do now.

Correct:

51 - 4:50, 16:44

55 - 5:04, 16:59

I think I can still break 5 if I more specific mile training.[/quote]

Here we go again...a top masters guy pretending a 5 min mile or a 17 min 5k is slow...for 55. Of course in the world of road races, any guy 55 with those times is one of the top guys in the country. Those times mean this guy was probably capable of a sub 4:25 mi and a sub 14:30 5k in his prime.

The 17 5k requires far more training than a 5 min mile and if you can do a 17 5k the sub 5 mile will almost always be easier.

I'm not pretending my Olde Farte times are slow, in fact I'm very proud to be running at this level at this age with so miles on the odometer. For the record, I ran 3:46/4:04, 13:4x and 28:1x in my salad days which were longer ago than I care to remember.

You may be getting along in years, but you're still getting after it and that's all that matters. Well done sir.

4:55 and 16:29 on the track.

I'm in my 40s and I thought I was gonna die in that mile. Obviously I think sub 17 is easier.

Great thread!

Good thread. I don't train for the mile but I think I did enough speed work. My road race 5ks 16:30-16:40 but my mile time best was 4:57 at best if I killed my self. I think breaking 17 is slightly easier but they are still both hard. You run 5:26s u r under 17 or close to it. My half on the other hand on the roads is 1:14:0x on the roads. So is it better for me to say am a 16:30 5k guy or a 1:14:0x guy? Definitely not a 4:57 miler.

[quote]

I don't understand what you mean by quote. I apologize if it is my grammar that you are referring to.

[quote]

I would venture to say sub 17. I ran sub 5 as a sophomore in high school, but was never able to run faster 17:10 in cross through all of high school (and even the course that I did that on was super flat and insanely fast).

I think the major barrier to a sub 5 is mental. Some kids are talented enough to run sub 5 with minimal effort, but the sub 5 barrier can seem pretty stiff if you're a runner trying to work your way down. Once I actually broke 5 it was pretty easy to do again with minimal effort. If you have decent endurance, some focused speed training and smart pacing should make sub 5 very attainable. I think sub 18:30 is probably a little closer to a sub 5.

For HSers, you're going to see faster mile times than 5k times, for one simple reason; poor pacing.

Hsers go out WAY too hard. The penalty isn't nearly as much in a mile as it is in a 5k.

I didn't run in HS or college, but picked up competitive running after college. The first time I ran under 17, I ran 1658 solo on a track. Then I ran 1640 in a certified road race. Shortly thereafter I ran the first mile of a 3xmile workout with a friend who was much faster. We went through 1600 meters in 459 and it was everything I had.

two years later I was in much better shape, running 1550 for a track 5k. I set mile Prs in workouts (451). I felt like that was all I had until a month later when I went trhough a mile in 441 en route to a 858 3k.

Long story short; they're pretty equivalent.

I agree that for high school boys, sub-17 is much more difficult than sub-5.

More purely anecdotal evidence...

My high school team mates' personal records, achieved over a 3-year period or so (not saying we were fantastic, just that we were in line with what everyone else is saying)...

4:40 - 16:5x

4:41 - 17:01

4:42 - 17:30s

4:43 - 17:09 once and only once

4:48 - never broke 18:40

Our most frequent cross-country course, that all of us knew very well, was a mix of grassy fields and dirt trails with almost no elevation change whatsoever. People always complained about the "hill" at mile two, but 10-15 feet of elevation gain over 200 meters isn't really much of a hill.

After we graduated a stronger crop of runners came along. Several ran in the 4:20s and 4:30s. But only four of them ever broke 17. And a 4:35 runner who never broke 17 in high school has since run about 15-flat on the track.

I agree with the post that there is a difference between cross-country after inconsistent summer training and spring track with consistent conditions and months of build-up, but we usually had pretty good weather for most of our cross-country seasons (minimal rain near race days, often in the low-high 60s on race days) whereas our track season was one rain-soaked meet after another, cold and damp, with no good racing weather until late May or early June (when any of our seasons ever lasted that long). So if you want to consider summer training versus year-long progression, I think you may also have to consider other conditions like weather.

I must be a complete aerobic freak with no wheels whatsoever.

In hs I ran 16:30 for 5k and 9:58 for 2 miles but ran just 4:52 for the mile.

Some kids ran 4:3x for the mile and never broke 17? People have such wickedly different bodies and minds. The idea of a 4:30 mile is pure fantasy for me - I could barely run one 65 second quarter, let alone 4 consecutive 68s.

The weird part is that in my district a sub 5 mile wasn't bad even at the varsity level. Probably top 7 in a city with 400k people. But there were many more people around 17 flat.

Some kind of weird mass pyschosis.

@BadWigins - So you can run 3.1 miles at a sub 5:20 pace but you can't run 1 mile under 5 minutes? That's preposterous! Get on the track, man up, and break 5 right now. Sub 5 should not be harder in your case. You just need to actually run an all out mile and not conserve energy.

I had 6 guys under 5 for the mile last year, but only 2 of them ran under 17:00 in cross. Put them on a track and I might have had one more under 17.

To most high schoolers, 5:00 pace feels pretty easy for one lap. It is not that tough to get them to extend that pace for 3 more laps. It is a much more long term process to get them to be able to hold a slightly slower pace for 3 times the distance.

WHICH is more difficult, not what

If you have at least some speed and no endurance, sub 5 is much easier.

At 25-30 mpw I ran 4:30/1500m and 17:40 on the track.

Six months later at 40 mpw I ran 16:55 on the track.

I would definitely say sub-17, even as someone who is generally stronger in longer distances. As a junior last year I ran 17:39 in xc and then without ever training for 1600, ran 4:57 indoors right after taking a week off. A week later I ran 4:54. And I'm definitely a distance, not speed guy, although I have more of a mid-D build (5'9", 160). At the end of that indoor season I ran 17:05 in a road race (without running for a week before), but by then I was in better shape than when I first broke 5.

1617/502 for me. But I haven't ever "raced" a mile. I would imagine the story is different for most high school kids who race a lot of 1 miles on the track.

For people who start later in life, the options for 1 mile races are fewer and further between than stuff 5k and up, even if I race unattached on the track I would run the 1500.

sub 17. Im an old guy now but 35 years ago I could do a 16:30 3 mile at the track in training by myself, relax for ten minutes and do a 16:21. But all I could do was a 4:59.