A perfect body or 14:00 5K?

If you choose 14:00 5K you are lying. Definitely the perfect body.

Even though I'm a runner I would have to agree. I've gotten to 14:46 5K. I don't see myself getting much faster and nobody in the real world gives how fast you are.

All they care about is how you look and running has given me a horrible body.

If I could I'd trade in my running ability to look like that.

In my opinion distance runners have the perfect bodies so no, I wouldn't trade in a 14:00 5k to look buff. I could look like that in 3 months if I quit running today and started lifting. But lifting and being buff is overrated. The lean distance runner has a better look in my opinion.

Hopkins does not have a body attainable in 3 months for the average guy. It would take years and then most people don't have the genetics for a perfect body like that.

And Hopkins is not pumped up. He was the Middleweight champ for years. Not a mass monster.

Distance runners aren't lean. The are skinny. Hopkins is lean.

total shennagains on looking like hopkins in 3 months.

Hopkins was 6' and had a 27' waist and fought at 160 pounds. The guy was walking around at 170 pounds at 6' with a 27 inch waist.

That's taking years to achieve. With a normal frame he'd be 190+ pounds.

That guy was an idiot.

How about this body and a 13:10 5k?

http://notafraid2fail.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/alan-webb.jpg

Simple. If you can run 14:00 you can run 13:59. Run 13:59 and call it a day and then go for the perfect body. Best of both worlds.

Mr A Webb here wrote:

How about this body and a 13:10 5k?

http://notafraid2fail.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/alan-webb.jpg

yes.

For the OP:

Honestly, the feeling of running fast is better than any gym body. Results versus appearance. I'll take the fast 5km Any. Day. of the Week. (Just read the "This. Just. Happened." thread.)

As long as I could keep my hair.

You pick the most jacked up miler you can find and post a picture of him flexing, great.

Webb is weak sauce. He's 145 pounds and most milers look more like El Guerrouj than Webb.

A guy like Hopkins doesn't even lift weights. He just doesn't run 100 mpw.

The problem with the perfect body (perhaps not unlike a 14:00 5k) is that it takes some major self absorption to get there. Seriously, what good is that perfect body if you can't go out for dinner with a pretty girl and have to work out 4 hours per day to maintain it? It's not difficult to attain a really damned impressive body and run relatively fast.

If I were on a college track team it would be a NO brainer: 14:00.

If I were 28 and was just planning to enjoy life, I'd probably like to look like that. But the reality is that somewhere in the middle (15:30 and still pretty cut) and I'd be happy.

Solid points. Hopkins said he hasn't drank alcohol since 82. He gets up at 4 in the morning to train all day and goes to bed at 8. He hasn't had a candy bar he said in a decade.

So there is major dedication to get there.

Like the one guy said nobody cares about how fast you run in the real world. It doesn't matter. A perfect body has so many more benefits.

1. Your family respects you more

2. Your peers respect you more

3. Your boss and your inferiors respect you more

4. You get laid a lot more

5. You look better in clothes

6. You have more confidence

7. You will feel strong and be strong

8. Your body won't break down

It can just go on and on. Running real fast basically has no perks in life.

I was really into natural bodybuilding in college, and quit to pursue running. Being jacked really isn't this impossible goal, and no, nobody respects you for it. Like running, they think you waste too much time on a useless fitness hobby. What's more, when you're jacked, they assume you're stupid, shallow, and vain. Frankly, I get more romantic interest now, at 140 lbs than I ever did at 175. People told me I looked gross. But I don't really care. You have to do what you enjoy. I enjoy the act of running, and the pursuit of fitness you can take outside of the gym.

obviously you guys aren't dedicated runners. 14:00 5K no doubt. not even a question. my life goal isn't to have a perfect body, it's to run fast.

I'll choose being an age group world record holder thanks, so 14:00 for me.

It'd be tempting to take this genie wish if you'd made it 13:00, because that means going to the Olympics, which would be pretty freaking cool. But as far as running a 14:00 5K or having a "perfect" body, that's great, but even though I'm at least a couple laps or abs behind those guys, I'm happy enough just to be relatively healthy and able to do what I can with what I have. Boring but true. But if I could have the perfect body for a day I'd parade around shirtless the whole time (even if I had symphony tickets that night). And if I had 14:00 speed for a day I'd make a run at the beer mile WR.

I have run sub-14. (13:53) and now have a perfect body -I can run maybe 14:50.