Any healthy man can run a sub 2:30 marathon

Any healthy man, in his physical prime, with time to devote to the training necessary and freedom from injury needed to train to full advantage of that available time, with the necessary strength of will, without a childhood mostly devoid of physical activity, under the right weather conditions, ...

Yes, but that's a lot of qualifications.

know body wrote:

Interesting article, do you guys agree or disagree with the statement that with the right training, any healthy, normal man can run 2:30? I'd say I agree, but it would take a ton of dedication for most. Discus

http://hitsystem.com.au/any-normal-man-can-break-2hrs-30min-for-a-marathon/

How far can a healthy man throw the discus?

know body wrote:

Interesting article, do you guys agree or disagree with the statement that with the right training, any healthy, normal man can run 2:30? I'd say I agree, but it would take a ton of dedication for most. Discus

http://hitsystem.com.au/any-normal-man-can-break-2hrs-30min-for-a-marathon/

Right... any healthy man can run at 5:43/mile pace for 26.2 miles. People who say these sort of things are delusional. There was a guy in my HS team who was the only person who ran consistently all summer/winter and could not break 20 minutes for 3 miles. He never could have run a 2:30 marathon.

47.563 feet

Rong rong wrote:

Right... any healthy man can run at 5:43/mile pace for 26.2 miles. People who say these sort of things are delusional. There was a guy in my HS team who was the only person who ran consistently all summer/winter and could not break 20 minutes for 3 miles. He never could have run a 2:30 marathon.

Seriously. I know plenty of otherwise perfectly healthy people who just can't run, including people who play sports. Sub-3:30--maybe. No way on sub-2:30.

Are none of the 60 year old runners here healthy and normal men? They can't just up and run sub 2:30

If ANY healthy man can run 2:30 for the marathon, we have to assume that the 50th percentile for all healthy men would be quite a bit faster than that. In other words, an average potential marathon performance would be significantly faster than 2:30 (2:20? 2:17?), just like the average height of a man is 5 ft 9 inches. By the way, the McMillan calculator shows the equivalent mile time to be 4:26 and the 800 is 1:59. Can any healthy man be trained to run those times also?

I don't think so wrote:

By the way, the McMillan calculator shows the equivalent mile time to be 4:26 and the 800 is 1:59. Can any healthy man be trained to run those times also?

Non sequitur. You do not need to run anywhere close to 1:59 or 4:26 to run a 2:30 marathon.

Disagree. There are a lot of healthy normal men who can't handle the requisite mileage for 2:30 without injury or burn-out.

From the article:

"Really? Who would claim such ‘nonsense’ these days? This was the often-mentioned and often-proved claim made by New Zealand’s late, great running coach Arthur Lydiard. I know, because I was there, and remember well how that time was not considered any sort of “barrier” to the many ‘ordinary’ athletes in our New Zealand running clubs of the 1970’s and 1980′s. Whatever the native talent, every man and his dog was extremely fit .

In fact, on discussing this with author and running historian Roger Robinson, a former world cross-country representative for both England and New Zealand and winner of masters’ marathon titles in Boston and New York, he agreed totally with the “Any man” proposition. (Roger’s debut marathon, as a 42 year old, was an outright third place in the 1981 Vancouver marathon in 2 hrs 18).

Says Roger, “Yes, 2:30 was ordinary. Runners I regarded as joggers in my early days were running 2:35-2:40. I guess I was a bit arrogant, or certainly ignorant of how good that really is. When I wrote the original ‘Heroes and Sparrows’ essay, the sparrow was a guy who ran 2:35. These days you’d win many marathons with that time.”

T o t a l c r a p .

In the 80's I knew a 32 min 10K guy (extremely healthy) who trained as hard as he could to break 2:30. He ran between 2:30 & 2:31 three times, but could never break 2:30. He was a serious runner who won many local races. He started running in high school...he was in his late thirties when I knew him.

I'm guessing there are few healthy men capable of running one 5:43 mile.

I'm healthy and trained hard and was never able to break 2:50.

You need to be more than healthy and normal to break 2:30. You need talent.

A guy interviews some other guy who is a bit of a braggart and full of himself and likely full of beer and publishes some BS on a blog. I think that pretty much sums it up.

If you define "healthy man" as "one able to train to break 2:30 in a marathon," then you're all set.

Otherwise that's a total crock. Not one "healthy" (in most people's usage) man in a thousand could break 2:30.

Not even Paul Ryan could run that fast

Okay, how many healthy men in their twenties and thirties trained 100 miles per week or more and did not break 2:30 in the marathon with a few attempts?

I think Ron Daws once wrote something similar.

This is correct.

jjjjjj wrote:

Okay, how many healthy men in their twenties and thirties trained 100 miles per week or more and did not break 2:30 in the marathon with a few attempts?

I was a 26:00 college 8K runner. Trained 100mpw building up to 125mpw starting after about a year out of college (from ages 24-27 or 28). Took me two years and 5 races to lower my debut (2:54) to sub 2:30 (eventually got down to 2:28:10). I was not fast by any means - as I never broke 15:15 in the 5K, but I was healthy and trained quite a bit. Breaking 2:30 took a lot of work and more time than anybody else I knew (those with normal jobs/families/other commitments) in my local running community was able to devote to it - subsequently I ran with a lot of 2:35-45 guys, but I ended up with the fastest PR. Not sure if those guys were CAPABLE of sub-2:30, but even with decent (75-90mpw) and consistent training they never got there.