Mr. Slowpoke wrote:
I always am interested in conversions and estimates from other distances, but would have guessed 55 would have been much faster than 5.
An interesting anecdote from Today We Die A Little, a book chronicling Zatopek. In his 14:06 5000m Olympic gold, "He had run the final lap in 58.1 seconds (within 2 seconds of his lifetime best for a single, one-lap 400m race). The final 200m took 28.3" (pg .176).
So if Askwith's research is to be trusted, this 4x Olympic Champ, 18x world record holder, and (1500m converted) ~4:10 miler never ran under 56s. Quite the outlier! Him and OP are opposites it seems.
The OP's 55" 400 converts to a 4:50 mile. They're both worth 546 points on the IAAF table. The issue isn't whether a 55 is better than a 5:00, it's whether a 55" guy who can only manage a 2:11 800 has enough endurance to run sub 5. In a mile race, I'd prefer a 61"/2:12 guy over a 55"/2:11 guy. The former would easily go sub 5, the latter would struggle like the OP.
A more accurate thread title would be "It's too damn hard for a sprinter to run a sub 5 mile". The OP isn't a 400/800 guy, he's a 100 meter sprinter who's trying to run a semi-respectable mile time. The longer the distance, the worse he gets. It's obvious even when you compare his 100 time with his 200 time and his 1500 time with his mile time.
100 - 12.15, 579 IAAF points
200 - 25.09, 550 IAAF points
400 - 55.86, 546 IAAF points
800 - 2:11, 510 IAAF points
1500 - 4:39, 456 IAAF points
Mile - 5:03, 433 IAAF points
That's pretty notable when you consider that he almost certainly doesn't have a sprint coach and probably doesn't even own a set of blocks to practice with.