It's too damn hard to run a sub 5 mile

I got around 12 minutes of rest between the end of that 300m rep and the start of the race. I didn't think it affected me much since I was feeling good for the first part of the race, but hey, who knows.

I'll get some more miles in and give it another shot in a few weeks.

You are making a comparison between a 500lb bench (competitive on the world stage) and a 5 min mile (a mark 11 yr old girls have hit). Or a GM (paid to play a board game and top 1% of FIDE tournament players) and a 5 min mile (a mark which others have pointed out is achieved by ~25% of half-hearted American high school males who compete in varsity track).

A better comparison would be something like a 135 lb BP or a 1500 USCF rating. Marks virtually every non-disabled male can accomplish if they really dedicate themselves to it for a sustained period of time.

I admire Michael's efforts and really believe he will reach his goal if he is there mentally on race day. Looking at his log and this thread lends evidence to how (relatively) easy the task is-- he is a sprinter, who took years off of training, started trying in his late 20s by "seeing what sticks" in terms of macro/micro training blocks, has only been consistent in his current training approach for a year or so (which seems to be working well for him but is really short mileage imo), and yet he is already very close to his goal. The above is not a sketch of somebody who has been relentlessly pursuing their childhood goals.

I have never met a male who has strung together multiple 2000+ mile years as a teenager and who has not broken 5min. Just showing up everyday and stacking 40mpw weeks will get most boys there.

elusive dreams :( wrote:

No excuses this time.

I gave it another shot today and pretty much had perfect conditions. Ideal temps (mid 60s), no rain, barely any wind, and little travel. I PR'd by 0.90 seconds but missed getting sub 5 by less than 3.1 seconds. Oh so close :(

Results:

http://results.tfmeetpro.com/Westmont_College/Westmont_College_On_Your_Marks_Open/results_11.html

KWOK, Michael Unattached 5:03.06

I thought I had it until the last part. There's no official splits that I know of, but I glanced at the infield clock and saw a time in the low 4:20s at the 1400m mark. I hit 1500m at 4:41 according to my watch and was just one final sprint away from running 4:59.99 or better and finally putting this thread to rest.

If all else fails, just call yourself a 4:63 miler!

What was arguably more of a factor was the lack of pacers or suitable opponents. When there are only four people in the race and your nearest competitors are running 4:45 and 5:19, your 5:03 mile essentially becomes a solo time trial.

No, no, no.

If I were to go to a random mall and pick the first 30 young men I see, I guarantee that at least 10 of them would be able to bench 135 on the spot if I set up the equipment and offered them a $20 incentive to do it. But if I drove them to a synthetic track, gave them superspikes, and offered them a $1,000 incentive to break 5 that day, I'd be surprised if even one of them could pull it off.

This site says that an untrained guy weighing as much as a typical American adult male (198 lbs) can bench 135:

At the novice level, even a 148 lb guy can bench 140, and a 5:00 mile is definitely not "untrained" or "novice" unless you have world class talent.

I don't have a ton of experience in chess. But I do know enough to know that the USCF ratings are skewed by large numbers of elementary and middle school aged kids, some of which have just learned the rules a few weeks prior to obtaining their rating. The 75th percentile of USCF chess ratings isn't equivalent to the 75th percentile of HS male 1600m track runners, it's equivalent to the 75th percentile of all middle school and HS boys who play some kind of sport and have run a few timed miles at some point in their lives.

Racerator wrote:

I took my girlfriend from 7:00 for the mile to 4:30 for 1500 in a year and a half (she had excellent form and was very coachable). We rarely ran more than 50 miles in base training but she was consistently 35-40 MPW. That is enough to break 5:00 for most athletes.

I only skimmed through most of the early comments on this thread, but this one in particular stood out.

If what you're saying is true, she's a rare anomaly and far from a typical example. A 4:30 1500, or 1600 equivalent, is good enough to win the girls HS state meet in almost every state in almost every year. There are plenty of excellent girls HS teams where the school record isn't even close to being that fast. Do you really think that a typical girl who's coachable and has good form can be trained to become a state champion in a year and a half?!

Just for some perspective, even if we set the bar slightly lower at a 4:59 mile, Bannister's first sub 4 mile occurred before any woman ran under 5:

At that time, the women's 800m record was 2:07, which is faster than what the OP has ever run:

Upon further thought, the other thing that sets off my BS meter is not necessarily the 4:30 1500, but the 7:00 mile a year and a half prior to it and the volume involved.

A 7:00 miler, male or female, cannot make that kind of improvement in 18 or so months unless he/she ran that 7:00 while being both sedentary and morbidly obese. But that type of person wouldn't be able to build up to a consistent 35-40 MPW and a rare week at 50+ in such a short time period. A non-runner who's not terribly overweight and in reasonably good shape from other sports or active hobbies could certainly go from 0 to 40 MPW in 18 months, but his/her capacity for improvement would be much more limited and nowhere near as drastic as going from 7:00 to 4:30.

The only exception I can think of would be a young teenaged boy who goes through puberty and has a significant growth spurt. But in terms of 1500/mile times, puberty helps males a lot more than females, and since you're talking about your girlfriend, that scenario is ruled out.

It's trivial to find 7:00 girls walking around school campuses who haven't had much training. But good luck turning any of them into 4:30 1500m runners by July 2023.

Okay, say 225 bench then. I may be biased because it took a me a comically long time to hit a plate (but significantly less time to hit 2). That being said, I think you over-estimate the average male. But it does not really matter, the principle is the same: 500lb is world-class and 5:00 will oftentimes not win a high school dual meet.

I think 1500 is accurate. The question isn't whether the feat is "difficult" but if it is possible for most men if they completely pour their beings into achieving it from a young enough age. Both populations are semi-self selecting and the mirror to beginners in tournament chess is that a huge % of track or XC athletes are only running 1 season of the year, sometimes just to stay in shape for other sports, sometimes just for the camaraderie, etc. Neither population reflects someone who is really trying 100% from a young age with a specific goal in mind, which is the hypothetical population I am talking about.

For what it is worth, I have all three by quite a bit and am the opposite of a naturally gifted athlete or someone who rapidly sees improvement with things (when I started lifting I couldn't bench the bar for months, I only ran XC because I got cut from soccer, I couldn't finish my first 5k that Fall without stopping to walk, I ended high school at 6'4" 150 with wide bony hips and narrow shoulders, etc.) A lot is possible if you simply show up every day year after year. Even more so if you seriously invest in the goal.

Mr. Slowpoke wrote:

has only been consistent in his current training approach for a year or so (which seems to be working well for him but is really short mileage imo

I think you're overestimating how much mileage helps in the 1500/mile. This isn't a 10K or marathon; while more mileage will help, going from 30-35 mpw to 80+ mpw isn't going to make much of a difference for many runners.

Bannister ran a 3:58 mile on less than 30 mpw in 1954. 10 years later, Peter Snell only lowered the mile WR to 3:54 despite running triple Bannister's mileage. Snell's 1500 PR wasn't any better - he ran a 3:37.6, which converts to a 3:55 mile.

A lot of people think that it's the mileage that mattered when they went from a 5:30 mile as a HS freshman running 20 mpw to a 4:00 1500 as a college senior running 80 mpw. But that as more to do with physical development and years of racing experience. If their mileage was in their low 30s throughout high school and college, they might not be able to run 4:00, but they would definitely be in the 4:05-4:10 range.

Mr. Slowpoke wrote:

A better comparison would be something like a 135 lb BP or a 1500 USCF rating. Marks virtually every non-disabled male can accomplish if they really dedicate themselves to it for a sustained period of time.

It's an interesting comparison between a sub 5 mile and a 1500 USCF rating. I was never serious enough to get a USCF rating, but I'd estimate that at my peak, I was somewhere between 1300 and 1400. I do remember winning a loosely organized chess tournament at my high school for two or three years in a row, so I might have been the best student player on campus at that time (not the best player on campus, though, since one of the math teachers was an FM who easily beat me).

IIRC, we had two sub 5 guys. If I really was the best student player, that would mean that sub 5 is vastly more common than being rated over 1500. The talent pool in chess is simply much shallower than the talent pool in running. Maybe some day, I'll get a USCF rating, struggle to reach 1500, and go on a chess forum to say "It's too damn hard to reach 1500" ;)

Anyway, here's last week's log. No racing this week, just a solo 1200m time trial this evening.

Sunday (1/30) - 6.25 miles

M - 28x200 easy intervals

T - 700m warmup, 800, 700, 600, (no 500) 400, 300, 200, 100 hard but untimed with close to full recovery. 2200m cooldown

W - off

Th - 6.5 miles

F - 20x200 easy intervals, 400 in 67", 200 in 31", 400 in 65". Shouldn't have gone that fast for the last 1K of reps but got carried away doing it with the local track team. 2200m cooldown.

Sat - 1000m warmup, 1200 time trial in 3:42.6 (first 600m in mid-1:52, second 600m in 1:50. Kicked it in the last lap and felt the burn) 2x100m in 18", 800m in 2:30.0 (aimed for 5:00/mile pace; the 800 wasn't done all-out). 3.5 mile cooldown.

Total - 30 MPW

3.07 seconds bro wrote:

elusive dreams :( wrote:

No excuses this time.

I gave it another shot today and pretty much had perfect conditions. Ideal temps (mid 60s), no rain, barely any wind, and little travel. I PR'd by 0.90 seconds but missed getting sub 5 by less than 3.1 seconds. Oh so close :(

Results:

http://results.tfmeetpro.com/Westmont_College/Westmont_College_On_Your_Marks_Open/results_11.html

KWOK, Michael Unattached 5:03.06

I thought I had it until the last part. There's no official splits that I know of, but I glanced at the infield clock and saw a time in the low 4:20s at the 1400m mark. I hit 1500m at 4:41 according to my watch and was just one final sprint away from running 4:59.99 or better and finally putting this thread to rest.

If all else fails, just call yourself a 4:63 miler!

That is so great! I'm a 4:75 miler ...

elusive dreams/ wrote:

1200 time trial in 3:42.6 (first 600m in mid-1:52, second 600m in 1:50. Kicked it in the last lap and felt the burn)

Total - 30 MPW

A negative split solo time trial in 3:42 without a taper? You got this in the bag.

For the 1600, that is.

drtoneill wrote:

3.07 seconds bro wrote:

If all else fails, just call yourself a 4:63 miler!

That is so great! I'm a 4:75 miler ...

LOL. You might have a tough time beating the 3:135 guys, though.

Sincerely,

a 1:66 800 guy

Mr. Slowpoke wrote:

Agree that OP is near his personal limit given age and training history, but I do think he will pull it off. In my mind the workout times already indicate that on a good day he is there

This is hard to tell since it varies so much depending on the individual. Take a look at this as an example:

The sub 3:00 1K is quite telling. One person says that it's a good indicator, several others dispute it, and then one guy claims he could never break 3:00 but could somehow run a 4:57 mile and a 2:11 800. The OP ran sub 3 at least twice and a 2:11 at least once but is still not that close to getting under 5.

Another guy says he did 30 miles/week and ran a 3:43.8 solo 1200m time trial with splits of 77.2, 75.1, and 71.5. The following week, he ran 4:59.9 for the full ~1609m. He also says that he's definitely a shorter mid-d guy with high school PRs of 1:59 in the 800 and 16:56 in the 5K. His training and fitness at the time of that post was roughly on the same level as the OP's mileage and 1200 TT yesterday. But the big difference is that the guy in that thread ran a 4:02 1500 in college. The OP was never at that level and has absolutely no chance of getting a 4:59.9 or better in the mile next week if he does race. Best case scenario is that he barely squeaks under 5 in the 1600 if all the conditions are right.

kind of tricky wrote:

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=8554317

Another guy says he did 30 miles/week and ran a 3:43.8 solo 1200m time trial with splits of 77.2, 75.1, and 71.5. The following week, he ran 4:59.9 for the full ~1609m. He also says that he's definitely a shorter mid-d guy with high school PRs of 1:59 in the 800 and 16:56 in the 5K. His training and fitness at the time of that post was roughly on the same level as the OP's mileage and 1200 TT yesterday. But the big difference is that the guy in that thread ran a 4:02 1500 in college. The OP was never at that level and has absolutely no chance of getting a 4:59.9 or better in the mile next week if he does race.

Agreed. The OP's slightly negative splits may look promising, but from what I've seen, you still need at least a 3:40 1200 to have any chance at sub 5 unless you're a heavily strength-based runner with not much speed. The only possible exception would be for those like poster "dawgs" in that thread who ran way under 5 before and is trying to do it again as a middle-aged adult.

Unless the OP ran that 3:42 in a blizzard, he has no hope of getting sub 5 either next week or the week after that. I'm willing to put significant money on that.

Give him some good completion to act as pacers and boost the adrenaline and I think he would have cracked 5 today

I think he has a chance. The schedule he posted was not optimal for running a fast 1200 that day.

Now, if he was rested the days before he ran his 3:42, then I would have agreed with you.

I flew to the east coast again and just ran an indoor sub 5 1600 en route to a 5:00.35 full mile:

armorytrack.com

ArmoryTrack.org - Events - Rutgers Indoor Open

.

Link:www.armorytrack.com/gprofile.php?do=vi...

Having close competition was key. I pretty much stayed on the heels of the guy in front of me who was going at roughly 5 minute pace (he ultimately ran 5:03) and then kicked it in. For my low 5:03 outdoor PR in late January, I had great weather but no close competitors. So either drafting makes a big difference, or indoor really is faster than outdoor after all. Perhaps it's both?I was DFL the first lap and ran a tiny bit extra to pass 3 other guys. Official results obviously don't work this way, but hypothetically, if you account for the extra distance to pass those runners, there's a possibility that I really did cover 5,280 feet in under 5 minutes.

Oh well, I'm happy with what I got. Here's last week's training/taper in case anyone's interested:Sunday (2/6) - 5.5 mile runM - offT - 1 mile warmup, then 100m, 500m, 400m, 300m, 200m, and 2x100m. Fairly hard and fast but untimed and not all out with close to full recovery. 800m cooldown jog.W - 400m warmup, 1200m tempo in 4:53, 3x(100m, 200m) in 17" and 35"Th - off (travel)F - 2x60 in 10", 2x300 in 53" and made sure to get full recovery this time (15+ minutes between each 300). Raced a 5:00 mile and did a 200m slow jog cooldown.

Today's splits:209m: 40.26 (38.46" lap)409m: 1:16.14 (35.87 lap)609m: 1:53.53 (37.40 lap)809m: 2:31.69 (38.16 lap)1009m: 3:10.27 (38.59 lap)1209m: 3:47.78 (37.51 lap)1409m: 4:25.09 (37.31 lap)1609m: 5:00.35 (35.26 lap)

Best of luck to all the other sub 5 hopefuls on here, I hope you get that 4:xx soon!

Apologies for the horrible formatting on my previous post. I guess the recent site changes screwed it up somehow.