A reporter asked me this question and I have no idea. Girls you could look at national lists and count down as it's not super common.
Any idea how to figure it out for boys?
A reporter asked me this question and I have no idea. Girls you could look at national lists and count down as it's not super common.
Any idea how to figure it out for boys?
10,000?
I'd guess more than 50,000.
"Across the United States there are 26,407 public secondary schools and 10,693 private secondary schools. ( Digest of Education Statistics, 2001, Table 89)"
So in total over 35,000 public high schools are in the US. I'd say at least 2 kids on average from each high school will break 5 minutes in a given year.
I know some high school programs have zero kids that run under 5 minutes but some strong programs have over 10, so I figure it must equal out.
Definitely more than 10,000
I looked at our leader board for outdoor in 2016. There were 110 individuals across 96 schools who broke 5 minutes. I suppose if I looked at the indoor list as well it would add a few. I'd say we are in a stronger than average area compared to the nation in terms of distance running.
So, I think maybe 1.0 - 1.5 kids per school on average, across about 40,000 schools. Maybe 40K-60K in total.
Do you want the "how many claim to have done it in high school later in their life" answer or the "how many would do it if they just trained like me" letsrun answer?
The former is 25%, the latter is 100% unless they are obese
This is pretty unknowable. How many high school boys even run 1 1-mile race in their career? The only one I did in high school was on a dirt horse track. Anything else was 1600m. How often is the time of anyone who didn't finish first in a dual meet recorded? Maybe record keeping is better now, but when I was in high school in the 90s, there wouldn't be any official record anywhere
At my high school there were at least 5-6 soccer players capable of sub-5 miles on their soccer fitness alone who never ran, and probably 1-2 lacrosse players as well, and maybe 1 bball player. Our track team regularly had 10+ guys under 5. A year without 10 under 5 would definitely be a disappointment. For reference, high school was approximately 2100 students, but only a middling track team in our area.
Some soccer cocc wrote:
At my high school there were at least 5-6 soccer players capable of sub-5 miles on their soccer fitness alone who never ran, and probably 1-2 lacrosse players as well, and maybe 1 bball player. Our track team regularly had 10+ guys under 5. A year without 10 under 5 would definitely be a disappointment. For reference, high school was approximately 2100 students, but only a middling track team in our area.
lol no
According to Athletic.net in California alone (deepest state for sure), 4,332 boys broke 5 for 1600 m this year.
"At my high school there were at least 5-6 soccer players capable of sub-5 miles on their soccer fitness alone who never ran"
I'm sure they thought so but unless you were in a soccer crazy region where they had played travel since they were 9, very few would make it even if they had an entire season of track practice. Now if they played soccer in the summer/fall and then ran both indoor and outdoor track, that is a much different thing. If you really are both a soccer player and a runner, like Grant Fisher, you can run really fast on mixed training. I know a girl who plays soccer three seasons and only races track in the winter and the USATF series meets in the summer who can run near 5 in the 1600 BUT she practices running 365 days a year.
We had an exchange student who was a lower level international soccer player in Europe. He ran outdoor track. After about 4 weeks, he ran 51.X for 400m. About 4 weeks later he tried the 800 and ran 1:59 high. Our coach had him try the 1600. He didn't break 5 even after 8 weeks of practice and even though we set the race up to specifically pace him through 1200 in 3:48 or 3:49. At our division meet, he ran 1:58.2 for the 800.
wejo wrote:
A reporter asked me this question and I have no idea. Girls you could look at national lists and count down as it's not super common.
Any idea how to figure it out for boys?
Why are these "reporters" so dang lazy?
milesplit has 2000 at/under 4:38 outdoor this year fwiw
A 5:00 mile converts to 4:58.2 1600m (average of McMillan & MileSplit calculators)
In 2016, 859 boys broke 4:58.2 for 1600m in Washington State.
http://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/Division/Event.aspx?DivID=73225&Event=52
Washington's population is 7 million. It is also deeper than the average state, so if we assume 10% more boys break 5:00 in Washington than average, we have a rate of 773/7,000,000. Extrapolating that to the US population (322,000,000) gives:
35,558
;a798 wrote:
http://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/Division/Event.aspx?DivID=71077&Event=52&page=43According to Athletic.net in California alone (deepest state for sure), 4,332 boys broke 5 for 1600 m this year.
US has population of 324 million; CA, 39 million = 12.037% of total. 4332/.12037 = 35998
So about 35,000 or so I would think, maybe less (see below).
Question: do urban states like CA have a higher percentage of faster runners compared to their total population than rural states or vice versa? I would think the former - you'll likely have bigger schools which fosters competition, but I'm just guessing.
Yeah, this is a tough one. Top 1000 on Milesplit ends at 4:22. Then, you run into the situation where those results are only from big invitationals that not all kids get to run in. On my son's current track team, there are 10 who did it during this past season, but milesplit only records 7 as having done it, because only 7 different runners got to run that race (well, the 1600) in a big meet. Then, there are a couple of 800 guys who could do it and one 400 guy.
So, I think this number is WELL north of 10,000. Crazy.
one guy posted a link to an actual list. Unless this list is known to be very incomplete, isn't this out best bet for an answer? At least as good as all of the other "calculations" (some are decent guesses, some....I swear people would rather hear themselves talk then look at an actual answer to the question. Flagpole, did you bother to click on this link, or......did you just prefer to give your out-of-your-you-know-where opinion?)
This guy listed 1600, so if the list is accurate, then it is more like 22,600 breaking the equivalent of mile for the 1600. Of course there will be some (not too many, the 1600 is the event run more for the large majority of races) that break 5:00 for the mile but not 4:59.2 for the 1600. But not too many. Then, and this a question I don't know, how complete is the list? If it is known to be pretty complete, then we are looking at roughly 23,000. If not so complete......25,000 ??
(as far as comparing other states, yes, CA is of course going to be a leader, even per capita, in running sub 5:00 for various reasons: weather, sports/outdoor culture, immigrants giving it more diversity for good runners from various ethnicities, history of great runners, etc. It is also a fairly "young" state as far as likely having a lot of HS age kids, this is in regards to the guy using CA population as % of US population: many states have older populations)
So..........25,000 sounds reasonable.
Gotta be pretty high bc in my area I thought my twelve year old breaking five was a big deal until i saw that there were at least fifteen to twenty kids who did when they were thirteen in eighth grade. He was still feeling pretty good bc he runs low mileage and had a year on them. Then we signed up for nationals and saw another group of twelve year olds who all broke five. He didn't feel so special anymore. So I would imagine the number is really high. I think with kids starting earlier and earlier it is much more common but then again maybe they fizzle out by high school.
10 + 3 likely under 4:22, Flagpole? What workout schedule and mileage is typical for this team? My school had three guys under 4:22 for the mile in its entire history through my time. We had a 4:18 miler my senior year, then 4:49/4:55 and I'm not sure whether any one else got under 5, though there was certainly another guy who skipped track that year to earn money for the prom.
That's not a talent difference--there isn't some incredible genetic talent at these schools with great performance; they have great programs.
In my HS since 1995 there have been a grand total of 5 boys who have broken 5:00 in 20 years and 3 of those were in 1995. I know of nearby schools whose school records are over 5:00.
Alan
I would say there is wide variations yearly from area to area and school to school. Most years my school has 0 or 1 kid under, but when I was in school we had 6-8 kids yearly that were well under. I would be willing to bet the number isn't as staggering as people think and while California always has a slew of decent runners, you know there are other states where a 4:30 mile could win the state meet.