How fast are you untrained?

love reading the science behind what happens to the body when you do nothing, but I assume the stats are literally from doing nothing!??

PR: 20:37 in 2016 30 mpw with high quality. Marginally faster than my high school races.

A few years back, I was in 21:xx shape, took 5 weeks off for a stress fracture. I then ran two easy runs and a few days later ran 24:XX.

Jumping into 5ks once a year in my 20s with 10 mpw and no speedwork: 26:xx and feeling miserable

15 to 20 mpw high quality: 22:xx

25 to 30 mpw high quality: 20:xx on a good day

Unfortunately I get hurt with more than 30 mpw.

During off periods, I am doing other types of exercise and my weight is stable.

I've never really taken long enough breaks to see significant drops in running times, but my first month ever of track at 16 I raced a 56s 400m and a 5:05 mile in training. Looking back, those were decent times for someone with no physical training prior to track.

I ran 38:56 10k off not running or going to the gym for a month. 18lbs over race weight. Ran this in January in Korea -3 outside no warmup. My PR is 35:10 for the 10k.

Untrained:

5k: 19:50

1600: 5:15

400: 56

1 year of training after 3 year break

5k: 15:20

1600: 4:16

400: 50

I know I ran an 18:50 once off of zero training but that was pure death and I was 19. I think now at 27 it would be closer to sub 20.

untrained, I can't run 1 mile at marathon PR pace

also- how about Geb taking off 1 month of training before he won the 10k gold? and the time before 2 weeks entirely? due to injury!

silly charts and "data"

For mile, my fastest untrained is 6:10, and for 3-mile (i know, not 5k, but ive never measured out 5k while not having run actively) i hit just under 21. In comparison, in shape, I ran a 5:28 for the mile and 18:48 for 3-mile. Not fast, but it's the best I've done.

Back when I was young I would run sub-17 on no training at all. These days I wouldn’t enter a race unless I am prepared. But in the 33 years I have been running, I have always been able to run 35 minute 5 mile training runs upon returning after an injury or a layoff.

When I was a kid (12-13y) I didn't do any real running training and ran ~20' for 5k at some local road race (course a bit short). Just did school races and maybe some goofing around during recess and gym class. Female for context, so I was ~97% of my adult height and 80% of my adult weight at that age. Run 16:40 now.

As an adult, I've had a few major layoffs (> month), in which my capacity to cross-train has been limited due to the nature of the injury or illness (ie. medically incapable of aerobic exercise of any kind). Whenever I've started back up, I default back to trying to run just a touch slower than 20' 5k pace. Seems to me that I could "crank" out a sub-20 5k at any time, assuming that I am in reasonably good health. As a note, I don't really gain weight if I don't exercise unless I explicitly try to overeat/drink, which definitely helps one be a fast NARP.

17 minute 5k at 40 when I had an accident at work that messed my neck and back up.

After no running at all for 2.5 years but crosstraining on the stairmaster I jumped in a 5k and ran 21:30.

Back wasn't good enough to train for another year but by the time I was 45 I ran just under 18 minutes.

Untrained I can run about 6:10-6:00 and my best mile is 5:26 (female)

One thing that is interesting to me is that as a 90 pound middle schooler I ran 6:10 in the gym mile, and as a 118ish pound adult I still ran 6:00 after two and a half years off running completely. I was expecting it to be much slower since I was out of shape and "fat".

I do think I could get that time down if I trained smarter, I tend to get injured often so the 5:26 was off 25 mpw

I can do Fran in about 6 minuts... I know, you're all wet, its ok

in shape pb 17:50

year removed from running 18:50

i'm sure there's less change at the shorter events. this is completely unpredicatble. depends on the individual

good stuffs wrote:

I'm just interested in seeing how much talent matters in running. I read some article that stated you lose about 25% of your aerobic ability after 3 months(basically, they'd expect a 20 min 5k to start running 25). Extrapolated then, it might take about a year to back to your "untrained" state. So how fast would you guys run a mile or 5k after a period of no running?

I’ve seen several guys take as much as a full 6 months off and return to their 5k pr within 6 months.

Trained I can run 15:10 for 5k and 1:51 for 800. But if I take 2 months off from running, even if I am still doing some light cross training, I will struggle to break 19:00 and 2:16 would be a 100% effort. It takes a lot of training for me run near my potential especially for the longer distances.

I was a mid 14:30 guy. I ran out of eligibility in May like normal. Fast forward 18 months and I ran 17:5X for a turkey trot 5K last Thanksgiving. I ran less than 10 times in that year and a half, basically whenever my wife really wanted a running buddy. Definitely under 50 miles total.

When I was 12, I went to the track to see how fast I could run a mile. (back when tracks were 440 yds)

I had only did the usual sports like baseball, football, kickball and basketball to that point.

I ran 6:00.

It was so painfull, I never raced the mile until I got to high school.

I know a low-14 min guy who ran 17:30 in really bad shape. I'm a 17:08 guy who ran 19:25 at the first meet of the year (so subpar shape but not really rock bottom). So about 81% of PR for the 14 min guy, and 88% for me. I'd say the realm of 80-85% would be accurate. Using this we can predict that Bekele in his prime would have still been able to run 15:46-14:50 in horrible shape!

Anti-controversy Disclaimer: I'm not a sports statician. My numbers are probably extremely inaccurate.

Even during my drug and alcohol days I could run faster than a 22:00 5k. That being said, now that I’m clean and train semi regularly I have yet to officially beat my high school 5k PR of 18:20. I’ve gotten close but no win yet and in actuality I should be in the 17’s. Maybe I’m just a punk who doesn’t want it bad enough, maybe I should quit and take up knitting at 41.