pop_pop!_v2.2.1 wrote:
Spinachrunner wrote:a male with very little talent could possibly work their tail off and get down to 4:55 mile
Right answer.
But a 4:55 is roughly equal to a sub-17. Although not a fast time by LRC standards, 16:5x is good enough to place top 2-3% in your average 5k with 250-300 entrants. Sometimes much better.
Yes, most of those people running under 17 are "working their tail off to do so," particularly if they aren't very talented to begin with (I'm one of them). But although they aren't very talented, they do have *some* talent (or genetic gifts) to run 16:5x. There's a lot more runners working their tails off to break 20; or even 25, that can only dream of these times you're throwing around. Those are the people with very little talent. The people that work their butts off to go sub-2 in a HM or even sub-4 in the full. Not 4:55 milers.
The poster that commented about 'little talent' equating (in this thread) to the slowest guy on the track team was bang-on.