Can Christiano Ronaldo and Messi run sub 1:15 half?

They would break 1:50 over 800 before 1:20 over half.

That's true, but you're missing the point.

The average salary for a Premiership footballer is now £3 million a year. Back in the 70's it was something like £3,000.

Steve Cram's uncle played for West Brom, who were a top side back then. Now they aren't in the Premiership (although they are leading the Championship currently).

In those days, the best milers were superstars. As famous as the best footballers. Even at 17 Steve Cram was more famous than his uncle ever had been.

I just checked Twitter. The 'star' player for West Brom is a guy called Dwight Gayle. He has 82.7K followers.

Compare to Jake Wightman, who just finished a brilliant 5th in Doha, the best for a Brit since I think Peter Elliott 30 odd years ago. Jake has 4,409 followers. Sadly, only athletics fans (a small minority in Britain now) would recognize the name Jake Wightman.

I don't know how much Jake Wightman makes, but I doubt he's a millionaire. He'll probably need to win WC or Olympic gold, or break a WR, to become that.

Dwight Gayle likely makes a million pound every year (just from his basic club salary), maybe 5 million if West Brom get promoted as likely and his career continues to advance.

Do you see? Weighing the options was different back then, because the options were very different.

Not to mention that Ovett and Cram might have given those reasons, but the truth might be they weren't sure they had the talent to make a living from football back then, whereas today the 1,000th best footballer can earn a million in one season.

I don't know of any 21st century athlete who turned down a top club to pursue a running career.

Adam Gemili was apparently 50/50 choosing between joining Dagenham and Redbridge full-time (a non-league club!) or a full-time career in athletics. He only made up his mind when he reached the Olympic semi-finals at 18.

You’re probably on the right track. I’d think maybe a little quicker for the 400m. Maybe a high 48. And a little slower for 1600 and up. 4:45, 18:00, 40:00, 1:38+, 3:30+.

Mostly because they could ride off their soccer training/interval style work for 5k and down and even the 10k enough to finish it well. But the half and full would be tough just to finish honestly.

highhoppingworm wrote:

This is a complete cop out. Nobody is saying that they hey aren’t two of the best athletes in the world. People are simply (and correctly) stating that they could not sustain sub 6 minute mile pace for 13.1 miles without some longish term extensive training.

Heck, Lance Armstrong could barely break 3 off the couch. Consider that.

My guesses for Ronaldo off the couch by distance. All times FAT. Notice the big drop off from 400 to 800 and then from 1600 to 5000.

100:10.5

200: 21.7

400: 49.5

800: 2:00

1600: 4:35

5000: 17:00

10000: 38:30

HM: 1:27

M: 3:15

Thoughts?

The longer ones seem reasonable, but I think his 100m time would be slower off the couch. This video he runs a 25m time trial sprint against a pro sprinter from Spain. Ronaldo ends up running 0.3 seconds slower than the sprinter, who by comparison ran 10.49 that year (filmed in 2011):

I'm not an expert but I think ronaldo's sprinting technique is far from ideal (short stride, low knees, arm action etc), so he could probably improve his 100m time a lot with coaching

By incredibly challenging so you mean impossible? No way in hell are you only degrading from 71 to 80 after 1/2 a year of inactivity.

We don't know if either Cram or Ovett could have been in the top 1000 soccer players.

The 1200th best MLB player makes a pretty good living, but he is among the best of the best to be there. I knew guys in HS and college that were fantastic baseball players that couldn't get past Single A.

There is also an intangible to being the best in world in the mile rather than being another guy on the field in Soccer. Money isn't everything.

Yeah 1:20 after 6 months of 0 activity would be an impossibility for me and maybe I don’t even finish. Not exactly sure how soccer players train but I think that if I did what they do for 6 months instead 1:20 would still be impossible. I (as a seasoned club runner) need a regimen of higher mileage, tempo runs, and interval sessions for 4 months straight and even then 1:14 can be all out and very difficult. There might be a few people out there that have the talent to run 1:15 with little training, but they’re exceedingly rare and almost certainly not soccer players.

They cover on average 10k a match but most of it is walking or jogging. Are they fit? Are they athletes? Yes! But they are not endurance athletes. A fullback or a midfielder may be more of an endurance runner but 75 is rich for athletes of short bursts.

highhoppingworm wrote:

This is a complete cop out. Nobody is saying that they hey aren’t two of the best athletes in the world. People are simply (and correctly) stating that they could not sustain sub 6 minute mile pace for 13.1 miles without some longish term extensive training.

Heck, Lance Armstrong could barely break 3 off the couch. Consider that.

My guesses for Ronaldo off the couch by distance. All times FAT. Notice the big drop off from 400 to 800 and then from 1600 to 5000.

100:10.5

200: 21.7

400: 49.5

800: 2:00

1600: 4:35

5000: 17:00

10000: 38:30

HM: 1:27

M: 3:15

Thoughts?

Off the couch:

100m: 11.3

200m: 22 high

400m: 49

800: 2:03

1600: 4:45

5k: 17:x

10k: 39-40

HM: 1:35

M: 3:3X

These guys are heavy and not all that in sprinting or running. Skill and game iq is why they are good, and their weight in muscular development is not in the direction of running.

Trained for half a year and losing weight:

100: 10.7

400:47

800: 1:54

1600: 4:2x

5k: 16

10k: 34

Half: 1:10-1:13

M: 2:5x maybe. These are fast-twitch guys.

Sensible... wrote:

highhoppingworm wrote:

This is a complete cop out. Nobody is saying that they hey aren’t two of the best athletes in the world. People are simply (and correctly) stating that they could not sustain sub 6 minute mile pace for 13.1 miles without some longish term extensive training.

Heck, Lance Armstrong could barely break 3 off the couch. Consider that.

My guesses for Ronaldo off the couch by distance. All times FAT. Notice the big drop off from 400 to 800 and then from 1600 to 5000.

100:10.5

200: 21.7

400: 49.5

800: 2:00

1600: 4:35

5000: 17:00

10000: 38:30

HM: 1:27

M: 3:15

Thoughts?

I think these times make sense. Michael Owen (little pollock that he is) was fast as anything on the football pitch and ran a 3’45 marathon.

There is no way Ronaldo could run sub 11. He was timed against a semi professional sprinter (10.1 pB) and he was beaten by a large margin in 25 meters. He is most likely a 11.5 guy.

ThatAverageRunner wrote:

You’re probably on the right track. I’d think maybe a little quicker for the 400m. Maybe a high 48. And a little slower for 1600 and up. 4:45, 18:00, 40:00, 1:38+, 3:30+.

Mostly because they could ride off their soccer training/interval style work for 5k and down and even the 10k enough to finish it well. But the half and full would be tough just to finish honestly.

This looks reasonable. Pavel Nedved - European Footballer of the year in 2003 - was known for his fitness and endurance in matches and ran 1:45 in a half marathon shortly after retirement from football. He was probably not training specifically for it and did not run as hard as he could, high-fiving and greeting people, so he could probably do 1:30.

ShilohDoesntCare wrote:

This is absolutely ridiculous. A million threads on this every year and they are all terrible and filled with nonsense. I personally ran with Federer not too long ago and the boards on other threads believe he can run sub 15 with some training. He can't even run under 5 for the mile with training. Don't get me wrong he's a great guy but the man was panting after a single stride at over 6 minute per mile pace. This tracks with my own experience. I could play basketball for hours and I was decent at it but I couldn't run distance at all. I was garbage at it. Sure there are some people that are good at both but most of those were track athletes in the offseason.

No you did not run with Federer, you are posting on LRC.

11.5 is absurd. I ran faster than this as a sophomore boy in high school and was by no means exceptional. 8th graders run sub 10 seconds. I would buy closer to 11 but 11.5 is an insult.

100m is "long" for the typical dashes a soccer player will run in a game. But I also think that the best/fastest soccer players in the world would run about 11.0, some maybe faster. (More realistic would be flying starts and 50-60m). It is also documented that some, especially midfield players are very good 400, 800 or 1500m runner. Very good not meaning world class but e.g about 50 sec. or sub 2:00 just from soccer training. There are plenty of European mid-distance runners who played soccer as teenagers before being recruited into running and got straight to the top of national youths, e.g. Nils Schumann, IIRC.

I think the half marathon is way too long to be an event a typical soccer player would be good at. As said, depending on the type of player they would usually be best at short or long sprints and mid-distance. Still decent at 5k but comparably better at 800/1500m.

It seems that football players are underrated here. Thats a mistake.

There are some players that are crazy fast!!! I dont want say that are like Bolt of course but are very very fast.

To name name few Kilian Mbappe, Salah, Sadio Mane, Douglas Costa, Ronaldo, and so on many more these are some of the best players in the world and their top speed is just crazy. But in a population we know that are people sprinter, and some people that are good in distance running so there are football player that could be very good in distance running.

In my town in Italy there are 20 guys and girls that do athletics . But at least 500 young guys that play soccer in 5 different clubs. Now do you really think that between those 500 there is nobody with a good distance running talent? I think there are more than a few , and even more with talent as a sprinter, but everybody want play soccer so any running talent is lost.

Then we complain why in Kenya hundreds of runners are in the top world list.

But just go back 30 or 40 years ago. Soccer was still popular but more young guys used to do athletic, loved to run, had a passion for running. I just look the other day a results from an half marathon of the 80's here in Tuscany Italy not a big race.

So let me tell you , they were all Italians, the guy in 10th position had 1:07, in 3rd position was Orlando Pizzolato with 1:03

( two times New York city marathon winner) and the guy who won has 1:02.

This just to say how times are changed. Kenyans win cos down there everybody since young age give try so hard to become a good runner. In the past we had that mentality but now is gone. ( please dont bring the doping matter now cos i m not talking in that direction, it s not the place to talk about it).

Anyway in my running club I have some guys that used to play soccer at a local or regional level and then they begun to run after stop play footbal. They are good runners, the age here play a big factor. The youngest ones after 2 or 3 years of training were able to run for the half one runner 1:13, another one 1:14, these two were 30 years old , another 40 years old 1:17 and 2:46 in the marathon , another 46 old 1:17

All of these guys dont have the talent of a world class football player but with years of training had some results.

The only problem for a world class player after a whole life playing soccer , probably with some big injury also, is their body able to hold years of training for an half or a marathon?

You're correct with this assessment IMO. There are bound to be a few soccer players at the elite level that could be developed into good distance runners with practice. But why would they? They're soccer stars so the likelihood of them actually doing that is practically nonexistent.

I think the original poster was wondering if Ronaldo or any soccer star could finish a soccer match this weekend and enter a half marathon the next week and run 1:15 which isn't going to happen. They would need to train - a lot - and most still would find 1:15 impossible because they're simply not distance types.

With training I'm sure a few soccer players could be developed to run a 1:15 half but I think far more would find it impossible. The critical point here is, even if they have the distance running talent, almost everyone needs a specific training plan to run a half at 1:15 pace that is at odds with how a soccer player trains.

Federer is a tennis player. The performance of soccer players at Superstars has nothing to do with him. I looked at a couple Premier League rosters recently. They had numerous guys with the size of runners from 400m to mile or perhaps even beyond.

With a little bit of training they could probably do that pace for a 10K

It would take a couple of years of dedicated training to get to that point for a half

Probably they could do it for 5K just with their normal soccer training

Clearly non of you actually come from a soccer background. I do to an extent, and know many other runners who also do. Soccer players can hammer out intervals all day, but lack the aerobic strength to be effective long distance runners.

I've played plenty of lengthy soccer games, and it doesn't affect your body the same way as a distance run. A lot of lactic buildup, legs feel dead afterwards, but your heart rate is not consistently high

I have always been great at 400m, 800m, and mile repeats in practice, but get dropped in tempo's and long runs. I also don't race mid distance events as well as you'd think I could based on how I can run the repeats in practice

A pro soccer player with good endurance would have a massive drop off at 800 to mile to 5k. They'd probably blast out way to fast in any event over 400 and run a painful positive split.

Best players

100- sub 11 for most good pro's, they are fast at sprints

400- 49-55 seconds

800- 2:05-2:15

1600- 4:40-5:20

5k - A few select might crack 17:30, but most would positive split to around 18:30 +, some defenders and strikers over 20 minutes

10k - 40 plus for most

Many high school soccer TTs are won in 5:05-5:20. Pro players aren't pro because they can run faster miles, but rather because they have better skills. Besides, many high school track athletes work their skinny butts off and never reach 4:40 so why would a bunch of skill focused soccer players reach that mark?