can you run sub 12.5 flying 100m and 20 minute 4 mile tempo. are you also a sub 4 miler!?

I think I do quite well. I also have a successful background running and coaching. First hand with a 1:44 athlete during one point of his career along with other sub 4 athletes. Periodization training (strength/aerobic)/coming off cc, etc. Obviously his 12.5 is an very rough estimation. Everyone is different though. Nick Symmonds, who know is still is overall great physical fitness, just struggled to run a 1:59 and a 55. This is a guy for example who ran ~just under 1:17 at Millrose as well in 2013. Remember what he did at world's that summer? 1:43.55 and almost won the entire thing. You take Nick out of a cross country season and run in him a flat 100m and compare it to when he's in peak track shape, it's night and day. Enough said. I'll love to continue more convo if you care to learn.

Lenny Leonard wrote:

The key thing to this is how you define “tempo.” If It’s your 1-hour race pace, then you’re basically a 1:05 half marathoner.

People are going to confuse his take with someone who can race 4 miles in 20:00, which is much less aerobically fit.

I’ve known quite a few 1:05 half miners who were 4:05-4:10 milers though. I think the better short distance cutoff for sub-4 is a 400, which for 99% of guys is going to need to be 51 or faster.

20 minute 4 mile tempo is more like a 106-107 half. I'd expect a sub 65 guy to do 4 and some change as a 20 min tempo.

People are notorious for running tempo's way faster than what a true tempo is. A 1:05:00 1/2 marathon is the equivlency to a 18:15 (4:34 mile) 4 mile. Very close to what would be a 5 minute tempo, or a click or two quicker. 18:15 also falls in line with a 4:02 mile.

Assuming by "tempo" you mean LT, I strongly disagree. LT pace in training is very difficult to sustain for an extended period, which is why so many coaches prescribe broken tempos or cruise intervals. It's also why Friel prescribes an all-out, 30 minute time trial as a method of finding your lactate threshold heart rate--he finds that outside of competition, most athletes can only hold their 1-hour pace for about 30 minutes. (I disagree, but he's basically right that LT feels awfully difficult for most people.)

Of course, you're right that 5-minute pace is LT for a 65 minute half marathoner, but that shouldn't be controversial--LT is roughly one-hour pace.

Yes, periodization and fitness matter, but this all has nothing to do with the actual question here--whether 12.5 flying is sufficient speed to run under 4 minutes. It's just not, and it's not even close. The majority of high school varsity cross country runners in the U.S. can do a 12.5 flying, on any day of the year. I'm a middle aged road runner who never does the sprint work I know I should do, and I can do a 12.5 flying.

Completely depends on the level of athlete you are coaching and talking about as well as the time of the season they are doing tempo/LT work. For HS athletes I always will break up tempos into 5-8 min x 3 rep stints with recovery jog in between. If you're talking a high level athlete in the midst of the biggest block of training, it's a core workout to do. I never said 12.5 is capable to rub 4. I said there are times a strength elite runner could be coming off a block of a CC season and run something not sub 12. Where they are at peak track season is a completely different question. Exactly why I use Nick Symmonds as a great example. He was an elite runner who without focus on speed, he didn't have it 24/7. We can agree to disagree by will stand by my point.

not so fast dude wrote:

Belarussiya wrote:

Definitely crazy talk here. A 100 fly should never be a requirement for a 4 minute miler, and I couldn't imagine anyone running slower than 12 for a 100 fly. As far as I know, the slowest 400 meter time possible for someone that is in shape to run a 4 minute mile is around 54-55 seconds. If anyone can show me where a sub 4 miler ran slower than a 55 second 400 I would be greatly interested to see.

12.5 was Bekele's top speed in his track running prime. Nick Willis knows enough about running to make these comments without ridicule.

Yes, because Bekele regularly timed a flying 100. I don't think I've timed a flying 100 since first year of high school.

I don't even think this justifies a response but thinking someone can run a sub 4 mile with 54x 400m speed needs to get their head out of the sand. Really no explanation needed. Sifan Hissan ran 3:51 ~4:10 mile. If you don't think she can run 55 i'll just shake my head. By your logic why isn't she sub 4 then???

And 55 being something quite easy she can hit.

I agree with most of what you have said, but you can’t bring female runners into the conversation.

Also, to the fellow who proposed the 800m x 2 + 18 seconds conversion, I’ve always heard it as Horwill’s where he used 19.5

https://www.serpentine.org.uk/pages/advice_frank15.html

So Webb’s 1:43.84 becomes 3:47.18, which is 0.1% off of his actual PR

Lenny Leonard wrote:

I agree with most of what you have said, but you can’t bring female runners into the conversation.

Also, to the fellow who proposed the 800m x 2 + 18 seconds conversion, I’ve always heard it as Horwill’s where he used 19.5

https://www.serpentine.org.uk/pages/advice_frank15.html

So Webb’s 1:43.84 becomes 3:47.18, which is 0.1% off of his actual PR

Interesting. I always thought my best distance was 3000m. I could run under 12.5 with a flying start easily. I might have got close to 20:00 for 4 mile, but it would have been an absolute eyeballs out effort. I ran 4:20 for a mile.

Looking at Frank Horwill's guide, and using my mile time his half-marathon length aerobic training run would be faster than I could have dreamed off in a race, as would the 10k length high aerobic training run.

On the other hand the 4x400 with three minutes recovery comes out at about 61, which would have been a doddle (I ran 1:57.5 for 800m) and I used to do that session in 57-58.

I guess I was a lot more speed biased, but I think (35 years ago) I had under-developed the aerobic end of my running.

Four minute mile these days makes one a potential elite Marathoner.

If you're asking about 100m and one mile, no one without F.A.T. sub-23 200m ability is not earning an Olympic 1500m medal.

yeah i'm trying to be a douche wrote:

wwharrier wrote:

Why take the time out of the day to respond then? Doesn't that disprove your point since you obviously you felt the need to take seconds out of your day to respond and hear your voice???

I wanted to help him by letting him know that nobody cares. You don't need to post that you're not a sub-4 miler (neither are 99.999% of people), it adds nothing.

The first part was self deprecating and tongue in cheek since I’m sure many people are in the same boat and have decent sprint speed but lack a lot of other qualities required to be a good miler and/or distance runner. The second part of the statement was what you probably should have focused on if you didn’t want humor, sour pants.

wwharrier wrote:

I don't even think this justifies a response but thinking someone can run a sub 4 mile with 54x 400m speed needs to get their head out of the sand. Really no explanation needed. Sifan Hissan ran 3:51 ~4:10 mile. If you don't think she can run 55 i'll just shake my head. By your logic why isn't she sub 4 then???

Cause she can only run 14:20. A guy who can only run a 55sec quarter but has the endurance for 13:40 would have a good shot at sub 4

flying 100 12 sec.

with

4 miles sub 18:30

longjack wrote:

SUB flying 100 12 sec.

with

4 miles sub 18:30

800 dude wrote:

wwharrier wrote:

Someone coming off CC season might only be able to run a 12.5 flying 100 because of specificity training.

I don't think you understand how slow 12.5 flying is. That's at least 13.5 out of the blocks, which is maybe the raw speed you need to go sub-2 in the 800, but I would be shocked if there's ever been a 4-minute miler that slow.

So you don't think Kenenisa Bekele ( you've heard of him haven't you?) could have broken 4 in his track days?

not so fast dude wrote:

So you don't think Kenenisa Bekele ( you've heard of him haven't you?) could have broken 4 in his track days?

Check out a frame by frame of KB's 10000 WR. He closed in under 12.

800 dude wrote:

not so fast dude wrote:

So you don't think Kenenisa Bekele ( you've heard of him haven't you?) could have broken 4 in his track days?

Check out a frame by frame of KB's 10000 WR. He closed in under 12.

No he did not. Don't be ridiculous.

epicTCK wrote:

Belarussiya wrote:

Definitely crazy talk here. A 100 fly should never be a requirement for a 4 minute miler, and I couldn't imagine anyone running slower than 12 for a 100 fly. As far as I know, the slowest 400 meter time possible for someone that is in shape to run a 4 minute mile is around 54-55 seconds. If anyone can show me where a sub 4 miler ran slower than a 55 second 400 I would be greatly interested to see.

There isn't a single guy who can only run 54 and broke 4. In fact, It's probably not possible or very, very, very rare to go sub 2 with 55 speed. If you had a 55 second 400m runner, the fastest they could run for the 8 (if they had extremely good endurance) might be mid-high 1:57. And no one can run sub 4 off of 1:57 800m

Finally someone knows what they’re talking about