Why is this website so out of touch how hard it is for most normal people to run?

blort wrote:

This site is primarily for runners, not joggers. It's about elite racing. People fans of elite racing. Those who were once elite, or hoped to be elite. Those who hope to be elite. Those who dream they coulda/shoulda been elite. (Oddly, though it's not for elite racers. Kinda of like an NBA site is not for NBA players).

Sure, jogger can look around, but it's not a site for joggers.

This. It isn't that LR is out of touch. It's just that it has a specific audience.

If there was a message board for offensive linemen, I'd expect posters there to think a 200 pound bench press was nothing special. I can't bench 200 lbs myself, but I'm a runner, not an offensive tackle.

On a message board for attending general surgeons, I'd expect the posters to consider an appendectomy to be a simple procedure. I can't perform an appendectomy myself, but I'm not a general surgeon and am thus not a part of the audience of that message board.

LR is a site for runners. Just like a group of offensive tackles won't think much of benching 200 pounds and a group of general surgeons don't think much of performing an appendectomy, a group of runners spanning from moderately serious to elite don't consider a 7 minute mile to be that special.

Big spread of speed wrote:

david45 wrote:

People here think the average person should be able to run a mile in under 7 minutes, yet I never could run a mile in under 9 minutes in high school PE even though we ran 15 minutes everyday. Why is this place so out of touch?

I am pretty sure that the average person can not run a mile under 7 minutes.

And what is an average runner?

From World Class to the average LR poster is a big spread of speed.

Most people on this forum are not as fast as they pretend to be, they are also not earning $250000 + but they do live in the basement.

No kidding. Somehow the “did you get your stimulus check” thread had all the same posters getting checks who also claim to make so much money on the financial threads.

On the flip side I could ask LRers why they cant bench 135lbs 10 times! If everyone I know does this easily then certainly a group of highly competitive athletes like yourselves could do so with ease?

Alan

Runningart2004 wrote:

On the flip side I could ask LRers why they cant bench 135lbs 10 times! If everyone I know does this easily then certainly a group of highly competitive athletes like yourselves could do so with ease?

Alan

Not the same thing. Letsrunners acknowledge that they could bench 135 lbs with proper training, they just choose not to.

I can bench 135 ten times, and run under 20, and I'm 54.

can easily learn those things as an adult wrote:

david45 wrote:

I said "SMARTwatch", not "stopwatch"

Does your smartwatch hook up to your mouth so it can measure your breath? If not, then it's not measuring VO2max. Sorry.

The estimate is accurate

david45 wrote:

can easily learn those things as an adult wrote:

Does your smartwatch hook up to your mouth so it can measure your breath? If not, then it's not measuring VO2max. Sorry.

The estimate is accurate

It is not.

As a high schooler who's broken 6, I wouldn't really call it easy. I ran for 2 years before I broke 6:30 and it took another year after that to break 6. It takes a while to get used to sustaining any pace. Your main problem is that you're not giving it enough time and you have unrealistic expectations.

We (a highschool in Illinois) are required to get 25 minutes of cardio every day in PE the green zone or yellow zone in some days, which sucks because the teachers thought that cross country runners getting into the yellow zone was as easy as someone who walks and gets in it. There was a formula where it adjusted the zones based on your resting heart rate, but my teachers would never lower it because they were like, oh you can get into it so I don't have to lower it, even when I was running 5:40s around the track to get in that zone. I hated it, as I would have to do 4 miles before school for cross, then do over 4 more miles of fast running in gym, then do a workout or long run in practice after school. The gym class just wears down people who are already fit and doesn't help those who aren't. Thank god after sophomore year I could get gym exemption.

Not super accurate, it changes a lot based on how hilly the course is, the GPS signal, the fit of the watch, the surface you're running on, the temperature, and how tired/stressed you are.

Its a combination of natural ability and hard work.

Then father time wins.

Once upon a time I could run a 4:07 mile pretty easily and 26 miles at 5:20 per mile.

Now I struggle to run a 9:00 minute mile for 6 miles.

People who are good at what they do always make it look easy.

There will always be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Be comfortable in your own skin.

From reading all of your posts, this is the general Idea I get of you.

You think you are a hard worker but you are not. You give up whenever training gets hard and then when the fateful day comes that you are supposed to test your training, you fail. When you fail you blame the system, not yourself.

You are also a complainer. Complainers don't get fast.

You didn't come here for advice, you came here for reassurement. Whenever you ask a question and get an answer you don't like, you say "No. Not true". Most people on this forum are advanced runners that know what they are saying. The truth hurts but the truth also tells you what you need to do to improve.

I'd like to guess the talent cap for males in the mile is somewhere around 4:50-5:10. What I mean by that, is even if you have 0 talent, you can still get at least that fast with good training.

I started out highschool with a 30:36 5K and ended with 16:07. My mile started as a 6:32 and ended as a 4:39, and should have been in the low 4:20s this season.

You sound like the soccer moms that are 30 lbs overweight, run/walk 8-10 miles a week and 35 minute 5Ks that say they just arent talented and cant get any faster.

can easily learn those things as an adult wrote:

david45 wrote:

The estimate is accurate

It is not.

This exchange made me lol so hard.

Your watch basically estimates the VO2Max of the average person who runs at the paces you run. It's not a measure of your natural ability at all. Like other poster have said, you likely have no idea how to properly train. I am almost certain you could break a 7 min mile with proper training. How many miles do you run per week? As others have mentioned, 15min a day is not going to do much to help you improve.

Senator Clay Davis wrote:

We get it, you're slow. Now step aside so the real runners can enjoy themselves

'

We get it, you're a psychopath. Your response is exactly what OP is describing.

slom wo wrote:

can easily learn those things as an adult wrote:

It is not.

This exchange made me lol so hard.

Your watch basically estimates the VO2Max of the average person who runs at the paces you run. It's not a measure of your natural ability at all.

I am almost certain you could break a 5:30 min mile with proper training.

Fixed.

Haha agreed. But the target he placed for himself was sub-7 so I'll start with that.

To the OP: I myself am not exactly a genetic wonder, nor do I train all that hard. I started running 3 years ago at 6'-7" 220 lbs. I played basketball in college so I had athletic background but no experience with endurance training. In 3 years I have taken about a minute off my mile PR, though I rarely run the distance. Perhaps a better marker is the 13:47 I've shaved off my 10k. If you're not improving you either don't care enough to train properly, or you don't know how to train properly. One is easier to fix than the other.

This isn't a site for runners.

The joke has always been that everyone here ran sub-14, has a supermodel wife, and earns 250K easy. The reality is that this site is aimed at those who ran sub-14, have supermodel wives, and earn 250K easy.

They address the high school podcast audience now and then because they are the future sub-14, supermodel-marrying, 250K-earners (though it may be Rubles at that point).

This is an honest post (no sarcasm) so thanks Roy.

I ran ok in HS, not good, barely average. But I hung in there.

My mistake was not running for fitness after 2002, and only running sporadically for 15 years (2017) before taking my training seriously again. I did train for a 5k in 2008 where I broke 19 (18:33) but haven't touched that speed since. I'll be lucky to break 20 this year.

I took that time off to just do daily walking. I was under the misconception that running would wear your joints out faster than walking and I didn't want to overdo it. A major in ROTC lost both knees due to overdoing it with running and that scared me in college.

But I'm seeing I'm enjoying the longer distances more--13.1 and 26.2.

The good news about getting older--you get wiser and know how to prepare, etc. The bad news--your body is wearing down.

I like it. Lydiard base training. That helped me with my marathon--it works for the Japanese runners.

Volume, even EZ pace. Keep the legs healthy and not overtaxed, and throw in some speed at the backend.