What is a very good 5k time?

DaveR1

marchino wrote: »

whats this about sub 13mins, sure its been done, and i mean wow, some gallop, truly WORLD CLASS!!, but in fairness how many people have done it?.
is sub 13.30-or god forbid sub-14mins not world class??

Look at Beijing results 2008, 13.48 would have qualified you for the final! (depending on your heat!!!)

And then 13.55 would have stopped you coming last in the final!! But if I remember right he fell.... So really a 13.33 to stop you coming last!

I think this shows that really sub 14 is IRISH ELITE === WORLD CLASS.
Don't dis the irish runners. They are world class! Cragg should have won

Maars

DaveR1 wrote: »

Look at Beijing results 2008, 13.48 would have qualified you for the final! (depending on your heat!!!)

And then 13.55 would have stopped you coming last in the final!! But if I remember right he fell.... So really a 13.33 to stop you coming last!

I think this shows that really sub 14 is IRISH ELITE === WORLD CLASS.
Don't dis the irish runners. They are world class! Cragg should have won

Well, you'd need to have run 13:48, but probably a 55 second last lap too...the uneven pace in a lot of those heats can only be handled by someone with the capacity for a much faster time.

ecoli

@ Seres: again this are arbitrary figures the point of giving them was to give the OP an idea of who is doing what times and where he believes he would want to aim for.
If i had an athlete that ran 1-2 min quicker this season than they had before i would feel that is a very good time for them. Likewise WR holder ran outside 15 i would consider it a bad run for them.

Didnt mean to be sexist either so here is women times

Sub 15 - African / Top American times
Sub 16 - Elite Irish time
Sub 17 - National Seniors finalist level
Sub 18 - Top 20 ranking
Sub 19 - Decent/Average club level
Sub 20 - Average club time/ decent casual runner time (possibly top 100 finisher in bigger race like rathfarnam)
Sub 21 - Decent / average casual runner
Sub 23 - Experienced casual runner


Again i am not saying that these are times you should be hitting to be considered a good time but rather from see what level different people are running you are able to make up your mind of what you feel is a good time for you


@ DaveR1: you cannot take championship races as a factor here as these are often tactical and runners are trying to expend as little as possible energy in the heats in order to be fresh for finals. When they then get to finals they tactics again come into play and the fact that athletes have a race in there legs.

If you look to the toplists for this year you will see that this year 13.35 would not have ranked you in the top 100+ times in the world

http://www.iaaf.org/statistics/toplists/inout=o/age=n/season=2010/sex=M/all=n/legal=A/disc=5000/detail.html

jb-ski

thanks Ecoli,

i've just realised i'm an average female casual runner.

why did nobody tell me before???:)

W.B. Yeats

Interesting that I#m now an "experienced casual runner", I'd not disagree with the casual part but experienced no way!

My target is sub 20 so I suppose thats why I'm joining a club then I can be an average club runner!

On the broader point- a good time is all subjective and dependant on loads of different individual factor
Age
Sex
Marital status/family commitments
Training
Talent
Amount of time available to train
Weather
Course
Etc

I'm mid 30's married with family. I work hard and commute a distance. I just started to run 6 months ago with any degree of consistency so I'm proud of my current PB 22.56.
I don't think that i'm a lost talent to Irish athletics however I do believe that with training and application I can go much much faster. (Sub 20 target and hopefully sub 18 as a BHAG)
Under current constraints that may be wishful thinking though as my training time is getting squeezed due to family commitments.

dna_leri

ecoli wrote: »

Agree with alot of posters this is very subjective here is a rough guide which should help you make a decision on what you feel yourself is a good time

Sub 13 - African / Top American times
Sub 14 - Elite Irish time
Sub 15 - Top Irish Junior time/ top 20 (ish) Irish ranking Senior
Sub 16 - decent club level/ local (small) road race winner
Sub 17 - Decent/Average club level
Sub 18 - Average club time/ decent casual runner time (possibly top 100 finisher in bigger race like rathfarnam)
Sub 19 - Decent / average casual runner


Again these are not exact but should give you an idea of levels and help you make your mind up of where you wanna aim and train for

Of course it depends on your definition of "very good" - to some people that means world class to others it means being able to complete a 5K without stopping.

To put some data behind Ecoli's list above, you could make the assumption that (at least in an Irish) context the Rathfarnham 5K provides the best data source. A quick analysis of this years results for Senior Males give the following:

Time |Finishers|Total%
Sub13 |0
Sub14 |1 |0.5%
Sub15 |6 |3.2%
Sub16 |8 |6.9%
Sub17 |21 |16.7%
Sub18 |5 |19.0%
Sub19 |19 |27.8%
Sub20 |15 |34.7%
Sub21 |16 |42.1%
Sub22 |23 |52.8%
Sub23 |15 |59.7%

So if you can read the above, if your definition of "very good" is top 10% in Ireland then you need to be sub17 mins (16:22) or if your "very good" is top 50% then you need to be under 22 mins.

shels4ever

I think that very good is when your maximise Potential , I'd agree with myflipflops I think that people are capable of going a lot faster over 5k then they know, if they did specific training for it. For me at the moment anything slower then 20 mins wouldnt be great, and I think I can go sub 18 if I had perfect training and a long injury free period..Actually I know I can run that.

I think with running now its starting to develope somethign similar to sports days in schools where everyone is a winner no matter what time you run.. Some times its far from the truth and 30 mins for a 5k is jsut not good running. People running 30 mins may make amaziing progress if the work hard.

edit.
I think anyone who gets up and runs is doign well and would be capable of going fast over 5k, if you run 30 mins this year with the propper work you would take 30% from that very quick.

dna_leri

For senior women it would be:

Time |Finishers|Total%
Sub16 |1|0.5%
Sub17 |2|1.5%
Sub18 |5|3.9%
Sub19 |4|5.9%
Sub20 |7|9.3%
Sub21 |1|9.8%
Sub22 |4|11.8%
Sub23 |8|15.7%
Sub24 |4|17.7%
Sub25 |7|21.1%
Sub26 |14 |28.0%
Sub27 |15|35.3%
Sub28 |22|46.1%
Sub29 |22|56.9%
Sub30 |13|63.2%


Looks like a greater spread of abilities here or just more slower women.

robinph

dna_leri wrote: »

Looks like a greater spread of abilities here or just more slower women.

Less competitive genes. So where the blokes will be more likely to race whoever happens to be around them to get over the line first, the women towards the lower end of the table will be happy to get over the line and won't always chase someone else who is finishing close to them.

jailhouse_dave

tunney wrote: »

B0ll0cks to that. I've run 16:30 off 30-40 KM a week.

Congrats , I don't know of other casual runners going that fast but happy to stand corrected.

RayCun

dna_leri wrote: »

Looks like a greater spread of abilities here or just more slower women.

A lot more women than men seem to enter this race (and other races too, I'd guess) as walkers.
Hmmm, didn't someone say recently that in the Dublin marathon a far higher percentage of men than women DNFed?
Start constructing your overarching theories of gender.... NOW!

Gringo78

In the Tongue in cheek spirit of another thread running here, you know your 5k time is good when a club try to poach you

Art of Noise

My god reading this thread wasn't good for the spirit. 'What's a very good 5k time'? If asked I would consider anything from approximately under 20 minutes for a male or 23 minutes for a female to be a very good time. That would have you in the upper echelons of many road races. I know it's subjective but I think some peoples expectations of a what's a very good time is were a little high.

robinph

Agreed.

A good 5km time is to know what yours is.

monkeysuncle

I'm 45 and can run a 5 KM with some hills in 23.5 minutes

BeepBeep67

monkeysuncle wrote: »

I'm 45 and can run a 5 KM with some hills in 23.5 minutes

Holy dormant thread Batman

monkeysuncle

BeepBeep67 wrote: »

Holy dormant thread Batman

Seems I've just woken it up robin

menoscemo

monkeysuncle wrote: »

I'm 45 and can run a 5 KM with some hills in 23.5 minutes

What's being 45 got to do with the price of milk?

monkeysuncle

menoscemo wrote: »

What's being 45 got to do with the price of milk?

so you're a milk man ?

monkeysuncle

monkeysuncle wrote: »

I'm 45 and can run a 5 KM with some hills in 23.5 minutes

I'm now down to 21:30 fastest 5 km , some hills, did 8km at weekend at 35:31

robinph

Kowabunga, nope that's wrong.

Kersplatt, kerplow!

Zombie thread deactivated Batman.