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Jfranklin, this gets back to the point that several of us made early in this thread's history. What amounts to a good time in the mile depends on your purpose in running. A "good" time when running as part of a general fitness program and a "good" time in a track meet are entirely different animals.
Even if you run strictly for fitness, you're not likely to run the best time you potentially could run if it's still early in your training and you've had little experience with running. If you were to keep running and gradually working up to longer distances and a faster pace, you'd most likely find that eventually you could run a quicker mile, and probably without feeling as if you wanted to collapse into a heap at the end of the run.
Yea, ogre and jkcoop are right, i run track and my mile time is about a 5:25 and I never get first place. ( the first place runners are usually in the 4:50's) But that is by athletes that have been training for 2+ months. A good workout doesn't matter the time, its how hard you push yourself to get that time. Plus a good way to build your mile time is to run a mile as fast as you can and then keep going for another half mile or so.
My time in high school was 5:15 and I was horrible at the mile, I only made Junior Varsity. The first places here in Texas were usually in the 4:20-4:40's. A 6 min mile wouldn't even place in middle school usually.
I run about 6:45 per mile for a 10k and 6:10 per mile for a 5k nowadays. I consider myself a middle of the pack runner. With a 10k I may place in a smaller race with only 40-50 people if there are no strong runners.
I'd say a good mile for an adult would be under 7 minutes if you are only doing one. We do a fitness test at the school and I run with the students. The top score for an adult on the fitness test is if you run under 7 minutes for the mile. I'd say a decent mile for a nonrunner would be under 8 minutes. Over that you are pretty much doing a slow jog.
My time in high school was 5:15 and I was horrible at the mile, I only made Junior Varsity. The first places here in Texas were usually in the 4:20-4:40's. A 6 min mile wouldn't even place in middle school usually.
I run about 6:45 per mile for a 10k and 6:10 per mile for a 5k nowadays. I consider myself a middle of the pack runner. With a 10k I may place in a smaller race with only 40-50 people if there are no strong runners.
I'd say a good mile for an adult would be under 7 minutes if you are only doing one. We do a fitness test at the school and I run with the students. The top score for an adult on the fitness test is if you run under 7 minutes for the mile. I'd say a decent mile for a nonrunner would be under 8 minutes. Over that you are pretty much doing a slow jog.
Wow,
I don't think these are middle of the pack times, rather, they are upper 5%. If you run a 6:10 pace for a 5k, that's an 18:30. In the last 5k I ran, that would have put you at 3rd place overall. What is your age? I am 44, and I am finding harder to keep my pace, which is about 6:50, and falling, even though I train as much as I always have over the past 6 years. Even with that pace, though, I was able to do third in my age group the last 5k I ran. I guess what I am saying is that your times are definitely not middle of the pack, unless you are going up against pros.
In my experience mile times are easiest to improve by doing the following:
1) Train technique using a mid-foot strike as opposed to heel-toe. The reduced ground-contact time in the mid-foot strike (vs. heel-toe) will make your mile run more like a sprint than a jog (although you can't really sprint a mile).
2) Using the above technique, run 400m repeats will progressively shorter rests.
I wouldn't do the walk/run alternation if your goal is to improve mile time. Following the above 2 suggestions and stay injury-free, and you'll be able to get that mile time down to sub 7 minutes within a couple months.
I don't think these are middle of the pack times, rather, they are upper 5%. If you run a 6:10 pace for a 5k, that's an 18:30. In the last 5k I ran, that would have put you at 3rd place overall. What is your age? I am 44, and I am finding harder to keep my pace, which is about 6:50, and falling, even though I train as much as I always have over the past 6 years. Even with that pace, though, I was able to do third in my age group the last 5k I ran. I guess what I am saying is that your times are definitely not middle of the pack, unless you are going up against pros.
I'm 31 and my times are still improving very slowly with age in the longer races over 4 miles. I suspect that's going to stop and reverse itself in the next few years. My mile time is nowhere near what it was in high school, 5:50 compared to 5:20,but my endurance is much better. My 2 mile is also worse, but my 5k is about the same as high school. Varsity was running 16 and 17's. The top JV was running high 17's and low 18's. We had a sophomore pull off a 15:36 and qualify for nationals.
I have gotten 2nd and 3rd is some local races. The big ones with a couple hundred people I might get top 10 or 15. I'm not looking forward to reaching 35-38 when times will start slowing down despite training. I do have a problem with overtraining and injuring myself or getting sick. I admire runners who still keep trucking on in their 40's. Maybe I can do the same if my knee doesn't give out. I notice that I get out of shape much faster than when I was younger and it takes months for me to get in shape instead of weeks.
I'm 31 and my times are still improving very slowly with age in the longer races over 4 miles. I suspect that's going to stop and reverse itself in the next few years. My mile time is nowhere near what it was in high school, 5:50 compared to 5:20,but my endurance is much better. My 2 mile is also worse, but my 5k is about the same as high school. Varsity was running 16 and 17's. The top JV was running high 17's and low 18's. We had a sophomore pull off a 15:36 and qualify for nationals.
I have gotten 2nd and 3rd is some local races. The big ones with a couple hundred people I might get top 10 or 15. I'm not looking forward to reaching 35-38 when times will start slowing down despite training. I do have a problem with overtraining and injuring myself or getting sick. I admire runners who still keep trucking on in their 40's. Maybe I can do the same if my knee doesn't give out. I notice that I get out of shape much faster than when I was younger and it takes months for me to get in shape instead of weeks.
I will say that your times are the result of a physical gift. Your times are in the top 2%, without question.
I will say that maybe, in my situation, that laying off for 2 days or more might begin to give me better results, where as conversely, running on consecutive days are bringing me diminished returns. For instance, I ran today after not having run since Monday, and really nailed it. I did 21:15 on treadmill for a 5k, which is very good for me.
I am a female who will be turning 50 in a couple of months. I mostly run 5k's for fun, and have been working on my speed recently, so have gotten a little faster of late.
My fastest 1 mile split has been 6:15 and my current training pace on my longer runs (6+ miles) is just under 7:15 per mile. I guess that's not bad for an older lady, lol.
I run 5 km(approx 3.125 miles) on about 19:40
that's 1 mile in 6:18 but it took me a while to get to this point, when i began I was probably at 10-12 minutes a mile.
Especially in the beginning it will be easy for you to get faster if you push yourself.
When I'm done with the 5k run I'm totally exausted. this is also something you learn, how hard ou can run for the entire lengh. I'm still tuning how hard I run, and it's allways a continous adaption.
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