1-mile run time, question

BikeSwimLaugh

BikeSwimLaugh

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My sister-in-law has been getting in better shape and exercising a bit. She lately claimed to be getting her 1-mile run time down below 6 minutes. I don't believe it.

She used to work on part of the Space Shuttle and she claimed it was 100-yards long, which is 300 feet and the length of a football field. Uh, NO...the space shuttle rides on the back of a 747 and it's perhaps 100 FEET long, but not 100 YARDS long...so this woman has bad facts from time to time.

She is not in great shape, she's not athetic in the least and she when I asked at what speed she runs, she explains that she runs part of it and walks part of it. A mile in less then 6 minutes and walking part of it??????? I think she's got 1-mile confused with a half mile (another space-shuttle incident). My hunch is that she's got the distance around the track to make a mile wrong. But I'm not a runner and doing a mile in under 6 minutes seems quite fast.

Can any of you runners give me the straight scoop? By my calc's, she'd have to maintain 10mph to make that mile in 6 minutes...I suppose it can be done but not if part of it is done walking! Somebody tell me she's full of it....
 
BikeSwimLaugh said:
My sister-in-law has been getting in better shape and exercising a bit. She lately claimed to be getting her 1-mile run time down below 6 minutes. I don't believe it.

She used to work on part of the Space Shuttle and she claimed it was 100-yards long, which is 300 feet and the length of a football field. Uh, NO...the space shuttle rides on the back of a 747 and it's perhaps 100 FEET long, but not 100 YARDS long...so this woman has bad facts from time to time.

She is not in great shape, she's not athetic in the least and she when I asked at what speed she runs, she explains that she runs part of it and walks part of it. A mile in less then 6 minutes and walking part of it??????? I think she's got 1-mile confused with a half mile (another space-shuttle incident). My hunch is that she's got the distance around the track to make a mile wrong. But I'm not a runner and doing a mile in under 6 minutes seems quite fast.

Can any of you runners give me the straight scoop? By my calc's, she'd have to maintain 10mph to make that mile in 6 minutes...I suppose it can be done but not if part of it is done walking! Somebody tell me she's full of it....
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BSL, I'll give you some real world numbers for a middle-aged adult, not some high school track kid.

Breaking 6 minutes in a mile is blistering fast for an adult. I would venture to say that there are 0 folks over 30 who can do this who don't run 30+ miles / week and/or haven't been running for years. I have to bust my @ss to break 8 minutes in a single mile. Folks faster than me can break 7 minutes, but 6 minutes is much, much harder.

And there is no way that anyone, other than an olympic track star, could walk part of a mile and still break 6 minutes. Not possible. She would have to be breaking 4 minutes on the running times, which is approaching world record speed.

I would call her out on this one.
 
I think she may be exaggerating too. The walking part of it is pretty much the giveaway for me... unless she is like some sort of cartoon character.

I do know adults who can run that fast but as the previous poster said, not over 30. My boyfriend comes pretty close to 6 minutes but he is also an Army officer who does the physical training for Special Ops people.

Why not challenge her to a run and see for yourself? That could be fun.
 
My guess is she's running 6mph, not 6 minute miles. I can run sub6 and I guarantee you, there's no walking involved. I am barely able to maintain consciousness at that point.
 
six min mile

The other day I wanted to run the final min of my cardio at world record pace for a mile. My math was bad. I ran at 8.5 mph for 1 min thinking that was the right number. Killed my butt. Then I did the math right and found out the world record mile was done at 16.9 mph!! Also a fun fact is that the record for the 100 was done at 27 mph.
 
not unfathomable

I'm 31 years old 5'7" and 150 lbs. I can run a mile in under 6 minutes. My neighbor (female) can run a 10K while averaging 7.5 minutes per mile. I think its definately doable. If she isnt built like a rail with bulging leg muscles she may be full of it though.
 
I think your SIL is full of it. If she isn't in awesome shape, breaking a 6 minute mile isn't likely unless she's a freak of nature.

I agree with Mel Def -- challenge her to a race. As they say, the proof will be in the pudding ...
 
The overall consensus is that she's full of it....and the obvious "tell" is that she claims she walks a portion of it...so for sure and with confidence I just might find myself calling her on it!

She's about 46 years old, 15-25 pounds overweight and is just barely an average participant in her boot-camp. She's never been a regular runner and looking at her, she looks like a typical soccer mom who eats the kids left-over junk food.

Enough on her. I just wanted to make sure she wasn't legit with her claim. Perhaps she's maintaining 6mph while running her mile, but then she takes breaks with walking. Either way it doesn't make sense....but the funny thing is how totally authoritative she comes-off proclaiming these things!

Let's continue the discussion about how fast you guys run a mile, but the subject of the sister-in-law has more then been answered...and as I figured, verified. Thanks
 
I run a 5:33 mile, and I did a marathon a couple weeks ago where I came in at a 7:15 pace through the first 20 miles (don't ask me about the last 6.2 :speechless: )

There's definitely people out there that can run a 5 minute mile, so they could run/walk a 6 min mile (walking for 1 min...still not comfortable when running though). It may even be do-able with very little training, but these people are freaks of nature - usually very lean, excellent lung capacity, naturally efficient stride. I'm also talking about young males here too. A woman at her age would be a competitive masters athlete if she was able to come in under 6 while run/walking. The female American masters record in the mile for women 45-49 is 5:07.76 (see USATF website). If she ran the whole way, instead of run/walking, she'd likely come pretty close to this record.

So yes, much like the rest of the thread, I'd say she's full of it. It's really easy to test this. Just have her run on a track - most tracks in the US are 1/4 mile long, so 4 laps = 1 mile. If she's able to accomplish this feat, then she's an awfully gifted natural athlete, and should start training to win master's titles. If not, and she falls well short, you can point and laugh. We can all point and laugh.
 
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Let me think, 6 minutes a mile.... so if she can keep that rate, in one hour, she'd run 10 miles... that would mean she'd have to be running at 10 mph.

If she did this on a treadmill, I'd suggest try another treadmill. In some cases, treadmills can be off by a lot and she might be reading it in KM not MILES. I think 1 KM is about .60 of a mile, I can't remember though, lol. And it's very well possible to hit 1 KM in about 6 minutes with running and walking combined.

Once I was running 5k on this treadmill and this person ask how I can run 5 miles in about 30 minutes because on the countdown, it just shows 5.00, 4.99, 4.98... etc so it appears to be in miles. On this other treadmill, I run 6.0 mph which means every 10 minutes I'd hit a mile, but when the 30 minute marker came, I checked the miles and it shows 3.5 miles... so clearly it has something to do with the belt and the mile counter.

I never measured how fast I can run a mile out on the road, however, I do know a 2 miles part of road (1 mile forward and 1 mile back) and it takes me about 20 minutes to do, so I guess on average, I'm running about 6.0 mph and can run the mile in 10 minutes. But sometimes I'd check and I run it 15-18 minutes, so it varies depending on the day, so I would say I can run a mile on average about 9-10 minutes. I did a few 5k races, and on average it takes me about 26-27 minutes to complete, so I guess I run a a little faster than I'm thinking.


Also to add, I do know people at 5k races can run the 5k in 18 minutes. That's insane. This one guy I saw even had a beer belly and I was quite amazed. So yeah, it's not so much about looks, but I guess your running style. Some people do the long strides which can really add up the miles. It's entirely possible that she can do this feat and with little training as it can be entirely dependant on her running style.
 
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