How impressive is a sub 15 5k at age 40?

Yep, when we see a +40 yo achieve his first sub 4 that'll be remarkable

According to MastersRankings.com, it’s EXTREMELY impressive. However, the World Record for Masters Men is Bernard Legat’s 13:06.78 that he set in Rio in 2016, (link to top-100 ever in the World here):

In comparison, in the Men’s 40-44 age group:

Only 12 men in the WORLD broke 15 minutes in 2022 (No Americans) on the TRACK

-NO one broke 15 minutes on the road (World best was 15:36.0)

Only 15 men in the WORLD broke 15 minutes in 2021 (No Americans) on the TRACK

-Only FIVE men broke 15 minutes on the road (World best was 13:53.0h)

Etc, etc.

List of yearly rankings here:

Hope you find this information useful!

You can throw out most road times. Courses just aren’t that accurate in general.

It amazes me what people downvote.

I imagine all male pro runners can do this without a problem if they stay competitive to that age. Google Marofit Mourad in NYRR races. He is I believe closest example to answer that question. Probably not training at the level he used to though. This was his marathon pace not long ago. Sub 14 5K would be much more impressive.

2022 NYRR Washington Heights Salsa, Blues, and Shamrocks 5K 15:04
Gender/Age M40
Time Age‑Graded
0:14:18
Percentage Age‑Graded
90.83%

That's a fun site. I have to wonder if it's submission only though? And only for people paying for the site? It doesn't list results from any of the fast masters races I ran last year.

OH! That I don’t know! (I know that as the USATF Masters Indoor Champs and WMA WORLD Indoor Champs were going on the results on there were updated fairly instantly).

What’s an example of a fast Masters race you competed in last year? I’d be curious to look some things up.

This is an interesting calculator but it's not really accurate for older runners. I entered my marathon PR from way back in 1981 of 2:41 and it put me in the top 1%. That's a nice compliment but hardly true. I finished 602nd in that race (New York city marathon). Sub 3 hour marathoners were much more common then than they are now.

If this is true then age grades are a joke. Bernard Lagat could have run backwards half the race and ran sub 15 for road 5k at age 40.

See my post above. Bullet got the wrong figures.

Exactly. He ran 13:06 at age 40 - and probably would have been in 27 flat shape as well.

Ridiculous. Bernard Lagat ran 27:49.35 for 10,000m on the track when he was 41 (pre-Super Spikes). He ran even faster on the roads.

I could run about 15:00 for 5k when I was 41. I doubt that I ever came very close to 14:00 5k when I was younger.

And what about guys like Bekele and Abdi?

yes you have to submit, most marks are not on this site, it would look completely different if they were.

My old high school coach ran 2:02 800m, 4:26 Indoor mile, 15:24 road 5k (certified course), 26:08 8k between 42 and 44 years of age. After turning 42 he ran that 15:24 after a couple 15:35-40 races. Course was fairly flat. He wanted to run 15:15 (within 10secvof his college PR of 15:06, set 75min after a 3:57 1500m) but that was as close as he could get. I always figured 2sec a mile faster on track than roads, 3-4sec faster on track than flat, cropped grass. So maybe a 15:16-18 effort. Not bad in my book, though I'm sure others have done better. He actually took 2 years off from running to go back to grad school and having his 2nd kid. So 39-41yrs of age he missed a lot of training.

The thing that limits you as you get past 35, 36 is you can't do the really fast stuff, or a lot of volume of moderately fast stuff because you risk strains and it takes more time to recover. So breaking 15:00 past 40yrs is impressive. Requires quite a bit of quality volume to do that, and that is hard on body at that age.

Trained with a crew of sub-16 masters runners (5k-half focus) for a good bit in my early 20s. It was crazy then & it's crazy now. Sub-15 as a masters is next level. Obviously pros that are running well into their late 30s can do it. Good college athletes that never really stop running/training might be able to do it. Percentage-wise well into the top-1%.

at least from my experience, and from seeing other high level masters runners, this is patently untrue. loss in speed at that age is more from "use it or lose it" training, and given that there have been some 40 year olds who've gone sub-4 or close, not to mention lagat, it's clear that for the most part you can hang onto your speed into your 40s. other reasons you may lose it, though, are that you simply don't care enough to maintain it. but i would argue that anyone who's held onto their fitness until 35 will NOT see a rapid, or even significant, decline in their abilities if they continue to train hard. of course, everyone ages differently, but most examples of those who've struggled with age issues at 40 probably had the same issues at 30, or even 20.

age 45 and up is a different story...

And of course this is a lie but we all get your point.

Carlsbad 5000

Yakima Mile

Portland Track Festival (has the masters mile winner, but not #2 who should appear on the 45-49 list)

Admittedly, top world class athletes can still run very fast times into their early 40s. However, to be at that level they have to train very hard and the body just can't handle that anymore. So they are able to do it on their previous training for a few years as their training slows down. But they soon realize it is an uphill battle and they won't make a living anymore running 20+ seconds slower at 5k so they move on. In reality, their decline would probably be pretty rapid if they did try to continue as decreased training load and inevitable injuries took hold.

Socal Cush was a sub 4 miler when less than 200 Americans had done it. That is off the charts talent. I witnessed him run approximately 14:20 on the track in his early 40s. He also set the US 1500m M45 National Record. He may think it is no big deal as people who do amazing things often think (If I could do it, anybody could!). Pre also thought he wasn't talented. Sub 15 is exceptionally rare for a masters runner. The numbers somebody posted prove this.

Ignore road race times unless they are at a legitimate race like Carlsbad (which Socal Cush also won several times in the 14s).

Masters Rankings pulls in most bigger meets automatically. Smaller meets have to be posted to them, then they pull in all results from the meet. Most of the best times are there, but slower times may not be.