what's harder- 4:59 mile or 2:59 marathon?

Nice thread.

As someone who never plans to run a marathon I can't give any opinion on how hard that would be.

I guess you have to ask that question for each age group.

Agree, all about the age, gender, and natural strengths. I am a female, and broke 5 rather easily in college, with 40ish miles per week of running, and the typical speed work. Five years later, I am shooting to break 3 in the marathon, and while I think it will happen, I'm putting in much more effort (mileage in the 60s to 70, longer workouts, long runs, etc.) to do it. For me, I'd say sub-3 is harder to achieve.

Of course the degree of difficulty varies from runner to runner, with age being a factor.

What we need to know is how many runners have seriously attempted both and divide that into the number who accomplished the feat. The one with the lowest percentage would be the more difficult.

However,the age-graded tables indicate that the 5 min mile requires more talent?

In terms of physical demand on the body, the act of running a marathon at a certain % of your ability will always be more taxing than running the mile at the same % of your ability.

If you are going by the "which event is physically more taxing " then the Marathon wins. The mile has much shorter recovery time.

However, you have to treat a question like this as "For someone who has equivalent ability in the mile and marathon, which is harder, 4:59 or 2:59?". Based on Data compiled by Mercier, IAAF, and numerous other calculators, a 4:59 is a better equivalent performance than 2:59.

Depends on age,etc. I'm in my late 50's and there is no way I could run a sub 5:00 mile but I can run sub 3:00 hours for the marathon.

Assuming we are only looking at men (I apologize, ladies) .

Why are we assuming that we are only looking at men? Oh, yes, it's because we are always assuming that all post are by men. :rolleyes:

... Based on Data compiled by Mercier, IAAF, and numerous other calculators, a 4:59 is a better equivalent performance than 2:59.

This is the obvious answer and I'm surprised there is even any question.

IMO the young guns are sure the 4:59 is easier because they don't understand that marathon goals are easily attainable IF you can put in the required training- and that takes time- certainly a lot more time than the mile demands. So I think it's just a youthful lack of perspective. And I also thank Benji and Orville for their very seasoned and sage two cents here.

frozen north wrote:

Assuming we are only looking at men (I apologize, ladies) .

Why are we assuming that we are only looking at men? Oh, yes, it's because we are always assuming that all post are by men. :rolleyes:

Well because letsrun is well over 50% male I think that is a decent assumption.

Challenged both of these goals in my mid to later 30's for the first time. Worked much harder for sub 5 and only barely after a few tries before eventually getting down to 4:48, but went 2:47 on my first marathon. Sub 2:40 though...different story and to be continued.

MarathonMind wrote:

... Based on Data compiled by Mercier, IAAF, and numerous other calculators, a 4:59 is a better equivalent performance than 2:59.

This is the obvious answer and I'm surprised there is even any question.

Whatever. I can name a couple dozen guys off the top of my head who could go out the door tomorrow and run 26.2 4:59 miles non-stop.

Any of you guys care to name 1 (ONE) person, hell, any ANIMAL that could do the same feat with 2:59 marathons?

kartelite wrote:

[quote]... Based on Data compiled by Mercier, IAAF, and numerous other calculators, a 4:59 is a better equivalent performance than 2:59.

By the way, I don't see anything in the question about "equivalent performance." But way to subtly change the topic.

kartelite wrote:

Any of you guys care to name 1 (ONE) person, hell, any ANIMAL that could do the same feat with 2:59 marathons?

Scott Jurek

o.O wrote:

kartelite wrote:

Any of you guys care to name 1 (ONE) person, hell, any ANIMAL that could do the same feat with 2:59 marathons?

Scott Jurek

Really? 686 miles in less than 80 hours? Jurek's best 50-mile on the road is 5:50. If he kept that pace up for ANOTHER 636 MILES he still wouldn't make it. If he can't manage it for 50 miles what the hell makes you think he could possibly do it for a race over 1370% as long???

Are you just a really bad troll or really bad at math?

kartelite wrote:

o.O wrote:

Scott Jurek

Really? 686 miles in less than 80 hours? Jurek's best 50-mile on the road is 5:50. If he kept that pace up for ANOTHER 636 MILES he still wouldn't make it. If he can't manage it for 50 miles what the hell makes you think he could possibly do it for a race over 1370% as long???

Are you just a really bad troll or really bad at math?

And don't say he has really poor acceleration so it takes time for him to build up to speed.

For me, the sub 3:00 marathon would be much harder. In my only outdoor mile ever, I ran 4:50 at age 16, and with focus on that event the time would have been much better.

However, I find it very difficult to even run 1:30 for the 1/2 marathon, and a 3:00 marathon is probably out of my reach.

But, I have always had much more speed than endurance (was mostly 400/800 guy). Even now at age 40, I could probably break 5 with a few months of specific training, but breaking 3 would require an astronomical amount of work, and a lot of luck on avoiding injuries as well.

for me it was the 4:59 mile! that is my Pr...only ran that fast once and it was an all-out effort....but my marathon best is 2:43.

Funny how the same threads get recycled

Another way to look at it:

A large percantage of people who run 3hr's could never run 5 minutes for the mile no matter what they do.

There's nobody who can run 5 min mile who couldnt break 3 if they trained enough/correctly.

Simple as that.

5 is better.

THey are exactly the same.