That's the whole point though: I picked 400 pounds on purpose because I looked at a couple charts and it seemed like that was maybe close enough to the 16:30 5K that the point would stand.

And I know what you're saying, but for the question itt, making it a % of body weight is exactly wrong, because a 16:30 5K isn't a sliding scale, 16:30 is a concrete number. It's not like we're going to have different goal times for, say, people whose mitochondria aren't as naturally good at producing aerobic energy as other people's.

And the 250 lb number you threw out is also exactly my point. Because if the whole world was devoted to benching, then I'll bet a ton of people would be able to get to 250--hey, maybe even 95%. Some guys would get it right away without breaking a sweat. Most guys would have to work at it. Some would ultimately have to put on tons of weight, they'd have to go totally against their natural body type, and only then would they eke it out. We can all imagine how this would play out.

But a 250 lb bench press is many galaxies away from a 400lb bench press. And here's a related point: a 400 lb bench press is still a looong way away from a 375lb bench press. The temptation with stuff like this is to think: well jfc, if a guy can bench 375 then CMON we can DEFINITELY get him to squeeze out those last 25 lbs, he just has to WANT IT MORE and TRY HARDER or SOMETHING.

but that's not how bell curves and inverse-square slopes and stuff like that works. People want to think that everyone is capable of everything like we're all living in the mf'ing celestine prophecy, and yeah I even agree that most things are like that. But super duper elite achievement isn't like that.

ok maybe a 16:30 5k isn't super duper elite, but man it's awfully elite. And anyway, if the other side of the argument is true, then where would it end? If we could all run a 16:30, then why not a 15:30, or a 13 flat? The 16:30 number was always pretty arbitrary and it was just too low for this debate.

Grunching, but this thread is kind of LOL. OP's 100m times indicate he definitely has some natural running ability, but it's not even that 22 is miles away from 16:30, it's that even 18 is pretty far away from 16:30.

I was down to low 17s in H.S., training every day with some pretty good coaches. Unless I went to some crazy training level, I think my natural ability basically put 17 as around my ceiling.

I think with a year of good training you could get into the high teens (maybe 18-19), but then you still have so far to go and it's partially dependant on natural ability.

Also, to whomever said when he's at 16:30 he'll also be at a 4:45 mile, I think it'd be more like sub-4:40.

You might be surprised how much farther you could have gone if you had stuck with it.

FWIW, this thread interests me because I pretty much lived this prop bet. I was at about the same fitness level at almost the same age as OP when I started running, only I have nowhere near his pure speed. I spent 2 years just trying to get out for some miles 3-4x a week and would sign up for an occasional race before finally deciding to learn something about training and trying to improve. My first 5k was 20:33 which was about 9 months after getting into the habit. 3 years after starting to really train (5 years total) I was at 16:42, and 5 years after starting to train I ran my PR of 16:07. Over those years, probably 80% of the time I'm running 40-60 miles a week, so consistent, but not truly dedicated. I consider myself above average but nowhere near exceptional. The hardest parts for OP would be getting volume up to 60-70mpw or beyond without injury and actually enjoying running enough to continue with it.

By 250+ pounds, I actually meant body weight. I think mst people who got up to 250+ with drugs and good training could probably put up 400 for one rep. It'd only be about a 1.5x bodyweight press -- not the easiest thing but with drugs and the imaginary scenario we invented, doesn't feel innately hard either.

Have to keep in mind all the obese people or skinny twigs we see everyday have likely not trained a single day in their life or desired to do so in anyway. I've personally never seen anyone who made a real effort in training for anything physically that hasn't made very good progress. Adding in drugs and trainers and a billion dollars to prove a point or whatever just makes a lot of physical feats much more possible.

For all the runners that have posted great times in the past, do you really think there wasn't tons of room for improvement with regards to a slightly better running program, some more time in the weight room, fantastic nutrition with really good macros, 10 hours of sleep a day, not drinking and smoking weed, etc? Even though I'm sure you gave it your all during practice and meets, I think there must be tons of indirect improvements that would've made you guys better.