Originally Posted by
rubiksoval
6-8 years of consistent, highish-volume, structured training to reach full aerobic potential according to a rather famous Italian running coach.
Sounds about right in my experience.
How good you are at any point during those first 6-8 years is pretty personal and varied, and of course, very, very few actually do an appropriate workload for such a long time to actually see what their full potential is...
Long story short: you can very likely keep getting better as long as you're pushing your body to adapt.
Sorry, but I don't see it. As I said in my earlier post, the amount of time to reach a level depends on where you start. Two individuals may be able to someday run a mile in 4 minutes. However, the one who presently runs a mile in 4:10 will probably achieve it before the person running a mile in 5:00.