Background: I was a pretty good 400/800 guy back in high school (class of '06). PRs were a 50.9 400, 1:55 800, and 49.X relay split. I didn't join my college's track team, but I still ran 2-3 times a month and didn't gain much weight.
One day at work, a discussion about running comes up. People start speculating on who's the fastest, and the leading candidate is Mr. Weekend Warrior, the tallest guy in the office. He stands 6'3", and people think that his long legs will carry him to victory. He claims to have done nothing except sit on his butt from Monday to Friday, though he does play sports on the weekends. I challenge him, and he's confident enough to bet me 10 bucks that he'll win. The only rule is that we can't wear spikes or use starting blocks since he doesn't have any.
We soon set up a 400 meter race. Weekend warrior gets lane 3, and I get lane 2. He takes off surprisingly fast, and it takes a lot of effort to keep up. When we reach the 200, we're roughly even. I'm already quite tired at this point, but I figure I have a good chance of winning because I have a lot more track experience than he does. Instead, he takes one look back, puts it into a different gear, and crosses the finish line in 54. I end up death-marching the last 100 and finish in 57.
As I paid him the $10, I wondered if he was lying about his previous training. It seems unlikely that anyone with that little physical activity would be able to run a 54 second 400 in tennis shoes, and if he did have that much talent, he would have been recruited as a professional athlete. What does the letsrun crowd think of this? I do know a few people who've run that fast without any running training, but they've been seriously training for other sports on a daily basis.