Could you beat a random american in a 1 mile race with your LIFE on the line?

100% yes easiest milli in my life. Prob would run it backwards

There are 350 million people in the US.. If we assume there are 10,000 people capable of sub-5 (the real number is surely less) the chance you would face one of them is less than 0.0003%... I would do this for a lot less than a million as it's free money at any amount, and if I die anyway, oh well, this world sucks

What if you and your opponent were selected, the selection made public, and then given exactly 1 year to train?

Average American can't run a mile. I would take the challenge 10 times. Risk of death like 1% or less.

Yes. There's like 500 Americans that could beat me in a mile right now, out of like 300 million. I'll take my chances.

I would absolutely do it. If Grant Fisher ends up being selected to run against me, I simply offer to split the $1 million with him in exchange for letting me win.

This number is pretty apt. I looked at an actuarial table for my age (26), and there's a 0.2% chance I die while I'm 26. On a single day, my chance of dying is about 0.0005%. Going by the numbers you came up with, most people my age have around that chance of dying per day, but most won't come up with $1 million on the day.

I wouldn't even hesitate. Have you seen the average American!?

I definitely wouldn't take the wager if we were talking about a random group of high school aged boys. But after HS people get fat and lazy in no time.

I’ve got 2 kids, wife, good financial situation, currently in 5:15 shape. I wouldn’t do it.

Interesting idea, but you should be less likely to want to do it 10 times than 1.

Think of it this way: suppose you are GIVEN the first million for free and then asked if you want to do the race. Maybe you would have done it for the first million, but now you've got your million, the next million isn't quite as life-changing, but the risk is still the same, so you turn it down. Doing the race enough times, eventually you'll get to the point where it is no longer worth the risk.

In other words, the marginal value of money decreases the more you have.

I am in sub-5 shape. Let's be generous and say that 25,000 Americans can run faster than that. 25,000/333000000=0.00007 A 1 in~15,000 chance that I am paired with someone faster than me. I'd take it... 24 y/o, renting, this would get me a house.

Same.

average american, maybe. Random? Heck no.

At 60 I can run around a 5:20 mile. I think my odds would be pretty solid. There are posters on here where the odds would all but guarantee victory -- even at my relatively slower speed I think the odds of drawing someone I couldn't beat easily from the world population must be like 1 in a million, something like that? If the genie performed his magic random selection spell and Yared Nuguse materialized, I'd admit I've had a good life and still think it was worth the shot.

It depends, in my age group, sure. I figure I've got a 90% chance and if it's an all out sprint I might die anyway. Outside my age group, no way.

I missed that you said random American as opposed to random person from anywhere in the world. The basic analysis remains though: what percentage of the population can beat my 5:20? It isn't that high.

I think the number is closer to 10,000, but you’re within an order of magnitude. Either way, your odds of losing at this exercise are far lower than your risk of dying in an automobile accident every year, and I assume most of the people who scoff at this exercise do that in order to earn a living and participate in society (for a far smaller payoff). The expected value of this exercise is very high.

There are 23k high schools in the US. You really think that most of them don’t have a single sub 5 miler? Even the sucky small HS in my area always had a couple of kids running 4:50s. Add in middle schoolers, college kids, athletes who never ran a mile(I.e soccer team), adult runners and so on and I would expect the number to be much higher. 5:00 was right around where talent thinned out quickly. My school had a dozen kids who could run sub 5. 3 ran sub 4:40. 1 was sub 4:30.

You are still going to end up with a smallish number and human brains suck at telling the difference between say 1:500 and 1:10k. We call both of them rare

Here’s some actual data:

medicalnewstoday.com

Average mile time by age and sex

Jessica Caporuscio, PharmD

The time it takes to run a mile depends on a person’s age, sex, and fitness level, among other factors. Various strategies can help a person improve their time. Learn more about average mile times here.

Link:www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/3262...

Looks like if you can run faster than 6:30 you have a <<1% chance of being beaten.