How fast do you think the ancient olympians were?

my understanding is they ran multiples of "stades," ie laps around the stadium, with the loop being about 190m. common races, 1 stade or 2 stades. or up to about 20 stades which is roughly 2.25 miles. the first two seem basically like an indoor 200 or 400.

i think the horseshoe athens stadium from 1896 is supposed to be semi-like what it used to be (and was built on the ruins of an all old racetrack). i've actually run on the thing. it's long with less curve.

the romans would have understood time in terms of the sun and the hour. minutes and seconds are a mechanical thing which is roughly renaissance to industrial era. like the poster said, it would have been about who won the race. not what time.

if we put a watch to it, i assume worse than 1896. 1896 they had the beginnings of leather running shoes with spikes. if you look at 1896 olympic times it's basically JV level times, 12s 100m, 54s 400m, 4:33 1500m, and that's for the fastest.

the quasi-fascist thing pretending about natural foods, they did mill and ferment some stuff, but you're reading modern sensibilities and knowledge into the past. they would not have eaten well, they would have gorged. they would have understood marching and getting people used to walking distances. i don't think they would have had a clue how to make a runner. they would have picked natural ones. who would then probably get out of shape or ill and become useless. they would have run barefoot. the land in greece is mountainous/craggy/rock hard. there were no antibiotics. there was poor sanitation. life expectancy was like 20-30 years. it's a fake golden age to imitate.