New Yorker: How Fast Would Usain Bolt Run The Mile? - Yours truly bets his house it would be over 5+

rojo wrote:

Older guy wrote:

In fact, give Bolt 2-3 years and he could become very good at soccer, football, basketball, tennis, or any number of other sports. If he had started as a teen, maybe one of the greatest.

Great athletes are not like the rest of us. Most can do nearly anything athletic very well, even if they are world class in only one narrow specialty.

Tell that to Michael Jordan. The GOAT wasn't able to make the majors in baseball.

You think Bolt could be great at tennis. Are you crazy? Tennis players have incredible quickness side to side.

Bolt isn't a great athlete. He's a great runner. The number of guys that ran for me at Cornell that told me that they started running because they "got cut from baseball, soccer, etc" is a long one.

MJ in the NBA: 3:45 miler. MJ in baseball: 4:05 miler . He was very,very good. Just not close to his level

I haven't read through this thread and I'm sure I'm repeating what has already been said. Anyone who has been around running for long time as an athlete and/or coach knows there is truly a physiological difference between a ‘true’ sprinter and a ‘true’ distance runner. While there are middle distance athletes who fall somewhere in the middle, but a true sprinter (such as Bolt) will excel at the 100/200 and can usually run a fairly decent 400. They can actually run a good 400m if they train for it, but if they train to run the 400m, it will usually be at the expense of the 100m. There is a reason why no world class 100m sprinter has ever competed equally as successful in the 400m. Pure sprinters don’t focus on breathing and are in touch with the sensations of their cardiovascular system. It is not uncommon to see 100m sprinters race without taking a breath; the 100m is almost purely anaerobic. However, the 400 and anything above that starts to tax physiological systems they are not built for and are not in touch with. I have known several 45x 400m sprinters who can’t break 1:55 in the 800m and asking them to run a mile is like asking them to run a marathon.

With that said, most world class ‘true’ sprinters could absolutely run sub-5 in the mile if you could ever get them to run it all out. Bolt could probably run well below sub-5, but again the problem would be getting him to run it all out. When ‘true’ sprinters get tired, they slow down…plain and simple. True sprinters are physiologically and perhaps more important, mentally inept at running distance. Every now and then you have an outlier, I had a high school teammate who was a 10.4 100m sprinter who loved running cross country and would occasionally run a 5K road race as world class sprinter. However. he was one of those kids who came up through the AAU age group system where it was not uncommon for the sprinters to XC in the fall. Although this particular sprinter was unique, but it does show that sprinters can run a decent mile as in 5 minutes if they ran it as hard a real miler would.

I agree with a lot of this, but I disagree on one part. These sprinters are more physiologically bound than mentally bound. By a long way. As yourself why a distance runner has no hope of running a decent 100m. Is it because he just didn't try hard enough to get out the blocks?

What happened to the last 7-10 posts?

xcskier66 wrote:

I'm on record as no way could he run 5:00 for the mile.

Wejo is correct. us distance runners don't generally understand sprinting.

Sprinting is a completely different skill set than distance running. They are 100% mutually exclusive. You can't be good at the 100m/200m and the mile at the same time. The amount of power required to sprint fast really decreases how much you can run for distance.

I feel like if Bolt got a world class distance coach and trained for several years he could get below five. It would take a 100% change in his training to get there though and lots of time. He would probably get injured as well.

I'm sure someone will continue to bring up some analogy about some random 10.0 100m guy running 4:06 in the mile or some BS but I don't believe it.

What's really amazing is that people here think that Carl Lewis really couldn't run much faster than 2:17 for 800m.

As a middle schooler who played sports 2-3 times a week, I ran ~2:20 for 800m with zero specific training. That was a relatively mediocre result, as I didn't even place in my conference where other 13/14 yr olds were running 2:15 or so.

You think a bunch of regular 13/14 yr olds barely entering puberty and coming off a couple years of sporadic soccer/basketball practice can run 2 laps faster than Usain Bolt?

I also ran ~5:25 for the mile in middle school gym class, on an actual track in trainers. I dropped 10+ sec almost every time I raced it, so I wouldn't be surprised if I could have run 5:10 or so. You think some regular 13 yr old who never played organized sports and only ran in soccer/basketball games 2x a week would beat Usain Bolt in a mile?

Seriously, have you not read any of the thread? You are entitled to your opinion, but your just restating something that has been said many times. OK, we get it, lots of people who aren't what would generally be considered amazing athletes have run a 5-minute mile or thereabouts.

Look, maybe you can go out and find a 9 year-old undernourished girl and discover that she runs a 5:00 mile with no training, and that won't change the fact that Usain Bolt can't do it.

The point is, you can't keep using the "transitive property" of athletic talent to argue that Bolt can run sub-5 ("he's amazing at 100/200, pretty good at 400, anybody that runs a 45 second 400 can jog a sub-2 800, anybody that can run sub-2:00 for 800 can easily break 5:00 in the mile, etc). By that logic, he should be able to run a half-decent ultra, too. And you can't use the "I was a 98-lb weakling who ran a 4:40 mile, therefore studly Usain can easily beat that". These lines of reasoning are tempting at first glance, but are quickly crushed by the cold hard facts.

All posters, henceforth, PLEASE DO NOT USE EITHER OF THE FOLLOWING 2 FALLACIES:

The "A 5-Minute Mile is Really Slow compared to 9.58 100m" fallacy, which posits that for somebody who can run an incredible sprint time, a sub-5 mile is a given because it is so much more common. A sub-3 marathon is probably even less impressive than a sub-5 mile, but Bolt would probably need several days for a marathon.

The "Wimpy 13-Year-Old Boy" fallacy, which states that some young, underdeveloped weakling was able to run Time X for the mile, and therefore the world's fastest sprinter could easily beat Time X.

Castle Thickskull wrote:

Seriously, have you not read any of the thread? You are entitled to your opinion, but your just restating something that has been said many times.

*you're

disgraceful_admin wrote:

Castle Thickskull wrote:

Seriously, have you not read any of the thread? You are entitled to your opinion, but your just restating something that has been said many times.

*you're

Most of these posters are treating Bolt as if he's some kind of cripple. He spends hours working out every day and runs 19.X 200m and likely sub-45 400m. You think he'd collapse after 5 minutes of moderate jogging.

As a young teenager when he was playing soccer/cricket regularly before becoming a world class 400m junior, he'd have been able to crush the "regular kids" I mentioned above that you find in every school at 800m/mile. He'd have run sub-5 no problem. And since then, he's added muscle weight while setting world records, but he's also engaged in 12 years of daily training, hours a day. He'll crush 5 minutes without issue.

It's been well documented that DiscoGary knows diddly about running. But anytime he gets into a discussion about anything reason and rational discourse are skunked. Time to move along.

Rojo's Wejo wrote:

da plantation wrote:

first of all, bolt would never run a mile. bolt is too lazy and shiftless to put 5 minutes of effort into anything

If you don't think bolt works hard then you have some sort of dismorphia

Bolt only works hard at lounging around.

disgraceful_admin wrote:

disgraceful_admin wrote:

*you're

Most of these posters are treating Bolt as if he's some kind of cripple. He spends hours working out every day and runs 19.X 200m and likely sub-45 400m. You think he'd collapse after 5 minutes of moderate jogging.

As a young teenager when he was playing soccer/cricket regularly before becoming a world class 400m junior, he'd have been able to crush the "regular kids" I mentioned above that you find in every school at 800m/mile. He'd have run sub-5 no problem. And since then, he's added muscle weight while setting world records, but he's also engaged in 12 years of daily training, hours a day. He'll crush 5 minutes without issue.

Rojo's Wejo has become disgraceful_admin. What a loser.

No.

But idk why the posts are being deleted. Perhaps Rojo has realized what a mistake he made and is trying to cover up the evidence.

Boreal muskeg wrote:

It's been well documented that DiscoGary knows diddly about running. But anytime he gets into a discussion about anything reason and rational discourse are skunked. Time to move along.

Well documented reason and rational Discourse?

This thread is designed to force Bolt into running a Challenge Mile under LR sponship.

Where do you see any rational discourse around here?

We are creating controversy by making it look like we don't all know that Bolt can crush 5:00 any time he wants.

Obviously you are over-dosing on Pepto Bismal right now, you moran.

So get with the program, fall in line, and do your part, you moran.

DiscoGary wrote:

[quote]Boreal muskeg wrote:

This thread is designed to force Bolt into running a Challenge Mile under LR sponship.

That's what I thought too. I figured if his thread got 500 responses in a couple days it would gain traction in the mainstream (Rw, ESPN or si etc.)

And some celebrity like mark Cuban would make a big bet with another celebrity and bolt would oblige them after the olympics and attempt a mile with HS runners.

Because I genuinely want to know

Unless someone has additional results, here are the HARD FACTS AND RESULTS that we have unearthed in this thread:

WR for the 100m (FAT) for world-class milers (sub-3:50/3:33 1500m) is:

12.98

WR mile for world-class sprinters (sub-10 100m):

8:00

Anyone with better marks feel free to contribute.

Dafne shippers 2:08 800m

Ashton eaton 4:40 mile equivalent (same bmi as bolt)

Usain bolt 45 second 400 m, 18 year track career with lots of over distance intervals under his belt.

Richard Hamilton 6'5" 210 lbs 4:38 mile

Jermey Warner runs first 800m in 1:53.xx

Rojo's wejo wrote:

DiscoGary wrote:

[quote]Boreal muskeg wrote:

This thread is designed to force Bolt into running a Challenge Mile under LR sponship.

That's what I thought too. I figured if his thread got 500 responses in a couple days it would gain traction in the mainstream (Rw, ESPN or si etc.)

And some celebrity like mark Cuban would make a big bet with another celebrity and bolt would oblige them after the olympics and attempt a mile with HS runners.

That's the only reason I started posting here... seriously. I saw what was happening and I knew I could add my own flavor of Stat Geek to the mix and help the cause. Apparently there are people outside the running community who wonder how fast Bolt could run the mile. Who knew?

I also wanted to throw around some gratuitous insults because I keep all my political posts clean and this gives me a chance to do some trash talking and blow off some steam.

I hope it works. The key is who he runs against. It's all about the pace.

You're a bunch of ignorant maggots!

Castle Thickskull wrote:

All posters, henceforth, PLEASE DO NOT USE EITHER OF THE FOLLOWING 2 FALLACIES:

The "A 5-Minute Mile is Really Slow compared to 9.58 100m" fallacy, which posits that for somebody who can run an incredible sprint time, a sub-5 mile is a given because it is so much more common. A sub-3 marathon is probably even less impressive than a sub-5 mile, but Bolt would probably need several days for a marathon.

The "Wimpy 13-Year-Old Boy" fallacy, which states that some young, underdeveloped weakling was able to run Time X for the mile, and therefore the world's fastest sprinter could easily beat Time X.