How many random 20 year old guys could you beat if they formed a relay and ran 100m each?

gauntlet wrote:

So let's say you have a large number of able-bodied 20 year old men who form a relay and run 100m each. They don't have any training aside from what they're already doing in their lives now.

With that said, how many of them do you think you could take on before the relay team pulls ahead? I think I could handle a 20x100 relay team, but not a 25x100 team.

You would handle two, maybe three. If you're a sub 48 you'd maybe outrun four.

Between 20 and 3? How is it possible to be that far out of the ballpark on a thought experiment devised by yourself?

Not many, but I am 70 years old.

Most of the guys at my college could run around 15 seconds for a 100 if I had to guess. Maybe the athletic types would be around 13-14, former track runners 12-13. If they average 14s, I would be dead even with 8 of them. If they average 15s, I would be somewhere around 12, maybe a couple more. So I’d guess something in that range, 8-12 guys. This is assuming I’m at peak track fitness though. Right now I could probably handle 6-10.

John Scott wrote:

gauntlet wrote:

So let's say you have a large number of able-bodied 20 year old men who form a relay and run 100m each. They don't have any training aside from what they're already doing in their lives now.

With that said, how many of them do you think you could take on before the relay team pulls ahead? I think I could handle a 20x100 relay team, but not a 25x100 team.

You would handle two, maybe three. If you're a sub 48 you'd maybe outrun four.

The average 20 year old male could not run a 12 second 100 right now. Average 20 year old male on the track team, yes. Average 20 year old male given proper training, yes. But that's not what the question was asking.

And no, I don't run sub 48 or even sub 50.

I have a different perspective. This isn't the same as asking how long could you hold 15s/100m pace. It's about people, and how these challenge kind of things are likely to unfold.

I would say you only have to beat the first 4 or maybe 8 before the rest give up. If you're 50m or 100m ahead, nobody is thinking, "We just each need to makeup 2 m, and we'll catch him after 20 of us have run." Nope. If you get a 25-50m lead, you have it won.

Also, I think you're vastly overestimating the speed of the "random 20 year old" and their collective ability to pass a baton without slowing down. Average 20 year olds are not going to be 15s/100m. It's going to be maybe 20s, but then they are also giving up a few second on each exchange. If you can run 800m in 2:30-2:45, I think they start to give up and you're home free.

John Scott wrote:

gauntlet wrote:

So let's say you have a large number of able-bodied 20 year old men who form a relay and run 100m each. They don't have any training aside from what they're already doing in their lives now.

With that said, how many of them do you think you could take on before the relay team pulls ahead? I think I could handle a 20x100 relay team, but not a 25x100 team.

You would handle two, maybe three. If you're a sub 48 you'd maybe outrun four.

Between 20 and 3? How is it possible to be that far out of the ballpark on a thought experiment devised by yourself?

My first thought was that the OP might have to be a sub-4 miler in order to beat these 20+ randos. But I think you’re way off the mark in the opposite direction.

I figure when I could run 1:56 for 800, my answer, on average, would have been “8+”. I think the average 100m for generally untrained, 20 year old randos is in that 14-15” range.

Of course, if it’s a random draw for the early legs, they could have a dramatic impact on the outcome of this hypothetical. If you draw a guy who was a varsity sprinter in high school and has stayed fit and active, you could be out before you rally “1.” If you draw a dude who’s already pushing 3-hundy, you could be 10” ahead at the first exchange which gives you a lot of breathing room.

You seem to be assuming each of these generic dudes can run 12.0. Maybe if you interpreted the question as “A large number of athletic 20 year olds conspire to beat you in this contest and are able to select the better sprinters to run first” than I see where you’re coming from, but I don’t think that’s what the OP meant.

So OP, you a sub-4 miler or what?

Yeah, there's no chance an average 20 y.o. male could run 12s. The other question is do we take into account a rolling start? If not, I think the average would be closer to 20s -- I'm just thinking about the 100 or so males that lived on my college dorm floor. There's no chance most of them could run a 15s 100 from a dead stop.

So going with 20s per guy, peak fitness probably between 200-210 guys. Assuming my math is correct.

Realistically, this is just another exercise in "what could the average male run 'x' distance in".

Sorry for the triple post, but if you actually are asking "until they pull ahead" it's probably less because you'd have to randomly surge to beat a fast kid every now and then instead of just taking the average time.

I think it's fair to estimate an average of 15 second 100's for these average 20-year-old's at best.

Some of them might run down around 12, but more of them will be over 15 and some over 20. I would guess that the average will be 16+ seconds. Also, they're average guys, which means most of them never ran track or did a hand-off before, so they'll be bad at that and lose some time at each transition.

Realistically, the question probably comes down to how long can you sustain a 4:34/mile pace. So, I could probably only beat 10-12 of these guys.

I would even go a bit higher. There are many flabby 5'10" 195 pound nerds who are 20. Those guys would run 25 seconds. I put the average at 17.5 which is a 4:40 mile. How far can I go at 4:40? Nowhere these days. And it is not really the average that would kill a good runner but the randomness. If the first guy runs 13 and you have to be ahead at each handoff, even a world class runner may be out very early.

I don't think that the intent of the question is how many until you are not in the lead. I think that if you fell behind but you could still catch, then the race goes on.

However, since there are an infinite amount of average 20-year-old guys, eventually they will run away from anyone, even Kipchoge. He might be able to beat 400 of them, but he probably couldn't beat 500 of them.

John Wesley Harding wrote:

So OP, you a sub-4 miler or what?

Hell no! My 1500 PR is 4:06.

I think the randomly selected guys are going to have trouble with handoffs and motivation. If the slow and clumsy guys go first, the faster ones aren't going to put in a lot of effort to close the gap.

John Scott wrote:

You would handle two, maybe three. If you're a sub 48 you'd maybe outrun four.

The random 20 year old definitely does not run a 12 flat 100.

Even sub 15 is questionable in the US or Europe. Less fat countries like Japan, about 14 flat maybe would be the average. Still hard to beat all 20, maybe Komen or H. el G. H. could do it

There is no chance that the average 20 yo male can run 15 seconds! Including the poor handoffs, which would result in essentially a dead stop time, the average will be 20 seconds or more.

That's 80 seconds per lap, 5:20 per mile. Kipchoge could run that for 35 miles, even if you factor in the surges for the odd 14 second athlete. There's no way to tell when/if a 12 second runner would come along. Even then, I'd take Kipchoge on a rolling start.

That's 560 guys. Then he might start losing steam.

I may be able to get them for 800m. This is assuming they’ll run somewhere between 14-15 splits.

This same question comes up all the time.

"Random" guys running 100 meters would go like this. Yes, even those 20 years old.

7 of them would start walking by 70 meters.

Two might run 16-18 seconds.

One might run a high 14.

There is a massive disconnect here with general fitness in the US.

titsmcgee wrote:

There is no chance that the average 20 yo male can run 15 seconds!

Don't be so sure. It's proven the Japanese can. the comedians from Gaki no Tsukai ran 100's for fun FAT on a show and all but one could run sub 15. Two were sub 14. These were 20 and 30 something dudes with nothing athletic about them.

It all depends on whether you are from a fat country.

I posted a video of that show a while back, you can probably find it by searching "gaki tsukai"

Agreed. I could break 15 (Albeit barely) as a chubby, top heavy, lazy, late on puberty 14 year old FAT in worn out trainers.