The mile run is a very common fitness/cardiovascular measurement. As bench-pressing is a very common strength measurement.
If I had said "who can do the 15 meter shuttle run in under 8 seconds and also do lat raises of 40 pounds or more", that would an arbitrary set of criteria. Opposite of the mile and benching, the shuttle run and lat raises are not commonly performed measurements of fitness.
Running a mile and bench-pressing are not an arbitrary set of criteria. Therefore, in this case, rare does equal impressive.