Could you outrun a thousand random people of the same age and gender as you?

The people who beat him on the marathon don't need to be close on the 5k. He's gonna be worn down over 400/800/Mile/5K while other guys can run a nice even paced 10k/Half/Marathon.

And sure he's not going to run a 17 min 5k for no reason, but theres no chance he could get 17min 5k first because he can only do a 17:06, but also because he's going to have to run a fast first mile that will blow up his 5k. No chance he runs even paces 5:30s for the 5k and makes it to the first 800.

Pick 1000 random 22 year old men, and the odds of getting even one guy who can run a 14:xx 5000 right now will be pretty low.

My high school had ~1100 males, 250-300 in each graduating class. AFAIK, none of them ran under 15 in HS or college even though we were one of the better teams in the area. Heck, I was the fastest distance guy in HS, and my college PR was just a few seconds under 15:30.

Your making the assumption the 1000 would have 5 decent runners- a 5 minute miler, an 18 min 5k guy, 38 minute 10k guy, 1:25 half guy and 3:00 marathon guy.

Based on the calculator I posted, the marathon one is most likely and you have a .2% chance of getting one of those. SO at best 2. Also the 18 minute guy means he only has to run like 18:30.

Anyways the odds you are getting 5 guys fast enough to wear him down are super low.

At an evenly-paced 17:06 5K, I'd be running a low 41" for my first 200m, which means that the sprinter would have to run that time for 300m due to the head start.

There are probably fewer than 1 in 1000 random 38 year olds who could run a 41" 300 right now, and even if I got unlucky, he'd be completely gassed by the time he finished that 300.

.2% chance of dying seems pretty high.

100 meters is far too short of a head start. As others have noted, the pack is going to have some speedsters chase you like mad from the gun, you run like hell to not get caught, then you die and get caught by a 5k/10k guy who didn't run the first few minutes like a madman.

I think to make this interesting at all, to hold them all off for an even hour, you probably need 800 meters so you can pace yourself and not have to sprint away from a sprinter up to an 800 meter runner. Even then, we would be assuming that you can outrun 1,000 people (all of them) for an hour and not give up more than about 3 minutes to any single one.

To hold them off for a day, you might need miles and miles of head start, and you would have to be a relatively accomplished ultra runner (or marathon runner at a minimum). If you burn out and walk, you get caught.

1,000 random people would likely have some fairly or very accomplished runners.

So you are going to start a 24-hour race with a 17:00 5k and then hold off 1,000 people, including many who know how to pace themselves?

The sprinter types don't have to catch you, they just have to make you run hard enough that one of the long distance types can catch you later. Filling in the middle with someone running their best mile, best 5k, best 10k, etc they're just trying to keep you running hard enough that you'll be forced to stop at some point.

Nailed it. Even if you hold off the sprinter, it's the good 10k guy that is going to put you into a place that you can't run well, if at all, for over 23 hours longer. And that's assuming you can run 24 hours at all, even with slow-start pacing.

You all are really ignoring how slow the general population is.

I could do this easily, but then again I am a pronghorn antelope, and what will an antelope do with $100 mil?

Having to run a 2:30 for the first 800 would mean that one of the 1000 would have to run a 2:13.3 800 and then maintain that pace for another 100.

There's no way that 1 in 1000 38-year-olds would be able to do that in their current condition.

You're ignoring how many people 1,000 is.

980 could be fat, slow, and irrelevant. If 20 can run and are organized, you lose.

No, I'm not. I already mentioned that .2% of the population of 30-39 year old males can beat 3 hours in the marathon. That goes down to .04% that can break 17 in the 5k.

You're looking at at most 2 guys who are fit out of the 1000 if it is randomly selected.

First 400 in 1:15 and first mile in 5:25. That's enough to take care of the sprinters and mid-distance guys without becoming exhausted. 38-year olds in the general population won't be running a 57"400 or a 5:04 mile, not even those in the 99.9th percentile.

I'll then look behind and see where everyone else is. The objective isn't trying to outrun an adult soccer team or a group of serious hikers or triathletes. There's probably going to be no depth to this group of random people - their best 5K guy is almost certainly the same person as their best marathoner, and their next-fastest guy would be far behind him.

If he's fairly close, I'll keep pushing at ~6 min/mile pace until he drops off. Odds are, this happens before the 2-mile mark. Once it's obvious that the closest person is nowhere near me, I'll slow down to a ~9 min/mile pace to recover.

My strategy from then on will be making sure that the next closest person is 300-400m behind. If the gap keeps increasing, I'll walk to recover, and if it narrows, I'll speed up.

Maybe a more interesting question is whether 1000 random Letsrun posters could catch Bekele or something like that.

I agree with the first paragraph but strongly disagree with the rest of your post.

A quarter mile head start in a 24-hour race would be in the runner's favor and may be worth risking your life for $100,000,000. It's basically the equivalent of getting lapped on a standard 400m track, but without the possibility of being boxed in or having to dodge other runners.

A relatively relaxed 7:00/mile pace would eliminate all of the sprinters and the 400/800 guys as well (nobody will be running a 2:36 1000). From then on, it's just holding off the distance guys. This doesn't require near-elite level ability, just the ability to be the fastest in a group of 1000 similarly-aged peers, which is like being the fastest runner at a typical high school.

For a 100m head start, I wouldn't take the bet. But for a 400m head start, I would.

You guys are assuming that sprinters and 800 guys blow their wad from the gun. You could have a Nick Symmonds type 800 runner who isn't too bad at 1-2 miles. They slowly edge to within 40m and then strike.

Could we make it 2pm? I'm usually busy at noon.