LateRunnerPhil wrote:
1776 wrote:
No they can't.
Ok, maybe not in the US with the large % of overweight people, but in most countries they can do it. Almost impossible not to run sub 17 in a 100m. Have you never done 60m dash or 100m dash in your middle or high school? I doubt anyone was unable to run sub 17 or the equivalent 60 dash time unless they were already extremely overweight. And that's without running-specific shoes and without training.
Sedentary lifestyles lead to TERRIBLE endurance/aerobic capacity, but a 100m sprint doesn't require this. You can't lose speed quickly no matter what you do, unless you get way too heavy. I'd like to see any proof of average 100m times that are higher than 17s in untrained subjects.
Well Mo Farah himself only just broke 13 seconds from the block in UK Superstars, and the Brownlee brothers ran 14.xx It's not a huge stretch to believe that a 'random person in the street' would struggle to run 17 seconds.
A high school runner is not the same as a 'random guy in the street'.
A 'random person in the street', even in European countries, would statistically most likely be an overweight 45 year old female who probably couldn't run/walk 100m in under 30 seconds.
Age grading for a 50 year old male for 17 seconds 100m is around 65%, which is the same as a 22:30 5K road for a 50 year old male, something way out of the reach of 99% of 50 year old men who haven't been running for at least a year.