People love predicting the limits of various phenomena, particularly human limitations — the most advanced technology we can create within a set time, how high we can climb a mountain before needing oxygen to go on, and how much water we can drink in a minute before flooding our internal organs enough to die, to name a few. While some of these are fairly concrete predictions that always seem to accurately predict how far a human can go when tested, there is a class of predictions for human limitations that has come up short in the past and could very likely continue to come up short in the future: human speed and endurance in regards to running.
It was once thought that it was not humanly possible to run a mile in under four minutes — that no body could keep up a pace of fifteen miles per hour for 5,280 feet. It was kind of like a medical limit, like how a body could only take so high a temperature before keeling over. But on May 6, 1954, the impossible was achieved when Roger Bannister crossed the line in 3:59.4. Part of the reason why his world record became one of the greatest physical achievements in history was because so many people were convinced it was impossible. Today, the record has been lowered to 3:43.13 and thousands of men have broken the barrier; Steve Scott did it a record 136 times, five American high school students have done it, and Kenyan Daniel Komen doubled up on it with a sub-8:00 two mile. A once viable human limit has been completely shattered and proven wrong and called into question some other limits people had ascribed to track and field.
Another well-known race that gets its limits predicted is the men's 100 meter. Before Usain Bolt first became the most electrifying sprinter in the world, statisticians generally thought that 9.45 seconds was the fastest possible time a human could cover that distance in. That's why his second 100 meter world record of 9.69 at the Beijing Olympics was so surprising — while it was only a 0.03 second improvement from his first WR, statisticians believed such a time wouldn't come until nearly 2030. In the following year's World Championships in Berlin he astounded people when he dropped his time by an incredible 0.11 seconds. Many people now, including Bolt, think the records will stop at 9.4.
While that's still 0.18 away and Bolt and his quickly improving teammate Yohan Blake, the two best in the world, are unlikely to drop that much time (in a single race at least), I see no real reason to assume a human will never run under 9.4. Bolt, like Bannister before him, proved that every once and a while an amazing athlete will come around and run an incredible race that forces us to completely rewrite what we think is humanly possible to run. For all we know there could be an eight year old prodigy out there waiting to amaze the world with a 9.35 or a 3:39. Whenever we think we've nailed down limits on our running speed and endurance, someone eventually either breaks them or suddenly comes close enough to show that they should only be taken very lightly.
While a definitive limit like 4:00 or 9.4 can't really be trusted, there are of course some times that (non-genetically modified) humans will never run, such as a 2:00 mile or a five second 100 meter. The less extreme the limits we try to set, though, the less reliable they become.
Unlike 100, 50, or even 25 years ago, we have an incredibly good idea of how an athlete has to train and prepare to get the best times possible. This and the gradually increasing access people around the world have to track and field participation inevitably mean that world records will be achieved at a slower rate as we already know what to do and have most everyone really capable of breaking one with the access they need to do so. Just check out the WR progression for the mile: it was broken quite frequently until the '90s when Hicham El Guerrouj ran his 3:43 in 1999. It hasn't been broken since. Accurate times for this race, however, have only been recorded for about 150 years and, considering that we'll probably be running it far longer into the future than that, we're bound to break it again and for all we know it could come within a short period of time. The chance that the fastest human to ever be born for a specific event having already completed his or her career is unlikely.
The point is that as legit and solid as many of these limits seem, they could be abruptly shattered by one fantastic athlete and quickly reveal to us how wrong we are about our abilities. While 9.4 seconds may appear to border on unnaturally quick, once another Usain Bolt breaks it we will be forced to reevaluate our predictions and what is humanly possible. That's what makes world records so great — they're meant to be broken eventually and trying to set a specific, ultimate record will likely fail at some point in the future. It does, however, provide great motivation for athletes out to prove the naysayers wrong.
If I've learned anything from my time as an athlete it's that this same mentality can be applied to us as individuals, no matter how good a sprinter or distance runner one is. Telling yourself that you can't run faster than a certain mark will make it difficult to ever improve because you never know when everything will go just right and you'll do what you didn't previously think was possible.1 Rather than limit oneself, one should keep an optimistic open mind and continue to perform as best one can. Limits are always the first obstacles to achieving greatness.
1 There are obvious exceptions. If you ran a four-flat in college, don't go around when you're 60 years old thinking you could dip down to 3:59 if you really believe in yourself.
It was once thought that it was not humanly possible to run a mile in under four minutes — that no body could keep up a pace of fifteen miles per hour for 5,280 feet. It was kind of like a medical limit, like how a body could only take so high a temperature before keeling over. But on May 6, 1954, the impossible was achieved when Roger Bannister crossed the line in 3:59.4. Part of the reason why his world record became one of the greatest physical achievements in history was because so many people were convinced it was impossible. Today, the record has been lowered to 3:43.13 and thousands of men have broken the barrier; Steve Scott did it a record 136 times, five American high school students have done it, and Kenyan Daniel Komen doubled up on it with a sub-8:00 two mile. A once viable human limit has been completely shattered and proven wrong and called into question some other limits people had ascribed to track and field.
Another well-known race that gets its limits predicted is the men's 100 meter. Before Usain Bolt first became the most electrifying sprinter in the world, statisticians generally thought that 9.45 seconds was the fastest possible time a human could cover that distance in. That's why his second 100 meter world record of 9.69 at the Beijing Olympics was so surprising — while it was only a 0.03 second improvement from his first WR, statisticians believed such a time wouldn't come until nearly 2030. In the following year's World Championships in Berlin he astounded people when he dropped his time by an incredible 0.11 seconds. Many people now, including Bolt, think the records will stop at 9.4.
While that's still 0.18 away and Bolt and his quickly improving teammate Yohan Blake, the two best in the world, are unlikely to drop that much time (in a single race at least), I see no real reason to assume a human will never run under 9.4. Bolt, like Bannister before him, proved that every once and a while an amazing athlete will come around and run an incredible race that forces us to completely rewrite what we think is humanly possible to run. For all we know there could be an eight year old prodigy out there waiting to amaze the world with a 9.35 or a 3:39. Whenever we think we've nailed down limits on our running speed and endurance, someone eventually either breaks them or suddenly comes close enough to show that they should only be taken very lightly.
While a definitive limit like 4:00 or 9.4 can't really be trusted, there are of course some times that (non-genetically modified) humans will never run, such as a 2:00 mile or a five second 100 meter. The less extreme the limits we try to set, though, the less reliable they become.
Unlike 100, 50, or even 25 years ago, we have an incredibly good idea of how an athlete has to train and prepare to get the best times possible. This and the gradually increasing access people around the world have to track and field participation inevitably mean that world records will be achieved at a slower rate as we already know what to do and have most everyone really capable of breaking one with the access they need to do so. Just check out the WR progression for the mile: it was broken quite frequently until the '90s when Hicham El Guerrouj ran his 3:43 in 1999. It hasn't been broken since. Accurate times for this race, however, have only been recorded for about 150 years and, considering that we'll probably be running it far longer into the future than that, we're bound to break it again and for all we know it could come within a short period of time. The chance that the fastest human to ever be born for a specific event having already completed his or her career is unlikely.
The point is that as legit and solid as many of these limits seem, they could be abruptly shattered by one fantastic athlete and quickly reveal to us how wrong we are about our abilities. While 9.4 seconds may appear to border on unnaturally quick, once another Usain Bolt breaks it we will be forced to reevaluate our predictions and what is humanly possible. That's what makes world records so great — they're meant to be broken eventually and trying to set a specific, ultimate record will likely fail at some point in the future. It does, however, provide great motivation for athletes out to prove the naysayers wrong.
If I've learned anything from my time as an athlete it's that this same mentality can be applied to us as individuals, no matter how good a sprinter or distance runner one is. Telling yourself that you can't run faster than a certain mark will make it difficult to ever improve because you never know when everything will go just right and you'll do what you didn't previously think was possible.1 Rather than limit oneself, one should keep an optimistic open mind and continue to perform as best one can. Limits are always the first obstacles to achieving greatness.
1 There are obvious exceptions. If you ran a four-flat in college, don't go around when you're 60 years old thinking you could dip down to 3:59 if you really believe in yourself.
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