Long ago I ran a track workout that far surpassed anything I had ever run before or since.
Lately I have been wondering - just how fast will people run in the future?
Through a combination of retrospection, sports commentary and number-crunching, I give it a go.
The answer is - in the shortest races, not much faster (not for a long time, anyway) but in the longer distances we've not even begun to realize the full potential of the human body.
We are yet full of happy surprises.
Once a Runner
I was once a very good runner. One night during graduate school, I went to the University of North Carolina track with a big poster board. I set it up on a chair near the starting line. I had on it 40 squares. This was going to be a long workout - 300 meter intervals, starting off once every 2 minutes.
My plan was to hold a 52.5 second (70-second 400m or quarter mile) pace the entire way through. I had no illusions that long before the workout was done, that 100-meter walk from the finish line to the curve was going to feel very hurried. To tell the truth, I did not expect to finish this stunt. But I wanted to see how long I could hold what for me would have been a respectable 5K pace... I figured I would just try this later on if I gave up.
I went on to finish the workout. it was perfect weather - dry, cool, a slight breeze, a welcome respite to an otherwise oppressively hot summer.
I would average 48.1 seconds. My last 10 averaged 46. My last one was just under 43 seconds.
I might be wrong - have been wrong for many years - but I estimate that hitting my original goal mark would have been "worth" a 14:35 5K effort.
If that's true then what I actually did that night was just above a 13:30 level, with signs of much faster potential.
I would never come close to duplicating this feat, in competition or otherwise. Every muscle was relaxed, every stride aligned, every lung and heart cell ready to roll, mentally I was focused on the running average of times, and the poster board that was my sole witness.
I thought of it as a glimpse into the future, a kind of athletic time travel. No, I was NOT this good a runner - yet.
But given time and consistency and luck.. perhaps.
I was shown a possible future... if not me, then one where 6'3" then-175-lb people could run such times. And if such a thing ever became fairly commonplace, how fast could persons of exceptional ability run?
We have become much speedier the past 100 years
In 10-year intervals these are the world records for the 100-meter dash
1910 10.60
1920 10.40
1930 10.25
1940 10.25
1950 10.10
1960 10.01
1970 10.01
1980 9.90
1990 9.84
2000 9.71
The current record, set in 2009, is 9.58 seconds by Usain Bolt, who probably has a few years left to improve that mark.
There is no distance more thoroughly analyzed in every particular than the 100 meter dash. The race has many parts - the reaction, the start, the acceleration phase, the maintenance phase, the deceleration phase... the what? Yes, you heard me right. If you pace yourself to accelerate the entire time in a 100m dash you will lose against well-matched competition that doesn't. That's the conventional wisdom. It's also tested very thoroughly in competition. However, the duration of that 'glide' at the end, that visible letup that outrages spectators that aren't familiar with the biomechanics of the race when their favorite is passed at the finish line, is getting shorter and shorter as the sustain phase is getting longer.
Likewise, the sustain phase is starting later in the race and the acceleration phase is ... well, here you get into competing schools of philosophy on the 100m dash. Do you accelerate to top speed as quickly as possible then sustain it, or do you draw out the acceleration more? The answer - it depends on the individual competitor's abilities and temperament.
And we will get speedier over the next century, too
Taking the above and other historical time series data, I crafted this projection for future 100m world records by decade -
2010 9.53
2020 9.47
2030 9.45
2040 9.43
2050 9.41
2060 9.40
2070 9.38
2080 9.36
2090 9.34
2100 9.32
These are conservative projections. For all the distance data I had, the 100m dash was the hardest to forecast. More so than any other distance, it is subject to changes in technique and training. More, the kind of talent that makes a person a potential record holder in the sprints is, coupled with even modest hand-eye (or foot-eye) coordination and specific skills training, worth a great deal of money elsewhere. No one pays for exceptional distance running ability to do anything but, well, run distances. Even here there is some crossover competition from soccer. And for all track distances, there is the question of opportunity cost for other things - like getting salary to hold down a regular day job. Doing both at the world class level is done, but rarely.
So, while these sprint time projections could be much faster, I'm going to stick with conservative numbers... because for most distances, the improvements have been driven by what I call the flattening of the slowdown curve.
But the real improvements are in strength and endurance
As one goes up in the distance being raced, the primary source of energy motivating the muscles in each of these races moves from anaerobic to aerobic systems. Few people can hold a full sprint for much more than 200 meters. Then comes the slowdown, which can be expressed as a multiple of your best 100m time.
Since I started all this up discussing a 5000 meter workout, let's take a look at how this slowdown factor has changed in the 20th century.
To do this, I averaged by decade world record times, where available:
Year.................100m dash..................5000m run...multiple
1910 10.60 876.60 82.70
1920 10.40 871.80 83.83
1930 10.25 852.90 83.21
1940 10.25 838.20 -
1950 10.10 827.40 81.92
1960 10.01 807.00 80.60
1970 10.01 792.68 -
1980 9.90 781.35 78.90
1990 9.84 766.27 77.91
2000 9.71 757.35 77.97
All times are in seconds. As you can see this is not a steady downward progression in the multiple but you get the picture: The fraction of 5000m world record times over 100m dash world record times has declined in the 20th century.
Here is where they are predicted to take us in the 21st
Year.................100m dash..................5000m run...multiple
2010 9.53 735.02 77.13
2020 9.47 722.52 76.30
2030 9.45 713.35 75.47
2040 9.43 704.31 74.66
2050 9.41 695.41 73.87
2060 9.40 686.64 73.08
2070 9.38 678.00 72.30
2080 9.36 669.48 71.53
2090 9.34 661.09 70.77
2100 9.32 652.82 70.02
Here, let me convert this for you. As of today, the world record in the 5000 meter run is held by Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia. It is a time of 757.35 seconds (12:37.35) set in 2004.
And I am rather brazenly declaring that someone in the 2010s will run it in 12:15... and around the year 2100 will run a 10:52.82 5K.
And I'll tell you why I buy it - my fastest 100m is a pedestrian 11.7 seconds. Multiply that by 70 and you get 819 seconds - 13:39. That is close to the estimated worth of my perfect workout that long ago night.
My guess is that current 5K world record holder Bekele could run at least a 10.7. He routinely finishes 10K with sprints not much slower than that. By the same methodology he could run a 12:29...breaking 12:30 would be a nice capstone to his career.
Someone should tell him to get on with that. :)
Projected World Records, by the year 2100
Race Time (sec) Time (clock)
100 9.32 00:09.3
200 18.47 00:18.5
400 38.94 00:38.9
800 91.08 01:31.1
mile 190.77 03:10.8
3000 372.13 06:12.1
5000 652.82 10:52.8
10000 1,341.18 22:21.2
Reaching Ultimate Records - how in time even these marks will be blown away
The typical elite distance runner hits the track with the same foot between 90 and 100 times a minute - and extends the stride to go faster as much as picks up the cadence.
Over the long haul - we are talking centuries here - that cadence range could go up another 10-20%.
Over the same span of time, stride length (read - taller runners with the cardio facilities to support their greater weight) with the same higher foot turnover could improve speeds another 10-20%
Between that and technical improvements, you could increase speeds another 50% on top of the 2100 numbers - which is about a 33% or 1/3rd drop in all the times above.
Imagine that. 6-second 100m dashes.... and runners speculating on who will be first to break the 2:00 mile. Human runners... though by that long-from-now time they will be astonishing exponents of the species.
But they will be human. We have in each of us the capacity for amazing feats. We just need to prepare for their emergence. Because they do.
This I know in a little way - I had a glimpse at the ultimate I could be as a runner - pretty damn good. It was more of a humbling experience than anything else - I also saw that on my absolute perfect night, I was not going to be on the medal stand, not ever.
Perhaps one of my sons will be. Or one of theirs.
Or, just perhaps, I've got more surprises in me after all.
Likewise you too. :)