The world’s fastest man alive, Jamaica’s Usain Bolt, is a true legend in the world of short-distance running, but he says he has never run a full mile. It’s really not all that surprising when you think about it.
The revelation that one of the world’s top runners has never run a full mile comes from a story in The New Yorker, in which it attempts to figure out how long it would take for the world-record holder in the 100-meter and 200-meter dash to complete a mile run. Bolt’s agent informed The New Yorker “Usain has never run a mile.”
While it may be surprising that an athlete as physically gifted and trained as Bolt has never completed a mile-long run, it is not actually all that shocking when you consider Bolt’s history. Bolt has been training for shorter-distance runs like the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes. He rarely has had the need to train for such a long distance. A mile may not technically be a long distance for most runners, but sprint running and distance running require two different methods of training. Short distance runs focus on burst and quickness out of the gate. Longer distances require more patience and focus on controlling your speed and energy over a longer period of time. Given how well Bolt has done with his short-distance running career, it is easy to see why he would have no time or desire to focus on anything longer than 200 meters.
Robert Johnson, founder of running website LetsRun.com, chimed in with his opinion to The New Yorker, suggesting there would be no way Bolt would break the five-minute mark on a mile run.
“If that was the over/under, I’d mortgage my nonexistent house to try to bet up to six figures he was over that,” Johnson said. “He’s a total fast-twitch-muscle-fibre guy. To expect Bolt to be good at the mile simply because he is the world’s greatest sprinter would be like expecting a great three-hundred-and-twenty-pound NFL offensive lineman to be good at playing running back simply because he’s a great football player. It’s ludicrous.”
Okay, so he might not be able to complete a mile run in a record time, or even sniff the five-minute mark. But if you think you could take Bolt in a mile-long race, my money would probably still be on the fastest man on earth.
If you were curious who holds the world record for the fastest mile run, it belongs to Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco at a time of 3:43.13 in 1999.
