In what year do you believe the first sub 4 minute mile was run by a human

This would mean that at least 2 humans broke 4 minutes, the thief and the chaser.

Whatever you do, don't ever piss off a pronghorn antelope:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/outdoors/sports/physics/animal-kingdom-top-marathon-runners-pronghorn-antelope#slide-5

If you are chased by a bear, run down hill. A bear has relatively small front legs and can't handle its weight at full speed, so a bear actually runs slower down hill than on a flat surface.

zatopek broke it in practice

how come?

yogibear wrote:

If you are chased by a bear, run down hill. A bear has relatively small front legs and can't handle its weight at full speed, so a bear actually runs slower down hill than on a flat surface.

I was in fact chased by a bear trail running with a couple of buddies. It is very scary. The adrenaline surge is unreal. Not sure how close it got to me before it turned back to it's cubs. We stayed on the relatively flat trail. We had discussed the hill thing as it was actually the 3rd time on that run we saw it.

Actually if you believe the crazy interpretations of the footprints in the original paper, they also claim that a one legged man hopped at a speed of 21.7 miles/hour. Clearly these interpretations are highly dubious.

ChiefSosa wrote:

There’s the example of aboriginal runners who, we know from fossilized footprints, could run as fast if not faster than [Olympic sprinter] Usain Bolt- Peter McAllister

Tom Petty wrote:

it is actually very possible that someone broke 4 before bannister. All you need is an athletic person, a huge downhill, and an animal to chase him. If someone is running away from an animal down a mountain, which probably happened at least once in all of history before bannister, they probably could have broke 4.

As has been demonstrated in the attached thread, even the fastest of runners are no match for a Grizzly Bear.

It does not, it proves the exact opposite, the bear would lose to Rudisha.

But it can easily catch any idiot who runs downhill.

Standard Bearer wrote:

yogibear wrote:

If you are chased by a bear, run down hill. A bear has relatively small front legs and can't handle its weight at full speed, so a bear actually runs slower down hill than on a flat surface.

I was in fact chased by a bear trail running with a couple of buddies. It is very scary. The adrenaline surge is unreal. Not sure how close it got to me before it turned back to it's cubs. We stayed on the relatively flat trail. We had discussed the hill thing as it was actually the 3rd time on that run we saw it.

The key is not to outrun the bear. The key is to outrun your friend.

Alternatively, you could try this tactic.

I think this sounds unlikely but possible, although I don't know how accurate watches were back then. Bannister's training was kind of basic. Running for money, who knows...

Yes the n=1 aspect of McAllister's study always bugged me - so he found one footprint that indicated that thousands of years ago someone ran faster than Usain Bolt. Hell of an extrapolation.

Given that Bolt has run below 9.70 multiple times and we have video evidence of it, and our ancient sprinter supposedly ran one *step* faster than the fastest man of all time, I'm somewhat dubious of the claimed speed of the aboriginal runners.

theohiostate wrote:

While I'm at it, maybe Mallory or Irvine beat Hillary to the summit.

Well we know tenzing norgay did!

I would guess 200,000 years ago the dawn of the first anatomically modern humans for the first sub 4 minute mile, and it has nothing to do with animal chasing. People by nature do useless dumb stuff like race to a tree and back or play on messageboards. By that way of just "playing" there must have been scores of sub 4's run already. Especially in our physical strength heydays. Now I do believe that 2008 was the time a human has run a sub 2:04 marathon. As a modern human I think it would be better to hang your modern pride on the marathon.

This is an interesting question. Related, what could be the general maximum 'natural' or 'untrained' fitness of someone living perhaps 10,000+ years ago (or today as those guys in the Copper Canyon). Obviously athletes today reach huge levels through daily training, but is it even feasible that even a genetically superior hunter/tribe guy would be near 4min/mile just off living day to day? Also, the 4minute mile would have had to be en route, making it even less likely.

scsummer wrote:

Obviously athletes today reach huge levels through daily training, but is it even feasible that even a genetically superior hunter/tribe guy would be near 4min/mile just off living day to day? Also, the 4minute mile would have had to be en route, making it even less likely.

Good points. I would say today the average genetic potential with no training, and I could be totally wrong of an everyday modern human is 9:00-10:00 mile, and we were able to achieve 3:43 off of that. Didn't bekele run a 4:40 mile off no training as a youngerster and he isn't even a miler? It wouldn't be too preposterous to assume the earliest humans would be a whole lot faster on average. But since the question is about the best, could you imagine the faster end genetic extremes based on a much faster average? I think that and the fact that there is around 17 seconds buffer between the known achievable world record and a 4 minute mile would overcome the en route scenario being a rare occurrence. Plus I just think a mile is around a distance that humans just like and will just spontaneously do for fun.

nolo contendere wrote:

I find it interesting that no one, or almost no one, gives credence to reports from the pre-amateur era of people running very close, if not below, today's times.

Very close to today's times? Nah, not buying it. We know a considerable amount about the professional runners of the late 19th and early 20th century and even with the truly vast sums of money at stake, they never were in danger of breaking a four minute mile.

If some of these talented guys with huge financial incentives couldn't manage to do it (and Walter George, for example, was no slouch. His mile WR wasn't broken for nearly 30 years), then I have no difficulty in dismissing the earlier claims. It's too easy for a course to be short, downhil, or for the times to be exaggerated for purposes of publicity.

the twentyfourth monkey wrote:

theohiostate wrote:

While I'm at it, maybe Mallory or Irvine beat Hillary to the summit.

Well we know tenzing norgay did!

No, we really, really don't:

"The crucial move of the last part of the ascent was the 40-foot (12 m) rock face later named the 'Hillary Step.' Hillary saw a means to wedge his way up a crack in the face between the rock wall and the ice and Tenzing followed. From there the following effort was relatively simple. Tenzing Norgay stated in his narration 'The Dream Comes True' that Hillary had indeed taken the first step atop Mount Everest, despite Hillary quoting that both had reached the summit at the same time."--wiki

i'm not trying to be racist but this may be true. a kenyan slave got chased by a dog in the US and ran sub 4

If you knew any history you would know that there were hardy any East African slaves brought to the US. Most US Slaves came from West Africa particularly Ghana, Senegal, Nigera and Angola.

It is highly unlikely a slave from Kenya was chased for a mile by a dog in the American south.