9.58!

Track and Field Videos on Flotrack

Did anyone else watch what Usain Bolt did on Sunday?

There have only been two times during a track and field meet where I was so thrilled with what I just witnessed that I was utterly speechless expect for screaming the winning time. The first was in 1996 when Michael Johnson ran a 19.32 in the 200 meters to shatter the World Record. The second was yesterday as Usain Bolt smashed the world record with a 9.58 in the 100 meter dash.

9.58!!

Freakin’ unreal! I had to figure something out in my head later that day as I was trying to wrap my mind around what I just witnessed. How fast was he running? He was running somewhere around 23 miles per hour. Now, that may not sound very fast because we all drive much faster than that but let’s put it in another perspective. If he sustained his pace for one mile he would complete that mile in 2 minutes, 34 seconds or a 70 seconds faster than the current mile record. Pretty fast, huh? The scary thing is he will probably run faster sometime soon.

Another perspective on this is by using the McMillian Running Calculator which predicts how quickly you could run other distances by using a recent time in any given distance (it’s a very accurate tool). Bolt’s 100 meter time registers out to be less than a two hour marathon (1:50ish)! Um, wow!! The other about the race that is unreal is that Tyson Gay ran an American Record 9.71. That’s the fastest time recorded by anyone not named Usain Bolt! The problem with Gay’s performance was he looked slow compared to Bolt and he was cruising down the track. It’s to bad that he was in third gear while Bolt was definitely in overdrive.

Finally picking up my jaw from the floor ...