We live in a generation of Strava warriors and high vis running shoes, but how does your average park runner fare against an Olympic gold medallist? There are levels to this game!

Take Eliud Kipchoge, the greatest marathon runner ever. He ran a full marathon (42.19km) at a pace of 2:50 min per km, finishing in an astonishing 1:59:40.2. To put that in perspective, that's like running a 5km in 14:10 minutes — and then doing it 8.4 times. This begs the question: if someone can run a marathon at such a pace, what are humans capable of over shorter distances?

Well, let's start with how fast people are capable of walking! Race walking is an Olympic event where athletes must always have one foot in contact with the ground. They do this at some speed too, the average time across all ages and genders for normal people running 20km is 1:44:09, whereas Ecuador's Brian Daniel Pintado walked it in 1:18:55, which equates to 3:56 min per km, winning gold in Paris. This does not bode well for us casual runners, losing to people that are walking...

Getting back to people who actually run: on Friday night, the world's fastest 10,000m runner will be decided and these athletes are the human embodiment of speed in the category. Depending on age and fitness level, a respectable 10km pace is anywhere between 50-70 mins — which is, once again, absolutely destroyed by elite runners, with the world record set by Ugandan Joshua Cheptegei at 26:11 mins, meaning a 2:37 min per km pace.

And those mins per km paces keep falling as the distances get shorter. The world record for the 5000m (everybody's favourite COVID lock-down distance) was also set by Joshua Cheptegei at a mouthwatering 12:35 minutes, 2:31 min per km pace. Compare this to any Tom, Dick and Harry for whom anywhere between 25-35 minutes is very good!

The only remaining Olympic middle distances are the 800m and 1500m. The world record for the 800m, which combines aerobic endurance with anaerobic conditioning and sprint speed, was set by the legendary David Rudisha at a mere 1:40 min. The 1500m record has not been broken for 26 years when Moroccan Hicham El Guerrouj set a 3:26 time which translates to 2:17 min per km, an astounding difference when compared to the "mere mortal" average of between 4:10 - 4:40 min.

Keep an eye out in the upcoming days for any new records that could be broken and let us know your thoughts in the comments!