For normal people, there’s no keeping up with serious marathoners

Unless you run marathons, it’s pretty hard to “get” marathoners.

I understand the need to run at whatever pace you need to run to survive 26 miles just to say you did it. But those who actually try to win the race appear superhuman.

How superhuman?

This Sunday is the New York City Marathon and Ryan Hall will be trying to win it. He’s the fastest American marathoner and he averages 4:46 per mile over 26 miles (for comparison sake, the winner of the Twin Cities Marathon earlier this month averaged a little over 5 minutes per mile).

To show how fast that really is, ASICS, an athletic equipment company, set up a treadmill on a flatbed truck in Manhattan and invited mere mortals to run at the 4:46 pace. It wasn’t pretty.

(h/t: Ad Freak)