The Not So Elite Athlete

One of the most riveting statistics I came across when scouring the research for my dissertation topic is that the difference between first and fourth place at the Olympic Games is approximately 0.5%. They compared the times and scores for a variety of events and came up with the difference being one half of one percent. That is it! Not even a full percentage point.
 
Take out a stopwatch and hit start and then stop as quickly as possible. If you can do that in 0.13 second then you have covered the time it took the first 5 men to cross the finish line in the 100 meters in the 2016 Olympic games. The fourth and fifth place guys are elite but they don’t get medals.
 
Let’s look at this from another direction; National Geographic posted an article about technology pushing the limits of training (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/07/building-a-better-athlete/) where they compared Jesse Owens to Usain Bolt. Jesse’s best time is 10.2 seconds while Usain’s is 9.77 seconds. This is less than half a second. In 77 years the world’s fastest man has “only” gotten 0.43 seconds faster despite changes in training, technology, gear, running surface, etc. And they compared the races side by side, taking into account the track surface Jesse would have been within one stride of Usain! 
 
These are elite athletes, the best of the best, the perfect combination of work ethic, genetics, training and let's face it, a little bit of luck. What about us pedestrians, the mere mortals among us? What can we expect?
 
Notice the first item on my list of what makes elite athletes special is work ethic. That is something us non-elites can control first. While there are gifted athletes who can just “show up” without putting in the work and be better than average, most of us non-elites cannot do that.  We need to show up and work hard if we want to improve.  
 
And about that improvement thing, our “gains” can be even larger. Let’s say you average a 10-minute mile (because it makes for easier math). By dropping 1 minute per mile off of your pace, you can go from a 2:11:03 half marathon to a 1:57:57 or a 4:22:05 marathon to a 3:55:53 (assuming a lot more than just consistency). What about a more realistic 20 seconds per mile? That puts you at a 2:06:41 half and a 4:13:21 full. That is a lot more than just 0.5% improvement! And while you may not be on the medal stand, you are getting better every day within your own genetics and training (and not to mention life… not all of us get paid to workout all day, every day).
 
In a conversation with a colleague in athletics, we talked about how the non-elite athletes can gain back more ground on their elite counterparts by just doing the little things… getting enough sleep, fueling correctly, hydrating, putting in one more training session or recovery session in the ice tubs, with the foam rollers or stretching.  They may not have all the bells and whistles at their disposal or be blessed with the same genetics, but they have the ability to work hard and surround themselves with people who can give them the training tools to get better.
 
Next time you see a lower ranked team upset a team with better facilities and more resources, think about how hard that lower ranked team worked to get there. It wasn’t by accident but by hard work; one more rep, one more run or some more recovery time. And next time you improve by just one half of one percent, consider yourself in elite company.