According To Usain Bolt's Agent, He Has Never Run A Full Mile In His Life

YardBarker- The world’s fastest man alive, Jamaica’s Usain Bolt, is a true legend in the world of short-distance running, but he says he has never run a full mile.

The revelation that one of the world’s top runners has never run a full mile comes from a story in The New Yorker, in which it attempts to figure out how long it would take for the world-record holder in the 100-meter and 200-meter dash to complete a mile run. Bolt’s agent informed The New Yorker “Usain has never run a mile.”



That picture above? That was the same look I had when I read the emboldened line above. I like to think that my ability to suspend disbelief is second to none, but I'll be damned if I am going to take a record setting sprinter's word for it when he says he's never run a mile. Even the fat kid in every middle school in America has 4 successive laps on his resume. He may have waddled them and needed every last minute of gym class to complete them, but he still technically ran them. So no, I don't believe that Usain Bolt has never even jogged 5,280 consecutive feet, but can you imagine what that would mean if he really hasn't ?

If Usain Bolt has legitimately never traveled a full mile on foot doesn't that imply that he decided to dedicate his entire life to running before he even took a lap around the block? Wouldn't that suggest that the first time he laced them up for some cardio, he got about 6 shanties down and said "alright, that's enough practice, I'm really good at this shit". That's like Michael Phelps jumping in the water for the first time, beating his neighbor across his in-ground pool while wearing floaties, and deciding he was destined for greatness. It's like Drew Brees throwing his first football from his crib and immediately prepping for the NFL draft. 

Usain Bolt surely could have squeezed in a couple km's the first time he felt it necessary to stretch his unconscionably fast legs, but by the time he took his first 10 strides he realized that taking anymore would be a waste if they weren't being used on an official track to blow past legitimate competition in short distance sprints. I understand that the skill set to run a mile and the skill set to run a dash are vastly different, but - at the end of the day - it's still running and Usain Bolt still potentially decided to do it for a living without doing it for more than 5-6 minutes before taking a breather. An perennial Olympic Gold Medalist had the most time efficient professional education of anyone ever. It took him like 7 total seconds of performing his craft to decide what he wanted to do with his future AND that he was good enough to do it. Either that, or somebody's agent is stretching the truth to get their client some publicity. You be the judge.