For all the guys who THINK they run a 4.4 40...

[runjumpthrow]

Anyone he is even THINKING about posting that they run a very fast 40 time needs to read this article:

Dash of doubt

The NFL treats 40-yard dash times as sacred. But if those numbers are true, many players are faster than Olympic gold medalists and their clockings should be eyed with a dash of doubt

By Mark Zeigler
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER


There is no official world record for 40 yards.

The shortest distance that the IAAF, track and field's international governing body, recognizes for world-record purposes is an indoor 50 meters, or about 54 yards. It is 5.56 seconds and it was set by Canadian sprinter Donovan Bailey in 1996. There is also a world record for 60 meters – 6.39 seconds by American Maurice Greene in 1998.

But it is another Canadian, Ben Johnson, who is believed to have run 40 yards faster than any human in history. Johnson is best known for injecting copious amounts of steroids and winning the 100 meters at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul in 9.79 seconds, only to have his gold medal and world record stripped after failing a post-race drug test.

Timing officials have since broken down that famed race into 10-meter increments, and Johnson was so preposterously fast that he went through 50 meters in 5.52 seconds and 60 meters in 6.37 – both under the current world records at those distances. He went through 40 yar ds that day in 4.38 seconds.

He was running in spikes . . . on a warm afternoon perfectly suited for sprinting . . . with a slight tailwind . . . with years of training from arguably track's top coach, Charlie Francis . . . with Carl Lewis and six others of the fastest men on the planet chasing him . . . with 69,000 people roaring at Seoul's Olympic Stadium . . . with hundreds of millions of people watching on TV . . . with the ultimate prize in sports, an Olympic gold medal, at stake.

And, as we learned later, with muscles built with the assistance of the anabolic steroid stanazolol.

Four-point-three-eight seconds.

Then again, maybe Ben Johnson isn't the fastest 40-yard man in the world.

Maybe half the NFL is faster.

It can be the most important few hours of a football player's career. It is the day NFL scouts come to campus to determine whether prospects have what it takes to play at the next level.

Players are measured to the quarter-inch. They're weighed to the half-pound. They do a vertical jump and a standing broad jump. They see how many times they can bench-press 225 pounds. They do a 20-yard shuttle drill and something called a three-cone drill. They are put through a short workout specific to their position.

But it is something else that commands everyone's attention, something else that interrupts the businesslike atmosphere of players shuffling from one station to the next. Something else that causes scouts and spectators to snap to attention.

The 40-yard dash.

It is the day's shortest event, and the most critical. No other statistic carries more influence for an NFL prospect, no single number has more impact on his draft fortunes. It's not called Pro Scouting Day or Pro Prospect Day or Pro Workout Day. The sign taped to the weight-room door at San Diego State on March 19 says: "Pro Timing Day."

Or as local football agent David Caravantes puts it: "There's football speed and there's 40 speed, and the scouts will all tell you they understand that and game film is the most important thing. But how many defensive backs who ran a 4.6 are left on the draft board ahead of guys who ran 4.3?

"I'll give you another example. There's this DB who was originally projected as a first-rounder. But he didn't run the 40 that fast – something like 4.6 instead of in the 4.4s – and now they're talking about him slipping to the second round. Well, he's looking at a minimum $4 million signing bonus if he goes in the first round and only about $1.6 million if he goes in the middle of the second round.

"You do the math."

[runjumpthrow]

The players are inside the SDSU weight room being measured and weighed. In the hallway outside are their agents, pacing. Nervously. Occasionally they'll walk outside, look up at the sky and stick out an upturned hand to feel the raindrops.

This is not good. The plan, according to the schedule on the weight-room door, has the players lifting and jumping inside and running the 40 outside on SDSU's synthetic-turf practice field. The course marked with cones has them running on a spongy, soggy, uneven turf into a chilly wind with a dark sky spitting rain.

That's not good for 40 times, and that's not good for business.

The players leave the weight room and begin to warm up in the wind and rain. The agents squirm even more. They huddle with players, and soon the players are marching back into the weight room, demanding that they run inside on a strip of rubberized track laid between the various lifting machines.

The fastest of the players at SDSU's Pro Timing Day, which also includes a half-dozen prospects from small West Coast schools, is Aztecs safety Marviel Underwood. Players each run the 40 twice, and Underwood is clocked in a hand-timed 4.38 both times.

Other prospects run their 40s at the annual NFL Scouting Combine in February inside Indianapolis' RCA Dome, where this year Arkansas quarterback Matt Jones went 4.37. Jones is 6 feet 6, 242 pounds.

It's also where Jerome Mathis, a wide receiver from tiny Hampton College in Virginia, sent his stock soaring with a reported 4.32. Some scouts apparently caught him sub-4.30. Dallas Cowboys coach Bill Parcels told people his stopwatch showed 4.25.

Never mind that Mathis was running on the RCA Dome's notoriously slow artificial turf, or that he was running alone without the aid of fellow competitors pushing him. Or that his left hamstring was wrapped because of a slight muscle strain.

Ben who?

There are the legends about the 4.17 Deion Sanders ran in high tops when he was at Florida State, or the 4.15 by a cornerback from West Virginia, or the 4.0-something a high school kid ran down in Texas.

Hogwash, all of it.

Track coaches go to Pro Timing Days, and they see scouts starting their stopwatches with their thumb, which has a slower reaction time than the index finger. They see them crowding the finish line and anticipating – guessing, basically – when someone will cross it. They see running surfaces that weren't professionally measured or leveled. They see no starter's gun, no automatic timing device, no wind gauge.

Grizzled track coaches love to say that the "clock doesn't lie." Well, it does in football.

Say someone clocks a hand-timed 4.35 in an NFL workout.

The accepted standard to convert a hand-timed event to its automatically timed equivalent is to round up to the nearest tenth of a second – in this case 4.4 – and add .24 seconds. Now you're at 4.64.

Most football 40s don't go on a starter's pistol but on an athlete's motion. The average reaction time among elite sprinters (from the gun to the moment they exert pressure on the starting block's electronic pads) is about .15 seconds; for a football player with little track experience it probably would be closer to .2. Add that in, and you have 4.84.

Now say it's a breezy day and you're running with a tailwind. Say it's 10 mph. Accepted track tables say that would provide a .07-second advantage over 40 yards. Add it in, and your 4.35 is suddenly a 4.91.

There's no shame in running a 4.9-second 40, of course. World-class sprinters get a bad start or get a cold day, and they go through 40 yards in the high 4s, too.

But NFL scouts aren't comparing their times to Ben Johnson in Seoul in 1988. They're comparing them to other players at a particular position, and that might be an even more dubious endeavor.

The hope was that the top 300 or so prospects invited to the NFL Combine in Indianapolis would all run indoors under the same conditions with an automatic timing device. A great idea, in theory. But players are controlled by their agents, and why run on a slow surface with automatic timing in Indy six weeks after the college bowl season when you can run at your home campus on a lightning-fast track with the leniency of the stopwatch while having another month to train under an expert sprint coach?

Two years ago, 32 running backs were invited to Indianapolis. Thirteen ran the 40 there.

Enter the Pro Timing Day. There were more than 150 this year, most jammed into a three-week period in March, most held in a dizzying blend of conditions and surfaces.

Take March 23, when there were pro days at 11 campuses. North Carolina State ran its 40s indoors in the weight room on a rubber floor. USC ran outdoors on a state-of-the-art track with a crosswind. Southern Illinois ran outdoors on FieldTurf in breezy, 42-degree weather. Southern Mississippi ran outdoors on FieldTurf but in still, 65-degree conditions.

Virginia ran outdoors on a Tartan track, Northern Colorado outdoors on artificial turf, Northern Iowa in a dome, Georgia Southern and Bowling Green outdoors on grass, Boston College indoors on rubber. Lambuth, an NAIA school in Jackson, Miss., had its offensive line prospect run on a cracked tennis court.

A couple weeks earlier, Louisiana-Monroe held pro day in a basketball gym.

NFL teams have their own formulas for adjusting times based on the conditions, subtracting a tenth here, adding .12 there. But really, how exact a science can it be?

"Nowadays, perception is reality," says Paul Turner, a University City High alum who played a season at receiver for the Buffalo Bills and trains college players for their pro days. "If they say it's a 4.29 and they have it written down, well, it must be a 4.29."

Pro Football Weekly's 2005 Draft Preview is a 200-page analysis of the top prospects in painstaking detail. Below each player's name and position are three numbers: his height, weight and 40-yard dash time.

Why 40 yards? Why not 20? Why not 60?

The short answer is, no one knows. Draft historians will tell you the NFL stole the idea from colleges and that it came from an era when races were run in yards and not meters. The reasons the NFL went from 50 yards, its former measuring stick of speed, to 40 yards are more ambiguous.

Some say 40 yards represents the distance between where players are aligned – from the running back to the free safety. Some say it is the longest distance a receiver can realistically cover before the quarterback is sacked. Some say it's the point when most people begin losing their form and slowing down, making it a better judge of a person's raw speed.

The counter argument, of course, is that players rarely run 40 yards in an unimpeded straight line during a game. That there is a difference between pure speed and playing speed. That about three inches separate a player who runs 4.49 and a 4.50.

That Blair Thomas ran a 4.4 and the New York Jets took him with the second pick in 1990, and Emmitt Smith ran a 4.7 and slipped to 17th.

All of which is true.

Veteran La Jolla-based agent Jack Bechta says Ron Wolf, the former general manager for the Green Bay Packers, explained it best to him once.

"He told me that there are guys who are fast but play slow, and that there are guys who are slow but play fast," Bechta says. "He told me that, sure, there are exceptions, but you can't have a team full of exceptions. Their thinking is, you can't take a good football player and make him fast, but you can take a great athlete and make him a good football player.

"You need a baseline, a common denominator, and that's what 40 times are. They are like minimum qualifying standards."

So college players finish their senior seasons and have their agent hire a speed coach like Turner, or enroll them in one of several speed schools (at upward of $10,000) for the sole purpose of lowering their 40 time by two-tenths of a second. They learn how to start. They learn how to run with their feet higher off the ground, which goes against accepted football practice of low, quick feet necessary for rapid changes of direction.

Some, no doubt, succumb to the temptation of anabolic steroids considering they are no longer under the auspices of the NCAA's testing program and don't yet quality for the NFL's.

Even then, experts say, there is little you can do to make you appreciably faster. The major component in speed is the ratio of fast-twitch to slow-twitch muscles a person is born with. Rahn Sheffield, SDSU's longtime track coach, acknowledges that "only 17 to 19 percent" of speed can be developed.

"Every coach and athlete is fascinated with one thing, and that's raw speed," says Sheffield, who trains about a dozen pro prospects for their 40s each year. "That's the one thing that every athlete doesn't have, the one thing that's unattainable for some people. Speed is the one thing they can't coach.

"They talk about genetics and genetic codes. Well, this is their way of gauging that."

[maverick07]

What do you think Johnson's 40 time would be? It would probably be a little bit faster than 4.38 i would think. Good article! I think some guy from Jamaica has the 100 m record now at 9.77 seconds...without steroids

[AnabolicBMX]

that "some guy" is named Asafa Powell, fyi

[RavensFan2k3]

good article

[thesixtwo]

alright article, i guess, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it alot, but i believe that if that olympic sprinter would have trained for, lets say a 40 yard dash, he would have a faster 40 yard dash. Oh i forgot, there are people who train to get faster in the forty yard dash (football players). hmmm, just a thought,

i believe what i want to believe, you believe what you want to believe

[Heisman2]

alright article, i guess, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it alot, but i believe that if that olympic sprinter would have trained for, lets say a 40 yard dash, he would have a faster 40 yard dash. Oh i forgot, there are people who train to get faster in the forty yard dash (football players). hmmm, just a thought,

i believe what i want to believe, you believe what you want to believe

Oh yeah, I'm sure there are many football players who are faster in the 40 than Ben Johnson.

And I'm sure Ben Johnson never trained his start at all. He probably ONLY cared about the last 60 meters of the race.

And I'm sure Ben Johnson didn't train for sprinting year round while football players had to devote much of their time to skill work and, uh, football itself. Oh wait...

[JJWB023]

^^ what are u talking about

all thesixtwo is saying is that if ben johnson had trained for the 40 yard dash instead of the event that he did train for, he would have a faster 40 time.

[Heisman2]

^^ what are u talking about

all thesixtwo is saying is that if ben johnson had trained for the 40 yard dash instead of the event that he did train for, he would have a faster 40 time.

I thought he was saying that he didn't think the difference between Johnson and the football players is that big since the football players train for a 40 and Johnson trained for 100m.

[marcFE]

Football 40's are exagerrated just like dick size in porn movies is, they always need a better prospect. Sure these people are super fast, but they aren't as fast as people say they really are.

I'm sorry but theres no way a person who only trains speed 6 months of the year, dedicating the other 6 to football, is faster then a person who dedicates his entire life to sprinting, you all say there isn't much carryover between a 100m and a 40m but they are relatively close. A person can run 80m IIRC at 100% before they slow down noticably, that is of course without adrenaline etc, so Ben Johnson may have been able to run the 40 a tiny bit faster focusing on that alone, but personally, I think he ran from start to finish at 100%, he didn't hold anything back, his entire life's work was being determined in those 10 seconds, its not like hes gonna give up. Sure, there is alot on the line for people trying to make it into the NFL, but there aren't 70 k people cheering you on, and your entire lifes goal isn't at the end of that sprint.

[ajn]

"^^ what are u talking about

all thesixtwo is saying is that if ben johnson had trained for the 40 yard dash instead of the event that he did train for, he would have a faster 40 time."

the 40 is a sprint. football players use sprinting techniques to train for the 40.

[youm0nt]

when football teams times your 40,is it on the field or on a track surface?

[beau_zo_brehm]

good thread

[Footballstar]

The 4.35 that Ben Johnson ran is taken without factoring in reaction time then it is a 4.2?. Ben Johnson ran a 3.7 40 yard dash hand timed. Ben was probably on his second step when the stop-watch started and probably moved so fast that that stop watch stopped prematurely. If Ben ran a 3.7 40 HT then does a 4.2 electronic 40 really that fast? Is a 4.2 HT 40 that fast?

If all times were laser timed from start to end there would be no problems.

[Person]

First of all, that article makes up bullsht to try to make their statements seem valid. I agree with the general point, but Johnson ran much faster than 4.38e for 40 yards in that race. They are trying to include reaction time and I have no idea what to make it seem high. It is closer to a sub 4.2e range (I calculated out before it would be probably 4.16-4.18). Moving on, the laser finish the combine uses is basically a joke. It is still a manual start based on first movement, aka, not all that accurate of a timing method (you still have a reaction time to take into consideration for the starter and the fact that this can easily be manipulated with different start techniques like having your hand lower so the starter cannot see arm movement so well at the start).

Would Johnson have been faster if he trained for it? Slightly, but not a whole lot I am guessing. His squatted 600lbs for 2 sets of 6 reps w/ just a belt (he weighed 170-175lb region during the height of his career). The increase in strength that would be required for him to be much faster is unrealistic. In a pure 40yd time trial, he would of course be faster because relaxation would be less of an issue and the fact that reaction times and first steps are always faster as the distance decreases (200m reactions times are faster than 400m, 100m than 200m, 60m than 100m, even 50m to 60m).

The point the article is trying to make is valid, but they use lies to go about it, which really bothers me.

[Person]

Another thing to consider,
Everyone talks about how fast some of the NFL guys are when these same guys have been torched on the track. Randy Moss, for example, would be lucky if he beat FloJo in her prime, based on the times he put up in college vs. her bests over 100m and 200m. His 60m time (estimating based on his 55m time) would leave him 5m behind the top NCAA runners, let alone the very best sprinters in the world. That's just one of many examples. Bennett, probably the fastest NFL guy right now, never broke 10.10 legally and only once did he go under 10.10 (he ran 10.00) and that was wind aided. It should also be noted he was well under his football weight and this was in college. He would get destroyed by the best elite sprinters comparing personal bests and even moreso if you consider what he typically ran. Reggie Bush, who is believed to be one of the fastest in football right now, was not even the best in his region, let alone his state.

[pkking]

Why hasnt anyone mention IMO the fastest man in history Bullet Bob Hayes. this was once said

"As fast as he once was, I'm surprised Death caught Bob Hayes. Now I've got a high opinion of Death's capabilities. But He must have tricked the Bullet Man, somehow. Only way to catch him.Death must've put lead weight in his pockets. Tied his shoelaces together. Told him to wait up, look at that pretty girl, check out this deal. Bullet must've gotten tired, tricked or flat stopped running.

Only way."

The Bullet Man was behind five relay teams when he got the baton on the anchor leg of the 4 x 100-meter relay final in Tokyo. He made up nine meters on the field. Nine meters! He ran his leg in 8.6. That's not running. That's teleportation. That's Star Trek.

It is also said that he ran a 3.5 40 hand timed add it up and that would be a 3.9 with the added .3 sec

[Person]

Why hasnt anyone mention IMO the fastest man in history Bullet Bob Hayes. this was once said

"As fast as he once was, I'm surprised Death caught Bob Hayes. Now I've got a high opinion of Death's capabilities. But He must have tricked the Bullet Man, somehow. Only way to catch him.Death must've put lead weight in his pockets. Tied his shoelaces together. Told him to wait up, look at that pretty girl, check out this deal. Bullet must've gotten tired, tricked or flat stopped running.

Only way."

The Bullet Man was behind five relay teams when he got the baton on the anchor leg of the 4 x 100-meter relay final in Tokyo. He made up nine meters on the field. Nine meters! He ran his leg in 8.6. That's not running. That's teleportation. That's Star Trek.

It is also said that he ran a 3.5 40 hand timed add it up and that would be a 3.9 with the added .3 sec

He was very fast, especially for his time. Who knows what he would have run modern day. If you look though at his open times, he would get smashed by the bests from '88 and on.

[LB 27]

Another thing to consider,
Everyone talks about how fast some of the NFL guys are when these same guys have been torched on the track. Randy Moss, for example, would be lucky if he beat FloJo in her prime, based on the times he put up in college vs. her bests over 100m and 200m. His 60m time (estimating based on his 55m time) would leave him 5m behind the top NCAA runners, let alone the very best sprinters in the world. That's just one of many examples. Bennett, probably the fastest NFL guy right now, never broke 10.10 legally and only once did he go under 10.10 (he ran 10.00) and that was wind aided. It should also be noted he was well under his football weight and this was in college. He would get destroyed by the best elite sprinters comparing personal bests and even moreso if you consider what he typically ran. Reggie Bush, who is believed to be one of the fastest in football right now, was not even the best in his region, let alone his state.

ok first of all the fastest guy in football right now is atlanta falcons corner Diangelo Hall who is said to run a 4.15 now im not saying that is legitimate but what i am saying is you cant have a conversion between 100m and 40yds they are extremely different distances and the runners would run them differently im sure if ben johnson trained for the 40 and ran it as a 40 on the track it would be a hell of a lot faster than 4.38

[beau_zo_brehm]

ok first of all the fastest guy in football right now is atlanta falcons corner Diangelo Hall who is said to run a 4.15 now im not saying that is legitimate but what i am saying is you cant have a conversion between 100m and 40yds they are extremely different distances and the runners would run them differently im sure if ben johnson trained for the 40 and ran it as a 40 on the track it would be a hell of a lot faster than 4.38

I seriously doubt that, because i bet ben johnson went full speed for the whole 100 meters. obviously, you give that last little kick at the finish line, so maybe if it was a 40 yard dash he would get MAYBE .05, or less, better time.

[Person]

ok first of all the fastest guy in football right now is atlanta falcons corner Diangelo Hall who is said to run a 4.15 now im not saying that is legitimate but what i am saying is you cant have a conversion between 100m and 40yds they are extremely different distances and the runners would run them differently im sure if ben johnson trained for the 40 and ran it as a 40 on the track it would be a hell of a lot faster than 4.38

Ben Johnson did run faster than 4.38. With the timing NFL scouts use, he ran a 3.75. Care to read my entire post(s) before commenting?

[Person]

And for those who think the distances are that different, it is no wonder that the fastest people over 60m of all time are the same people who ran the fastest 100m races of all time with only one or two exceptions (Donovan Bailey--only because he tore his achilles at his peak and injured himself before the Olympics with a different injury).

[sculli]

when I went to the combine way back in the day, I noticed they did not start the clock from a dead start. They started it after you had gone past a certain 'starting point' so you were already moving when the clock was started. I'm thinking something like that is the reason for the football 40 times being so fast.

[pkking]

He was very fast, especially for his time. Who knows what he would have run modern day. If you look though at his open times, he would get smashed by the bests from '88 and on.

Well his best was 10 secs on a cinder track. If you put the fastest olympic sprinters of today on a cinder track they would run close to that. and think about it if you see the videos he always pulled off the throttle at least 10 meters away he was never pushed and look at that leg time over 100 meters 8.6 if not the fastest in open definitley the fastest on last leg of 4X100

[Person]

Well his best was 10 secs on a cinder track. If you put the fastest olympic sprinters of today on a cinder track they would run close to that. and think about it if you see the videos he always pulled off the throttle at least 10 meters away he was never pushed and look at that leg time over 100 meters 8.6 if not the fastest in open definitley the fastest on last leg of 4X100

I understand that he ran very fast in that relay (the fastest relay split ever), but that is not the open 100m, which is completely different. There are guys who never broke 9.9 who have very fast relay splits--it has a lot more to it than just your speed, like how well the exchange goes, how fast you can accelerate and still get the other person to give you the stick, etc.

He was no doubt fast, but cinders don't take off over 2 tenths if it was good. There was a discussion about this on another board with some guys who were elite (top 10 in the world) when cinders were still being used. You have to consider that the "electric" timing was not the same as it is now, nor were the cinders at the best places that bad (not as good as a synthetic track, but not bad).

[Mr. Blonde]

Dwight Freeney - 4.38 40 at Syracuse. i dont know if it was electric or hand timed.

[pkking]

I understand that he ran very fast in that relay (the fastest relay split ever), but that is not the open 100m, which is completely different. There are guys who never broke 9.9 who have very fast relay splits--it has a lot more to it than just your speed, like how well the exchange goes, how fast you can accelerate and still get the other person to give you the stick, etc.

He was no doubt fast, but cinders don't take off over 2 tenths if it was good. There was a discussion about this on another board with some guys who were elite (top 10 in the world) when cinders were still being used. You have to consider that the "electric" timing was not the same as it is now, nor were the cinders at the best places that bad (not as good as a synthetic track, but not bad).

obviously you didnt see the tape when he did or pictures the lane he had was the first lane and since the 100 meter finals took place after thelongest event in the olynpics the forst lane was so worn out that even the best spikes couldnt get traction. im just saying that if he were running today there would be no contest since he would have all of todays advantages plus his unnatural speed

[One Man Army]

Heres a tidbit of 40 yd knowledge..all time fastest list.
The Top 50 Fastest recorded 40-yard dashes of All-Time (under 4.3 seconds on a grass or artificial turf surface)

1. Ben Johnson*
2. Darrell Green
3. Renaldo Nehemiah
4. Johnny Lam Jones
5. Bullet Bob Hayes*
6. Carl Lewis
7. Maurice Green*
8. Bruny Surin
9. Tim Montgomery*
10. Joey Galloway
11. Lee McRae*
12. Leroy Burrell*
13. Dennis Mitchell*
14. John Drummond*
15. Curtis Dickey
16. Alexander Wright
17. André Action Jackson
18. Calvin Smith*
19. Donte Stallworth
20. Phillip Epps
21. Ron Brown
22. James Jett
23. Michael Bennett
24. Raghib Rocket Ismail
25. Deion Sanders
26. Willie Gault
27. Laveranues Coles
28. Bo Jackson
29. Houston McTear*
30. Sam Graddy
31. Stanley Floyd*
32. Herschel Walker
33. Calvin Smith
34. Andre Cason*
35. Tim Harden*
36. John Capel
37. Mike Marsh*
38. Randy Moss
39. James Trapp
40. Cliff Branch
41. Emmit King
42. James Sanford
43. Mel Lattany
44. Rod Woodson
45. Brian Lewis
46. Henry Neal
47. Brian Cooper
48. Michael Green
49. Marvin Harrison
50. Brett Perriman

[hayman]

Ben Johnson was not the only one that was on banned substances Golden Boy Carl Lewis tested for a banned substances months before the olympics but was not kiocked of the team

p.s does any1 have the pic of ben flexing whitle tyraining he looks huge!!

[Person]

obviously you didnt see the tape when he did or pictures the lane he had was the first lane and since the 100 meter finals took place after thelongest event in the olynpics the forst lane was so worn out that even the best spikes couldnt get traction. im just saying that if he were running today there would be no contest since he would have all of todays advantages plus his unnatural speed

The longest event doesn't necessarily relate to how torn up something is. I have seen plenty of great XC trails that get hundreds of runners every day and I have seen a football field destroyed in 5 minutes from players running around.

Edit: No one is saying he wasn't fast. I feel he is one of the greatest of all time, but his performances (other than the relay split) are not comparable to the best of the last 15-20 years (the 4 sub 9.8 guys).