Be extremely careful about such analyses; the mere existence of Usain Bolt obliterated 100 years of scientific speculation about what makes a good human sprinter. I think that I will see (at least on TV!) someone (probably a Kenyan) do a sub-2 hour marathon in my lifetime (I'm currently 66). (Turing was 1 hour faster in the marathon, but he also had 30 years on me!) At 10:01 AM 12/26/2013, Warren D Smith wrote:
This page by Brian Skinner gives an interesting statistical analysis which concludes the fastest achievable mile time is 3min 39.6sec. http://gravityandlevity.wordpress.com/2009/04/22/the-fastest-possible-mile/
He then redid it for marathon finding 2hr 02min 43sec: http://gravityandlevity.wordpress.com/2011/04/11/the-fastest-possible-marath... In the comments he says he thinks this estimate has an error bar of +-15 seconds, i.e. making the bold prediction that 2hr 2min will never happen.
if these true, the best athletes so far were already quite near to best possible performances.