The bar is a lot higher for mile times, but 7 minute mile still is top ~25% of the American population, given we're all so sedentary.
Fyi, if you want to feel good about your swimming, lookup the youtube vids of the navy seals swimming standards. I know 12yo kids who could pass them. Their pace wouldnt even qualify for the 'fast' lane at my local lap pool (50m/minute).
I'm sure the special forces guys are much bigger and heavier than that and as another commenter said, speed will not be their top priority.
In the SEALs defense, such speeds are horribly inefficient for even the best swimmers. Water gets very thick, with each second below those times requiring a redoubling of efforts. Seals care mote about distance and survival than speed.
I'm a reasonable swimmer but this really confused me. I assume you meant 15 min x 5 because 15 x 5 KM would be insane.
But your observation seems accurate, not many people swim.
How is it that as a society we've devalued physical health so strongly.
But I would agree - the mind and body are powerfully complimentary.
You should pray for a healthy mind in a healthy body.
Ask for a stout heart that has no fear of death,
and deems length of days the least of Nature's gifts
that can endure any kind of toil,
that knows neither wrath nor desire and thinks
the woes and hard labors of Hercules better than
the loves and banquets and downy cushions of Sardanapalus.
What I commend to you, you can give to yourself;
For assuredly, the only road to a life of peace is virtue.
Is there any evidence backing this up? I hear it proclaimed a lot, but there are plenty of examples of brilliant people who are not physically strong, such as Stephen Hawking.
The stereotype of nerd as sedentary applies to me, to an extent. I think this is because, genetically, I have a number of physical problems, and also come from a poor background. For most of my youth, I was unable to achieve at a competitive level due to these problems - I have never won a single race, medal or trophy (as where I am from, they are only given out for sporting achievements). However, when I got a computer, my life changed. Suddenly I could create and achieve using nothing other than a keyboard and an internet connection. So in my case, the sedentary nature of my existence probably drove me toward computers, rather than the inverse.
YMMV, but maybe consider making fewer excuses for your "inability" to perform physically and stop diffusing blame in every direction except the right one (i.e., at you).
Actually, I don't care what you do or think personally, but (assuming you are commenting in good faith...) your demoralizing and plain wrong statements about a putative inverse relationship between mental and physical fitness, and your funny rationalization of your failures, are exactly the kinds of bad cultural tropes that are malforming the bodies and minds of what should have been the healthiest and most performant bunch of homo sapiens to crawl the planet.
As far as my own issues go, I think you're speaking from the perspective of someone who has no medical issues and assuming that everyone else is similarly healthy. I have rheumatoid arthritis and hypermobile ehlers-danlos syndrome (amongst other problems). I try to keep fit, have special shoes and joint supports, do everything my physiotherapist tells me to do, and I exercise fairly intensely for at least an hour a day. But ultimately, I have physical limits that despite continual medical intervention, have proven resistant to treatment besides painkillers. In the last month alone, I've been to hospital 6 times. There's a good chance I won't be able to walk more than a few hundred metres by the time I'm 30, and currently if I try to push myself too hard, I typically end up injuring myself and needing to go to hospital.
A computer, for me, and other people like me, can be one of the most transformative purchases of our lives. On a computer, nobody knows you're disabled and you can do almost everything that an able-bodied person can. Arthritis can be a problem, but heated gloves help a lot with that.
I know quite a few people here in SF that do both. I used to be a state-competitive athlete in Pennsylvania, but I can't even keep up in SF with the times that a lot of my fellow nerds here throw down in Strava (still have a few though, running up the hill on Misson St, one lap around Bernal Heights Park, and running through Almaden Quicksilver Trail San Jose!).
High school athletics is a good way to get into a good college, when you already have academics on par with the majority of applicants (otherwise, it's a crapshoot to get into Ivy League schools with <10% acceptance rate and >90% of the applicants have near-perfect SAT scores).
It's not a myth that time you spend, e.g., in the gym is time that's not available for, e.g., programming practice, and vice-versa. Ability beyond raw potential takes time to devop and maintain, and time is a limited resource. TANSTAAFL.