I will have to say that a mile, or something shorter is really a difficult length to use as a comparison, as a few seconds really do separate someone that's fast locally, to someone that's fast on a National level, and people train for years for just extra seconds. It gets worse the shorter the event - say the 100 meter: it's won by tenths/hundredths of seconds.
If you get a little longer in the event - say: a marathon - we've got a lot of room to work with, when it comes to "comparing" grades. There's no such thing as a sub 2:00:00 marathon, and I don't believe there's a 5.15d climb you can legitimately say has been done, so perhaps that's a sound comparison, as both are being actively attempted and only attempted by the fastest/hardest, who are going to be at the top of their game, with a lot of sponsorship support, the training is intense and specific - yadda yadda.
5.12 would be like, your 3:00hr marathon man. It's impressive, but it's something you can do, and still have a life outside of running marathons, even though your friends beg you to stfu up about your stupid sport filled with weird shoes.
But again, it's fuzzy, since a marathon is just one distance and runners who compete usually have a distance they're training for. In Climbing, you've got bouldering, single pitch, multipitch. It's shown that one of the best boulderers can crush the most extreme multipitch climb, and compete at the highest international level in single pitch. In running, that discipline spread would be absolutely unheard of.
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