Last Thursday, Britney Spears of all people gave quarantined track fans some much needed entertainment: the 38-year-old Toxic singer (Toxic is the best Britney song, this isn’t up for debate) claimed, in a confusing and since-deleted Instagram post, that she ran 100 meters in 5.97 seconds.

#Tokyo2021 pic.twitter.com/sa1NhceBsz

— FloTrack (@FloTrack) March 26, 2020

Now, let me get my controversial take out of the way: Britney Spears did not run the 100 meters in 5.97 seconds. Not only is the pop star likely past her athletic prime at 38, but a human being running 37 miles per hour is, yep, Crazy. That’s about as fast as a tiger runs when it sees Joe Exotic coming (more on that later).

Here's what 5.97 (@britneyspears' 100m pb) looks like if @usainbolt did it... lmao pic.twitter.com/EhPxVbM7aQ

— Gordon Mack (@gordonmack) March 26, 2020

While I, like everyone else who read Britney’s post, was initially confused by the text, a conversation I had with my wife about the content has potentially shed light on this mystery. My wife is a huge Britney fan— they share the same birthday— and she hypothesized that the most likely explanation is that the …Baby One More Time singer actually ran a 40 meter dash and then confused the sprint with the other famous sprint distance. 

This, dear readers, floored me. 

It makes a ton of sense! I know Britney clarified her claim in a later post by saying she was “joking” about a 5.97 100m, but my thinking is that she doesn’t want to admit that she simply mixed up her events. But 5.97 is a pretty solid 40m time, and if she were to come out and say that she actually ran that distance, I certainly wouldn’t hold it against her.

Speaking of Joe Exotic and various "Tiger King" characters...