Malcolm Gladwell, author of "The Tipping Point" "Blink" and "Outliers" apparently ran 4:05 for 1500m as a 14 year old, then hung 'em up.
Malcolm Gladwell, author of "The Tipping Point" "Blink" and "Outliers" apparently ran 4:05 for 1500m as a 14 year old, then hung 'em up.
"something like 4:05"
Can someone find any kind of results?
It does make him cooler, which is hard to do. But that hair takes it over the top, baby!
Malcolm "Gradwell" 4:05.2
FreX and "nuke the oil spill" guy should get together to start more threads based on fiction.
4:05 is very fast for 14. He won, too.
He had a Canadian age-group record at some point in his teens.
If you skip ahead to the next years results Gladwell was still in the midget boys division. He improved to 4:03.3 but only finished 4th, with the top-4 all breaking the OFSAA record.
He actually wrote about his days as a runner in a New Yorker piece a few years ago. As I recall, the piece explored the dominance of runners of African descent and included some anecdotes about his own days as a mid distance runner.
I heard him mention Alberto Salazar at a conference a few years ago, so obviously he still follows sport to some degree.
I saw that piece too, it basically debunked the myth that
east African runners are superior to everyone else.
He mentions how he used to race Doug Consiglio and how Consiglio was actually rather pathetic as a youngster..
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/getarticle.cfm?id=2026
"A similar pattern emerged when Gladwell examined his own cohort of elite teen runners in Ontario. Of the 15 nationally ranked runners in his age class at age 13 or 14, only one of that group had been a top runner in his running prime, at age 24. Indeed, the number-one miler at age 24 was someone Gladwell had known as one of the poorer runners when they were young — Doug Consiglio, a “gawky kid” of whom all the other kids asked “Why does he even bother?”
Umm that kid was top 15 in the country at his age group if I read the article right. Thats pretty darn good. And notice out all the other people in that age range, none of them turned out better than one of the top 15. You need a shitload of talent to make it to the top, you need the breaks to go your way, and you have to train hard. Galdwell might have had 1 but he failed at 2+3.
another gladwell article wrote:
He mentions how he used to race Doug Consiglio and how Consiglio was actually rather pathetic as a youngster..
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/getarticle.cfm?id=2026"A similar pattern emerged when Gladwell examined his own cohort of elite teen runners in Ontario. Of the 15 nationally ranked runners in his age class at age 13 or 14, only one of that group had been a top runner in his running prime, at age 24. Indeed, the number-one miler at age 24 was someone Gladwell had known as one of the poorer runners when they were young — Doug Consiglio, a “gawky kid” of whom all the other kids asked “Why does he even bother?”
... and you need 10,000 hours of practice.
And your point is.....
That's exactly what Gladwell was saying, that while he was not the BEST as a youngster, he was the only one of those top 15 youngsters to make it as a pro.
Gladwell meant him literally no disrespect when he said that. Stop looking for trouble, son.
[quote]dasfasd@hasd.com wrote:
Umm that kid was top 15 in the country at his age group if I read the article right. Thats pretty darn good.
___________
actually, the kid that was top 15 at the young age whom became world class was Dave Reid. Reid was the only one of the top ranked 15 years olds to make it. The other guy, Doug Consiglio was not top ranked at all. The way I heard it, Malcolm lapped consiglio in a 3K when they were 14 and raced for the first time.
Somebody mentioned it above, but in "Outliers" Gladwell talks about a magical threshold being crossed into "mastery" once you do something for 10,000 hours. He talks about the Beatles playing together, Bill Gates doing computer programing, and other stuff.
Let's say you run 8 miles per hour (7:30 pace average). In 10,000 hours that's 80,000 miles. If you ran 50 miles each week it would take you 30 years to log 80,000 miles. Or 15 years of 100 mile weeks. Is that what it takes for mastery in running?
What's the threshold for mastery in running?
40 I think.
The point is that there is very little difference between top 15 and top 1 in the country. You could consider both prodigies (or neither)
4812 wrote:
And your point is.....
That's exactly what Gladwell was saying, that while he was not the BEST as a youngster, he was the only one of those top 15 youngsters to make it as a pro.
Gladwell meant him literally no disrespect when he said that. Stop looking for trouble, son.
He also spoke about this at length during a very interesting speech, available on iTunes, at the New Yorker festival. The title of the speech was something like America's Preooccupation with Precociousness. He was making the point that being very good at something at an early age does not necessarily mean you will be successful as an adult. The discussion of running is at the beginning, and the rest of the piece is extremely interesting, and includes discussion that does not appear in Outliers. The audience asked some great questions that he answered in an interesting way.
Actually, I think this may be close to correct if you expand your definition of practice a little. Add in the time doing strength training, drills, dynamics, stretching, and strides, and the 10,000 hours take fewer years to achieve. The key, according to Gladwell, is focused practice, not just going through the motions. So when you see a group of high school or college kids that are joking around and not really going after it, that wouldn't count towards the 10,000 hours, but if you look at what Jay Johnson espouses or the strength training programs that Vern Gambetta designs, all those extras would go towards the 10,000 hours. I would think he would even include things like a technical event athlete analyzing Dartfish, although I'm not sure.
I haven't read much of Gladwell, but I don't think he's saying 10,000 hours is what it takes to be good. Obviously, there will be people with natural talent who get by on less. He's saying that's the amount of work it takes to excel or to be an outlier.
Gladwell created a very simple catchy explanation using the 10,000hr rule.
The reality is saying it takes 10k hour is like saying 100mpw is what is needed for successful performance.
While its a decent rule of thumb, people, gladwell himself, take it too far.
And yes I've read his books.
