Some of you don't realize that running is 95% talent. I ran 4:15 in HS doing 15-20 MPW. I went to a crappy college with a coach who knew nothing. I ran 30 MPW and hit 4:05.
All of which if true means that you should have been able to break 4 eventually. However who knows what is true?
My teammate ran 40 mpw and he missed like 30 percent of are workouts and he didn’t lift but still ran 15:10 5k High-school xc
Not enough info, this kid could have been training intensely since he was five or six in multiple sports and able to excel in almost any new sport with that foundation.
In sports & entertainment, talent represents 80% of success, maybe more
In life, talent is a 20% of success, maybe less
There are so many factors impacting "life success" that talent in one particular area isn't typically going to carry you that far. In sports, where the objective is honed down and isolated to one or two things, talent is nearly everything.
That said, most people have some talent at something
Having a brain and decent IQ. This is especially important in marathon where pacing and nutrition more key. Idiots don’t run well in marathon eg Alan Webb try to run marathon and pace not even
Some of you don't realize that running is 95% talent. I ran 4:15 in HS doing 15-20 MPW. I went to a crappy college with a coach who knew nothing. I ran 30 MPW and hit 4:05.
I wouldn't say this proves that you had no talent, it just means you needed a little more commitment to become any good.
40 mpw is more than most kids are running in HS programs, so I don't really get this characterization that he "doesn't do anything." Still very impressive - you've got a real blue chip distance prospect on your hands!
It can be hard to accept, and I wish I had better advice. Now that I'm a 30something hobbyjogger I have the pleasure of getting lapped in the 5K by recovering alcoholics who were smoking weed on their snowboards in HS while I was grinding out 400s solo like a dork. Doesn't seem fair, but sometimes that's the way she goes.
Sure there are some guys that can do outstanding performance of little training. But very talented guys failing to achieve anything is also very common.
A friend of mine did 3H00 in the marathon with NO training. Just being fit from doing some random sport once a week for fun. And maybe running 5-6times 1h runs the month (not 5 times a week, 5times for the whole month) before the marathon and call it a marathon build up. He didn't even hit the wall. He could also run a 55sec 400 with no training at all when 16yo, not doing any sport consistently.
But that's still his PBs today lol...
It's not like he didn't care. He tried to do sub 3h several times after that but never made it. Couldn't run consistently for more than 2-3 months, partying a lot, girls etc And he was training like an idiot doing nothing for 2-3weeks then workout 5 times a week all out.
We had a similar thing at my school - similar times and ran many events well. He even got caught smoking weed on the bus but didn't really get in trouble - only a stern, hour-long talk with the entire team.
Oh yeah - his brother was also fast and played in the NFL
40 mpw is more than most kids are running in HS programs, so I don't really get this characterization that he "doesn't do anything." Still very impressive - you've got a real blue chip distance prospect on your hands!
It can be hard to accept, and I wish I had better advice. Now that I'm a 30something hobbyjogger I have the pleasure of getting lapped in the 5K by recovering alcoholics who were smoking weed on their snowboards in HS while I was grinding out 400s solo like a dork. Doesn't seem fair, but sometimes that's the way she goes.
Only advice you can give is that if you focus on others this sport can be pretty depressing and unfair. However, the flipside is that it's pretty fair in terms of your own improvement, so you get out what you put in. Sure some people have a talent multiplier ahead of that function that lets them get way more out of way less but that's just good for them.
Yeah he doesn’t not work hard but can definitely do a lot more
This is probably why, he's training within himself, not over extending himself. One mistake a lot of athletes do is doing too much/working too hard. You want to do as little stimulus as possible, till you stagnant and increase the stimulus a little more. If he's cruising 1k repeats with you and your dead tired at the end and you couldn't do another one even if it was life and death but he could. That's because he's working out at a appropriate effort.
A kid in my high school did absolutely nothing, and I mean nothing for training. Smoked weed all day and got hammered every weekend and ran 22 mid for 200m. My coach wanted to kick him off the team but he won the 100, 200 and anchored the 4x1 and the points were too valuable. Lol
I get it, as a coach. But on general principles he should have kicked him off the team, points be darned. The kid and the team learned nothing from the coach’s actions, and I’d argue that is more important than the points.
We had a similar thing at my school - similar times and ran many events well. He even got caught smoking weed on the bus but didn't really get in trouble - only a stern, hour-long talk with the entire team.
Oh yeah - his brother was also fast and played in the NFL
That’s remarkable. He smoked marijuana on the team bus and didn’t get in trouble? I mean, that is malpractice by the coach.
My teammate ran 40 mpw and he missed like 30 percent of are workouts and he didn’t lift but still ran 15:10 5k High-school xc
He has the gentic gift which could go far if he utilizes it. I was a 50 to 60 mile a week guy who focused on the 800m and 1500m and ran 1:51 and 3:45 but also ran nearly 29:00 for the 10,000m back in college.
Allegedly the first time Justyn Knight ran a 5k was in high school gym class where he went low 15's in Air Jordans. Some people are born with abilities the rest of the world doesn't have. That goes for all aspects of life, not just running
I too had a guy who could run great times off of no training. when he did try to up his mileage (even gradually), he always got injured or burnt out and his times would suffer.
by contrast, I knew a second guy who had a 'talent' for sustaining serious mileage. He didn't burn out or get injured. Without training, his times were awful compared to the first guy. however, by the end of high school, his times had surpassed the first guy's.
Some of you don't realize that running is 95% talent. I ran 4:15 in HS doing 15-20 MPW. I went to a crappy college with a coach who knew nothing. I ran 30 MPW and hit 4:05.
> Doesn’t care enough about running to develop god-given potential.
> Cares enough about running to sh*tpost on letsrun
I too had a guy who could run great times off of no training. when he did try to up his mileage (even gradually), he always got injured or burnt out and his times would suffer.
If you had a guy who ran better times (great even) without training than he did while training, I suspect there was an issue with his training or your definition of great.
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