99% of the population fully trained would not beat the most talented who have not trained. My son ran 4:48 in 8th grade gym class never having run before. He is not elitebut very good. Somebody like Jakob likely would have run 4:30 in a mile at age 18 if u trained but less than 1% of people can do it fully trained.
Talent is valid to a degree, but nurture trumps nature more often than not (except in things like basketball and football where height is an important factor). A lot of kids who are exposed to athletics and education from a young age are simply labeled as "talented". What many call "talented" are simply people who have led active lifestyles their entire lives. In distance running and sports like soccer work ethic is far more critical.
Durability matters and can be considered a talent in and of itself. If someone with average speed and above average endurance can get to 120 MPW and do workouts without getting injured then, yes that person can some day beat the better natural athlete. Durability is in fact the most limiting factor for any athlete. Most all top athletes push themselves to their durability limit and have to back off or else get injured. Sometimes the "slower" runner can beat the "faster" runner because their durability to train hard is better.
If all things are equal however, the dude who can close a 54 second 400 is always going to beat a guy who can't even split a 60 second 400...no matter how hard he trains!
My neighbor is 35. He ran about 18 minutes in college for an NAIA school. He now trains 125 MPW. He does 2 workouts. His marathon PR is 3:30 and his 5K PR is still he college PR of 18 minutes. I can probably give him a good run in a 5K even though I haven't trained for 5 years.
This was a really interesting debate... 15 years ago, when Colvin's book and others like it (Outliers, but Malcolm Gladwell; The Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle) came out. The topic has been hashed out here and many, many other places ad nauseam.
What I find interesting in this particular formulation is the idea that talents only exists above some arbitrary threshold. Sure, the OP admits, it takes talent to run a sub-4 mile... but any average person can run 4:20. I know nothing about the OP, but my guess is that his personal ceiling lies somewhere in that range. "The people faster than me are gifted superhumans. The people slower than me just didn't work hard enough." On some level, we're all solipsists.
But there's a deeper point here. It's obviously true that there is *some* performance level that the average person could hit with reasonable effort. We'll never know what that time is, but in theory you could conscript everyone on the planet to spend the ages of 16 to 21 living clean and training as hard as they can, and see what the median mile time turns out to be. Let's say it turns out to be 6:23. Or, conversely, let's say it turns out to be 3:57. Either way, that STILL doesn't tell us "talent doesn't exist." Talent just tells us that there's a spread between what the 1st percentile and the 99th percentile can achieve, even if they do everything the same. And there clearly is.
Which leads me to my last point: I suspect the OP doesn't have kids. Mine just got old enough to start competing in elementary school cross-country. Go watch a few hundred 6-year-olds run XC, none of whom have ever trained a step in their lives, and tell me there's no such thing as talent.
99% of the population fully trained would not beat the most talented who have not trained. My son ran 4:48 in 8th grade gym class never having run before.
The first sentence is complete, unadulterated BS. As for the second sentence, at least one of the following is true. Maybe even three or more.
- the mile was short (and by a lot more than 9.344m)
- your son had previous soccer, basketball, flag football, etc training but no track or XC training
- your son doesn't play any organized sports but leads a highly active lifestyle that involves things like biking to school, going on strenuous weekend hikes, and playing lots of pickup basketball
- your son lied to you about his time
- the teacher lied to your son about his time
- your son misheard his time
- laps were miscounted
- the stopwatch wasn't functioning properly
Nobody runs a 4:48 mile on a sedentary lifestyle. Not even Kipchoge. Heck, I don't think I could run a 5:30 mile if I had to sit on the couch all day for a year and I've run 4:08.
This was a really interesting debate... 15 years ago, when Colvin's book and others like it (Outliers, but Malcolm Gladwell; The Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle) came out. The topic has been hashed out here and many, many other places ad nauseam.
What I find interesting in this particular formulation is the idea that talents only exists above some arbitrary threshold. Sure, the OP admits, it takes talent to run a sub-4 mile... but any average person can run 4:20. I know nothing about the OP, but my guess is that his personal ceiling lies somewhere in that range. "The people faster than me are gifted superhumans. The people slower than me just didn't work hard enough." On some level, we're all solipsists.
But there's a deeper point here. It's obviously true that there is *some* performance level that the average person could hit with reasonable effort. We'll never know what that time is, but in theory you could conscript everyone on the planet to spend the ages of 16 to 21 living clean and training as hard as they can, and see what the median mile time turns out to be. Let's say it turns out to be 6:23. Or, conversely, let's say it turns out to be 3:57. Either way, that STILL doesn't tell us "talent doesn't exist." Talent just tells us that there's a spread between what the 1st percentile and the 99th percentile can achieve, even if they do everything the same. And there clearly is.
Which leads me to my last point: I suspect the OP doesn't have kids. Mine just got old enough to start competing in elementary school cross-country. Go watch a few hundred 6-year-olds run XC, none of whom have ever trained a step in their lives, and tell me there's no such thing as talent.
I don't think anyone is arguing that talent doesn't exist. It clearly does.
What's up for debate is how much it matters. Whether it's overrated or not.
In your example, if the median mile time is 6:23, then talent is everything. If it's 3:57, then it doesn't really matter unless you're trying to make the Olympics.
Herb Elliott, in his day, was thought of as a running God...even by his main competitors. He was a shinning example of natural talent. At 20yrs, in 1958, he was the fastest 880yds runner in the world and set world records a 1500m and a mile. In 1959 he virtually had a year off, but 1960 returned to win the Olympic 1500m and set a world record. BTW, I've always thought that Herb's talent over 800m has been very much underestimated; for example, he probably was the best 800m runner in the world in 1958, In his final 880yd race of the season, for example, he murdered Brian Hewson who went on to win gold at the European Champions 1500m , and could have easily have won the 800m which was won by fellow English runner Mike Rawson who Hewson always beat. Then, at the end of the 1960 season, Herb retired from international racing BUT in1961 he ran for his college, Cambridge University, over 880yrds but his form was poor and even he got beat by a far inferior athlete. So much for natural talent.
Talent is a small factor. But sure keep using this uncontrollable factor as a reason as to why you aren’t fast. Meanwhile, I’ll look inwards at controllable factors in my training and use that to improve instead of making excuses.
Well, he ran 4:21 as a freshman so I think his gym class mile.was accurate. He ran close to 4:10 as a sophomore and we are hoping for 4:05 this year for recruiting purposes. He ran 35 MPW last year and the coach plans for 40 this year. I ran 14:30 in college at a D3 school on almost no mileage. I never really enjoyed running but enjoyed the team aspect. My son doesn't enjoy it either but plans to do it for a scholarship.
Well, he ran 4:21 as a freshman so I think his gym class mile.was accurate. He ran close to 4:10 as a sophomore and we are hoping for 4:05 this year for recruiting purposes. He ran 35 MPW last year and the coach plans for 40 this year. I ran 14:30 in college at a D3 school on almost no mileage. I never really enjoyed running but enjoyed the team aspect. My son doesn't enjoy it either but plans to do it for a scholarship.
I'm getting tired of people claiming that talent is necessary for young male runners to hit semi-decent times like a 4:20 mile at least once in their life. Like Sean Brosnan said, 4:20 is not that fast. Granted, no amount of training will turn an average person into an Olympian or even a sub 4 miler, but a totally average guy could definitely run a 4:19 by training hard (and smart!) enough for a period of many years if they had the motivation to do so. Of course, that means that 49.9......9% of the population would not be able to do it. That's why they're below average.
If you are so sure it requires talent, and you know cases that train perfectly, do high mileage with decent workouts and training plan/coaching, don't cut on sleep and eat decently, and so on, show me that data. Give me a case where someone did all of these things and plateaued at something absolutely terrible like a 17 minute 5K.
GL, I'd be extremely surprised if you can actually back up your claim with real people.
As expected, there hasn't been a single case posted yet. Instead, the responses were
- if talent isn't a thing, you go run a 10 second 100/13:00 5K/make the NBA/do something that's vastly harder than a 4:20 mile
- my kid ran a 4:48 mile without any training
- some kids are faster than others without training. How do you explain that?
- the average person, who is middle-aged, overweight, and probably female, couldn't go sub 20 for a 5k if you put a gun to their head
- my neighbor ran 125 mpw with two workouts as an older guy and couldn't beat his 5k time from when he was younger
Look, I never said that talent doesn't exist. It does. And if you want to be an elite or even win a high school state championship, it's absolutely essential. But it's highly overrated if you're just looking to be moderately successful. The average guy can run a 4:20 mile, but that still means that the 49ish% of the population who is below-average can't do it regardless of how much they train. 4:4x would be achievable by almost any young male, though.
Still waiting to hear stories of those who optimized their training and failed to run a 17 minute 5K (or equivalent in other distances).
I completely agree with this and am getting tired of people claiming that talent is necessary for young male runners to hit semi-decent times like a 4:20 mile at least once in their life.
You're confused. In many areas in life, lots of hard work can make up for a lack of natural talent. For example, an average person can get very good at quickly solving a Rubik's Cube if they felt like putting in a huge amount of practice. For those kinds of things hard work is more important than talent.
However, there are other areas, like art, music, and sports, where people either have talent or they don't. And their level of talent determines how far they can go. No amount of hard work will make up for lack of talent in areas like art, music, and sports.
As expected, there hasn't been a single case posted yet.
You missed the post about a former NAIA guy running 125mpw.
See my last bullet point about the 125 mpw guy.
I didn't include the 18 minute NAIA stuff since there are so many unknowns aside from the fact that most NAIA programs aren't known for near-optimal training. How many seasons did he run for that school? Did he have any previous track or XC experience before college? Was he an 800 guy who only ran one 5K, which was in 18 minutes? What training did he do after graduation?
Sorry, but talent is not overrated. It is UNDERRATED.
People who like to say that talent is underrated (unfortunately most people are like this) do so because they want to give credit to themselves for DOING something to realize that talent. They like to believe that their ability is WAY more a product of their work than any inherent talent that they had nothing to do with.
Yes, work is necessary to realize just about all talents, BUT those with lots of talent in a given area either 1) need to put in a lot less work to operate at a high level, OR 2) put in the same amount of work as other high achievers but perform much better than they do...at a VERY elite level.
We see prodigies in many areas of life...5 year old music prodigies, mathematics prodigies, chess prodigies, etc. 5 years old isn't long enough to just have time on task be the thing that made them great.
And, then beyond those extreme examples, we have more muted examples of talent. For example, many of us who are runners and ran well in high school and then college and beyond, found early success in running. I am no different. I absolutely DESTROYED kids in elementary school on field day, in gym class, etc. whenever there was a running event of any kind (even in sprints in those early days). I didn't train then. I wasn't more active than the normal boy my age. I just had a level of inherent TALENT that they didn't.
With running (and most things), you have to train the talent to realize the potential, and a very well trained person with lesser talent with beat most who don't train who have loads of talent, but equal training and often even much less training will take the talented one to greater heights.
Durability requires some talent. I think if more people tried cross training 15-30 hours a week with 2-3 running workouts a week , then we could see the average male getting some decent times. But the cross training needs to be something close to running either elliptical or pool running.
Close examination of high performers show that the vast majority of them have a least one thing in common...a great amount of "deliberate practice"
Pretty much most athletes start off by realizing "Wow, I'm good at this and I enjoy it!" and then begin serious training. I outran everyone on the playground off of no training, I self selected to be a runner, and then I put in years of training.
Yep. I wrote a similar thing before reading your post. This is a common thing for runners...common to recognize a talent for it early on, but then of course for most of us, even that level of talent isn't good enough to be a professional.