Is the sport of running pretty much a joke?

So, everything achieved with hard work is a joke? Everything achieved with genes and giftedness is not a joke?

America is a nation of fast food and steroids.

Running is the toughest sport by far to be successful at. Just look at how many thousands of people run in, for example, the Boston Marathon. The winner has to beat several thousand people. I can't think of any other sport where the winner has to overcome such overwhelming odds.

Sports like NFL are jokes in comparison to running because they are so complicated to play. Just look at all the padding and equipment required before you even walk onto the playing field. How many people are actually going to bother with that? Very few compared with running.

With running it is basically jus lace 'em up and go and because of that simplicity you are going to be competing against so many more people just to have some degree of success.

I'll bet that at most high schools you could find the 7 best athletes from all of the other sports and beat the cross existing cross country team in a head to head meet.

This is a theoretical experiment because you would need the same levels of training and base.

That said, my point is that the 7 (potential) best cross country runners are not on the cross country team.

There is probably a guy or to on the football, lax, soccer, basketball, tennis and baseball teams.

I'm not talking about the fat-ass left tackle on the football team. I'm talking about the kid that is just a stud that would be the star no matter the sport. Those guys are usually not running XC.

really? wrote:

it appears a lot of people here ran 4:30 miles off of no training

This is a common characteristic of letsrun posters.

Is the sport of basketball pretty much a joke? Anyone can make a free throw.

For 15 years, I have run with a training group that includes everyone from 6 hour to 2:3X marathoners. People who can run a sub 4:30 mile with no training are a very, very rare talent and usually are people who are training very hard at another sport (soccer is usually the most compatible). When I was in my 20s, I lived in the NE and always quit running in the winter because it was too snowy, cold, wet, etc. I was never in very good shape because when I would pick back up on running, I would always push too hard and get a hobby jogger injury fairly quickly. On a dare, I ran a mile on a track one night. It was a full out effort and I just barely missed going under 7 min. I was wearing jeans. So maybe I had 6:50 in me. Point is that for the vast majority of people, distance running is not a breeze that anyone can do. It is really hard and takes a tremendous amount of work and discipline. Just because a few kids can pop off a 4:30 mile when they are 18 and spending 2-3 hours a day playing different sports and working out does not mean that this is the standard for the general population.

I went to high school and ran track with the soccer star Landon Donovan. I was an average mid-distance runner: 52 in the 4, 2 flat in the 8 in high school. I was far faster than Landon every day, all day. Take that for what you will.

The OP probably has his own kids by now....

Anyway, what I've always loved about running is that although it's a sport with a huge genetic component (like just about every sport), it's a sport that also takes a huge amount of work to reach one's potential. That means that very average people can seem awesome if they want to put in the work. That's especially true on the roads (where most people are recreational). I once coached a very bad cross country team, and I had them run a bunch of road races to let them see how much better they are than the average recreational runner, even if other schools had top-5s that could lap us. It's also true as you move up in distance. For example, a 15:30 5k supposedly equates to a 2:28 marathon, the vast majority of 15:30 guys won't ever sniff 2:28.

Regarding the running prowess of athletes from other sports, it's hard to generalize. One issue is that you can't really know if those guys are pushing themselves when they're on the track. An athlete who is just doing track as off-season training for another sport is an athlete who isn't going to make himself suffer. And a huge part of improving as a high school runner is learning, race by race, just how much you can hurt. I went from 2:10 to 2:00 in one season in high school. The 2:10 at the beginning of the season was mildly difficult. At the time I thought I was working hard. But my 2:00 relay split a month later was an agony that I simply cannot describe. For what it's worth, our 4x400 and 4x800 teams had seven soccer players, and both teams were among the best in the state. Those guys stood out as physically gifted on the soccer field, but not overwhelmingly so.