Does it take talent to run a 15:xx 5k? (male)

yeah okay buddy wrote:

I'm sure your 16:10 is a 5kXC, meaning either the 5:04 was from months before in track and you really improved that much or the more likely scenario the course was short as all phuck

5:04 was a bit older, like 2 years prior (but I still couldn't run faster when I tried on a track workout/time trial). I do lots of miles and mostly train for marathons, so I have muuuuch better strength than raw speed. 16:10 was a road race; I'm not in HS or college anymore. I've run sub 16:30 4 times in road races, so the 16:10 was not "short as all phuck". I beat a couple sub-16 guys in that race also, so it was legit...

I looked up "talent" in Webster's online dictionary to try to settle this thread. Webster says that talent is "the natural endowments of a person." So there it is. You have to be well-endowed to run a 15:xx 5k.

Is it safe to assume wrote:

However, I have no doubt that I could run that fast if I wanted to spend the time training for it. But I have other, greater interests in life that take away from the time that I would have to spend training and recovering to get to that level. However, I will say that I have had a somewhat slow to fast experience. My mile time in 9th grade was a 7:50. My personal best is 4:02 now.

Wow, it's easy to see who's insecure on this thread.

One guy, above, loved running, trained his guts out and eventually switched over to an academic career where his talents (inborn characteristics, yes) served him well.

Then, we have you, talking about all the things you could have done if you hadn't had so many other "greater interests" to pursue. Such as, presumably, posting on letsrun.

Your 4:02 shows that you achieved something many simply couldn't, with any amount of dedication to any training program. I'd comfortably wager there are hundreds of guys with a 4:00-4:05 who pulled out all the stops for years and didn't improve beyond that.

I understand why you deny that you had any specific talent: it makes it easier for your to pretend you didn't waste the gift. I guess we'll never know what you could have done. At least IveSaidItBefore had the balls to give it all he had.

People that post on letsrun are surrounded by folks that run, too, most of which have at least some talent.

Looking at a random NYRR 5k event of 2011, there were a total # of 2849 men. Of those, 1463 are between 20 and 40 years old.

22 runners broke 16:00. Obviously, some hills and not track so lets add another 40 seconds. That makes it 38.

38/2849 = 1.3%

Is anyone seriously trying to argue that it does not take talent to be among the best 1% of their age group?

From weighing 195lb with no previous athletic experience, I ran under 18 minutes in 12 months. Didn't run more than 40 miles a week. Did I have talent? No. Did I try hard? Yeh. If you're under 25 and can't break 20 minutes that just embarrassing dude.

I never ran under 17:20 5k or 4:55 mile in high school even though I thought I worked hard. I was not very talented in comparison to others around me who ran faster on similar traing. In college, I ran more miles and ran 15:30 and sub 4:20 for the mile. It was just with more work and a longer period of consistent running. The difference was running hard for 30-35 miles a week vs running intelligently for 65ish miles a week. My talent level did not rise. I beleive some people overestimate how much talent is involved because they are comparing themselves to others who are faster on similar amount of work. In my opinion, 15:30 does not take talent. It just takes more miles, longer periods of dedication/healthy training, and a good plan for those with average ability.

Phenotypic plasticity: there's a (limited) positive feedback loop with running talent. With consistent running your bone structure changes to some extent, as well as tendons/ligament/etc, increasing your capacity to train... Of course this doesn't answer the question with regards to talent because it such an imprecise/unscientific term

sub 16 guy wrote:

People that post on letsrun are surrounded by folks that run, too, most of which have at least some talent.

Looking at a random NYRR 5k event of 2011, there were a total # of 2849 men. Of those, 1463 are between 20 and 40 years old.

22 runners broke 16:00. Obviously, some hills and not track so lets add another 40 seconds. That makes it 38.

38/2849 = 1.3%

Is anyone seriously trying to argue that it does not take talent to be among the best 1% of their age group?

Less than 1% is training to capacity

are*

nawww wrote:

From weighing 195lb with no previous athletic experience, I ran under 18 minutes in 12 months. Didn't run more than 40 miles a week. Did I have talent? No. Did I try hard? Yeh. If you're under 25 and can't break 20 minutes that just embarrassing dude.

Boy, here we go, yet another entry in the "I had no talent but just worked harder than all of you pvssies" sweepstakes (granted that considerably less talent is required for 17:xx than for 15:xx).

Don't sprain your elbow patting yourself on the back, guy. And don't denigrate the *truly* talentless, for whom, after years of training, a 20:xx (or 24:xx, or slower) could represent the ultimate in dedication, planning, singlemindedness, toughness, and goal orientation.

Of course, the current leader in the IHNTBJWHTAOYP contest is still Steve Prefontaine, who liked to say (or have said about him) that his success was all the result of work and toughness.

Yeah, that--and being one of the most naturally-gifted American distance runners in history (a fact supported by physiological tests that were performed on him).

45yw wrote:

Boy, here we go, yet another entry in the "I had no talent but just worked harder than all of you pvssies" sweepstakes (granted that considerably less talent is required for 17:xx than for 15:xx).

Don't sprain your elbow patting yourself on the back, guy. And don't denigrate the *truly* talentless, for whom, after years of training, a 20:xx (or 24:xx, or slower) could represent the ultimate in dedication, planning, singlemindedness, toughness, and goal orientation.

Of course, the current leader in the IHNTBJWHTAOYP contest is still Steve Prefontaine, who liked to say (or have said about him) that his success was all the result of work and toughness.

Yeah, that--and being one of the most naturally-gifted American distance runners in history (a fact supported by physiological tests that were performed on him).

WORD. It's hard work to get down from 17 to 15 and it's just as hard for other folks to get down from 21 to 19. And 19, for some, is their natural limit.

When I said 17:20 in high school, I mean that was my fastest. I worked hard to get to that 17:20. I started at 22 minutes as my best time my freshman year. When I ran 17:20, I didn't think I would get any faster. Most people think the same way especially when they hit the same times over and over. Then they either give up or they half ass it. Most runners will not come close to their potential becuase they are not willing to put in the effort long term or cannot stick to a plan long enough. They sound a lot like you guys. Just stick to your 5 miles slow distance every day and keep wondering why you can't break 19 minutes.

if you read the "what's the slowest person you know that runs 100mpw thread" you will see very few people responding with over 16minutes. if you aren't running 80,90,100+ mpw for 5 years or more, you have no idea what your limit is

no, i'm not insecure. i didn't waste my gift. i had other more important things that came up in life. running isn't everything. it's not even my favorite sport to do. i'm not going to starve myself or my family right now just so i can train. The poster that was talking to me did not give it all he had. He was never a 7:50 miler. I figure he would have quit if he was that slow. He hit a wall or something at 4:40 and gave in to self doubt.

and about the genes: my point was not that they don't exist. my point was that most of you have most likely never been tested for which genes you have, so you don't know if you have them or not. so stop claiming that they are holding you back.

i still don't understand why you're so determined to claim that you're not talented or that you'll never be faster or that you have bad genes when you don't know any of those for certain. stop being weak, believe in yourself! you don't see Chris Solinsky talking about how he wants to just make it to the World Championships or the Olympics - He wants GOLD.

So many posters are viewing talent as either having it or not. Talent like most other things is on a continuum. Running 17:xx takes a medium amount of talent while running 13:xx take a great deal of talent.

wi|fredo wrote:

if you aren't running 80,90,100+ mpw for 5 years or more, you have no idea what your limit is

Unless you only run 50-60 mpw for a few years, and consistently or permanently injure yourself--then maybe you have an idea of your limit.

Again: the idea that being able to sustain ~100mpw of running is not a "talent" is ridiculous. OF COURSE most of the men who run 100mpw are under 16:00--their ability to sustain that means they probably have a sound structure (skeletal; connective tissue; aerobic processing ability) for distance running, as well as success (at lower mileages) that convinced them to up their workload.

And naturally those who injured themselves at lower mileage didn't post in the 100mpw thread. Duh.

One of the things that makes being a distance runner interesting is that nobody really knows the answer to the fundamental question being asked here; i.e., for a given individual, what kind of inherent limits are there on his/her performance that no kind of training could get you beyond?

How good could I be if I trained in an "optimal" (whatever that is) manner for a long period of time? There's no way to know, and only one way to find out ... you try to do it.

In fact, that's how I'd define what it means to be a serious runner: you're trying to find out what your inherent limits are.

Well said. People are encouraged by the results they see early on which is basically talent. They train harder, then they think hard work is what got them there. And it is, partially...BTW: I continued to run in college. BK won the NCAAs, I never got there despite being on a CC team that placed top 5. Did I have the coaching? Check. Did I do the work/mileage/quality for years? Check. Did I have the necessary talent? Fail. Some of my teammates did. It is reality. I am not whining. I worked hard, achieved a lot for which I am proud. But I was never going to the Olympics, though I believed I could at the time. And most people, no matter how hard they work, are in the same situation. Top 1% talent is a prerequisite.

45yw wrote:

wi|fredo wrote:

if you aren't running 80,90,100+ mpw for 5 years or more, you have no idea what your limit is

Unless you only run 50-60 mpw for a few years, and consistently or permanently injure yourself--then maybe you have an idea of your limit.

Again: the idea that being able to sustain ~100mpw of running is not a "talent" is ridiculous. OF COURSE most of the men who run 100mpw are under 16:00--their ability to sustain that means they probably have a sound structure (skeletal; connective tissue; aerobic processing ability) for distance running, as well as success (at lower mileages) that convinced them to up their workload.

And naturally those who injured themselves at lower mileage didn't post in the 100mpw thread. Duh.

I think the problem is we have too many hobby joggers in the house. No way is 1% talent a prerequisite as a runner. Lydiard had 3 Olympic medalists that grew up in his town . Population was only 10,000. There were only 55 runners in the area according to his memoir. 3 divided by 55 is 5.4%. 5.4% of the runners in that area were Olympic champions. We're talking about sub 13:30 guys, not sub 16 guys. You can't argue with Math.