Natural talent vs. hard work

Scope wrote:

Talent is pretty much all of it, but for some people their talent won't show until they've put in a lot lot of work. Talent isn't just how fast you can run with little training, for some people their talent manifests as the ability to handle and adapt to a large amount of training or a large amount of hard fast work. Some of the runners with that first type of natural talent won't be able to handle the mileage or intensity the second type can and won't be able to achieve the same results that seem to all come out of hard work. But it's really all talent.

I agree with this. I think most talented are the ones who're really fast with no training and can also handle lots of mileage and training, and those people really excel. The ability to withstand high load without injury is a great talent to have in distance running.

Even if you're super slow with no training, but have the ability to withstand really high mileage with minimal breakdown, you will be pretty good. Unfortunately, most people breakdown and get injured.

This is a solid post and may help explain why the 7 members of my college cc team have landed as follows:

1. Cop

2. Whereabouts unknown (immensely talented, but lazy)

3. Corporate lawyer

4. Orthopedic surgeon

5. Computer chip wizard

6. Dentist

7. US Attorney

I guess my point here is along the same lines as the philosophical post. With the exception of the #1 and #2 guys on the team (both all-americans), the rest of us knew our running careers would be over when we graduated. We were all fast and had varying degrees of talent, but our gains were primarily measured by self-improvement and/or an occasional move up and down the top 7. Moreover, running competitively, not just in college, but from whenever we began, taught us tremendous discipline and set us up well for the future. While most of us could never even come close to beating our #2 guy (example of tremendous talent), we worked hard nonetheless and did the best we could to harness the talent we had. Isn't that all we can ask of ourselves in life?

Nice post. Thanks. I plan on becoming a mailman myself :)

"Is it really true that everyone is a blank slate at birth and the fastest runner is the one who trains the most (this is what I've always been told)?"

Who ever told you that was a da mn liar.

Distance running is a sport where working hard will make a big % difference in performaance, but natural talent still comes into play. If the OP runs a 6-minute mile on little training, then working hard might get him below 5 or even close to 4:30, but he doesn't have the talent to ever break 4 no matter how hard he trained. Similarly, I can work my ass off to get my 10K back down to 35 from its current 40, but no matter what I will never run 27 and challenge Farah and Rupp as I simply don't have that natural talent.

I agree that's about 90% genetics.

I ran 70mpw for years with lots of quality workouts, no injuries, and never broke 5:00 for the mile, or 18:00 for the 5k. My fastest 400m was 68 seconds.

All the work and desire in the world wasn't going to change the fact that I have zero genetic talent for speed.

I always laugh when I read things like "I broke 14:00 for the 5k due to hard work, I don't really have any speed". If only you knew...

Good luck..

Degenerate Gambler wrote:

I agree that's about 90% genetics.

I ran 70mpw for years with lots of quality workouts, no injuries, and never broke 5:00 for the mile, or 18:00 for the 5k. My fastest 400m was 68 seconds.

All the work and desire in the world wasn't going to change the fact that I have zero genetic talent for speed.

I always laugh when I read things like "I broke 14:00 for the 5k due to hard work, I don't really have any speed". If only you knew...

Good luck..

So it's not possible that you were just doing something wrong? It has to be genetics that limited you?

13s 100m? 65s 400m? 5:30 mile?!!..... Your speed endurance is horrible!!

Whoever is designing your training is completely failing you? Do some mileage, progression runs, tempos and longer fartleks for a while (plus some hill sprints) to build your 'aerobic house'

Flagpole would actually give you some good advice

erferfer wrote:

So it's not possible that you were just doing something wrong? It has to be genetics that limited you?

Yes, genetics limited me.

When a 13 year old boy who has never run a 400m in his life can put down the video game controller and beat you, the reality sets in.

Boyahz wrote:

13s 100m? 65s 400m? 5:30 mile?!!..... Your speed endurance is horrible!!

Whoever is designing your training is completely failing you? Do some mileage, progression runs, tempos and longer fartleks for a while (plus some hill sprints) to build your 'aerobic house'

What exactly do you mean by 'speed endurance?'

Degenerate Gambler wrote:

erferfer wrote:

So it's not possible that you were just doing something wrong? It has to be genetics that limited you?

Yes, genetics limited me.

When a 13 year old boy who has never run a 400m in his life can put down the video game controller and beat you, the reality sets in.

So its not possible that something about one of your lifestyles made it possible for him to beat you? Maybe you were just overtrained. Maybe he's more active than you think. There are lots of things that can help running performance that have nothing to do with running or genes.

What was the time on the 400m anyway?

It doesn't sound like you were training like a miler. What were these "quality" workouts? How do you know that you wouldn't have responded with more mileage or with more speed workouts. Put it this way:No matter what your genetic limit on performance is, almost everyone in the world with even a modicum of talent can break 5 minutes in the mile.

Degenerate Gambler wrote:

I agree that's about 90% genetics.

I ran 70mpw for years with lots of quality workouts, no injuries, and never broke 5:00 for the mile, or 18:00 for the 5k. My fastest 400m was 68 seconds.

All the work and desire in the world wasn't going to change the fact that I have zero genetic talent for speed.

I always laugh when I read things like "I broke 14:00 for the 5k due to hard work, I don't really have any speed". If only you knew...

Good luck..

The Real Slim Shady wrote:

Oh, and my highest week of training was 35 miles (after a long summer of slowly building up). I was promptly injured.

This prooves it all. 35 miles a week even training for the 1600 is incredibly low. Crank this up to 50+ with 1 to 2 quality speed workouts a week and you could break 5 easy.

Injuries can set you back greatly but if you're the type of person who gets injured consistently then drop off the running mileage and supplement alot of non impact cross training such as biking and swimming, they can keep you at a good aerobic fitness level and keeps alot of the stress off of your body that running causes.

As for the hard work versus talent question. Honestly hard work can take you extremely far in distance runnning more so than just about any other sport out there, however genetic ability really just dictates the degree of success a person can have. Honsetly pretty much anyone can be a decent collegiate, but to become an elite and get to the WC or OG it doesn't really matter if you're putting in 200 mile weeks if you don't have the genetics to back it, there's no chance it happens.

OP,

Does your coach have everyone on the team run the exact same mileage and workouts? If so, that could be an issue. You could possibly excel with a different type of training. You might be the kind of runner that excels off of loads of miles and longer intervals. A slowtwitch guy.

But yes, talent plays a large part in how fast you can possibly run. I doubt though that 5:30 is the fastest you could run with the right type of training.

joho wrote:

OP,

Does your coach have everyone on the team run the exact same mileage and workouts? If so, that could be an issue. You could possibly excel with a different type of training. You might be the kind of runner that excels off of loads of miles and longer intervals. A slowtwitch guy.

From the limited info OP (if not trolling) provided, I would not conclude that he's slow-twitch. If anything, he seems (as I did) to be somewhat more gifted--using the term relatively!--in the fast-twitch area.

The problem is that, if you're slow in *everything*, coaches automatically assume you belong on the distance squad. In fact, I should probably have trained to become a lousy 400/800 (ran 57.6 for 440y off all-distance training) guy rather than a *really* lousy distance runner.

In my own coaching days, I tried to stay alert to the slow-everywhere people and find out what they might *actually* suck least at. Got one kid down to sub-55* in the 400--his best event--rather than following the "usual" pattern and condemning him to run appallingly slow 5k/8k/10k races.

*We were both as happy about this as if we were in our right minds.

I grew up in New England. After watching the 1968 Olympic track events, when I was a freshman in high school, I decided I wanted to be a runner.

This is what I accomplished:

1969 - Sophomore, cross-country: 5th in conference championship

1970 - Sophomore, track: 2:07.2 880 in third dual meet, then got a hairline fracture in my ankle and was unable to complete the season

1970 - Junior, didn't compete in cross-country (distracted by girlfriend)

1971 - Junior, track: 55.1 440, 2:03.7 880; 2nd in conference championship 880

1972 - Senior, cross-country: 3rd in conference championship

In that 1972 cross-country conference championship, I was beaten by a junior and sophomore from my own high school, both of whom had just begun running that same season. After all the training I'd done on my own, including winter and summer off-seasons (most was 60 miles per week during the summer of 1971), to be beaten by two guys who had never trained prior to that season made me very discouraged, and caused me to quit running, and I didn't compete in track during my senior year. They had natural talent that was way beyond my abilities, even after doing what I considered to be, for myself, hard and consistent training.

So I've always believed hard work will take you only so far. There will always be others who are more genetically gifted.

Good luck to you.

Speed endurance: % of your top speed that you can maintain as you extend the distance. Ritz has a 400m PR of something like 52 (maybe 53s) but has broken 13 for 5k = exceptional speed endurance.

Boyahz wrote:

Speed endurance: % of your top speed that you can maintain as you extend the distance. Ritz has a 400m PR of something like 52 (maybe 53s) but has broken 13 for 5k = exceptional speed endurance.

But his 5k pace is not 52/53, so how is that holding top speed?