Why does LRC treat SPEED like it's unchangeable?

Laterunnerphil basically says distance runners are untalented and it’s hard work that makes them great. I guess he’s not working hard enough to be world class. According to his reasoning , Jacob Ingebritson just works harder than his lazy brothers. It has nothing to do with his talent. So I’m gonna work reallllly hard and build up to 300 mile weeks over the next few years since I was just a mediocre and lazy sprinter. If I just hold 30 sec speed, which is only 77 percent of my 200 for 25 mins I could run a 24:48 10K. Watch for me in the 2024 OG!

I agree wrote:

jumpyjoe wrote:

I see a lot of posters on here acting like speed is somehow a more innate talent than endurance and as if it cannot be improved through training. If that were true there would be no reason for sprinters to train and distance runners have even more room to improve b/c they have never worked on speed.

I think there is a lot to be gained by properly developing your speed for most runners. Where does this attitude come from? Is there an actual rational?

Salazar understood this better than most distance runners which is one of the reasons why his runners are very fast.

I can't think of another reason why his athletes are so fast? Hmmm... Perhaps a recent event?

I'm sure that's nonsense.

95% at least on this board have no experience, at least not personal experience, of truly starting running as a mature adult (that is well past mid-twenties). The other 4.9% who have started distance running as an adult, not sprinting.

Moving from 10MPW to 100MPW in your '20ish' is not an untrained mature adult starting from scratch. It's a fit young almost teen hobby jogger starting to train as hard as an elite runner.

BTW., you've given your progression here before, and it seems ridiculously small to me. Sounds like you had very decent base talent, but poor adaptation to training talent.

When I started running two years ago in my late 40's, it took me a little while to break 40 seconds for the 200m, but I'd be confident now of breaking 30 seconds. That's over a 25% improvement. I'm sure I could get down to the 26 second range in a year or so if I trained for it. Of course, my 5K time has improved by a much greater percentage because when I started I couldn't complete a 5K without walking some of it, as well as losing 14lbs of weight obviously helps the 5K more than 200m. This is with hobby jogging and interval training for longer distances, not sprint training.

There is a YouTube vlogger who documents his switch as a master from being a 16/17 minute 5K runner to a 100m sprinter, hoping to get to the (now cancelled) World Championships in Toronto. After several months training as a sprinter he ran 13.1 in his first FAT race, and had reached 12.1 around 15 months later. He's still hoping to get under 11.5 seconds this summer and he ran a 60m pb the other week to suggest he might. So that's a fit 37 year old 5K runner, switching to sprinting, and he's probably improved over the 100m by a similar amount (percentage wise, or by age grading) as you did over 5K while still likely physically maturing a little, and going from 10 MPW to 100MPW.