Genetics is equally important for sprinting and long distance.
Equally important is a stretch. In sprinting it is entirely possible for a very talented football/basketball player to run state championship winning times their first season touching a track. Sprinters can also afford to take much longer breaks from the sport and as long as they don't become actually become overweight, they generally don't lose much speed.
These two scenarios are almost never mirrored in distance running. Even the most naturally gifted runners will take a lot of miles to reach lets say 9:00 3200m level, and if they take 3 months off it is entirely possible they could be 9:45 guys even if they look the same outwardly.
You are arguing the position here of what a person who is more naturally talented at either speed or endurance will be able to achieve. How about those who are neither talented towards speed or endurance - like the average person?
"If I’d had to guess, I would have said that sprinting and explosive power abilities would be far more heritable than aerobic endurance. ... The results here don’t back up that assumption, though. Standing long jump is probably the best measure of explosive power among these tests, and it had the lowest genetic contribution."
"Digging into the data, you see that flexibility (as measured by the sit-and-reach test) and aerobic fitness (as measured by the 12-minute run/walk) have some of the highest genetic contributions."
Very little of it is genetic. The proper way to develop aerobic endurance is counter-intuitive. You have to train easier than most people prefer to run to develop mitochondria, capillary density, and myoglobin content. What most people consider "easy running" or recovery running is still in that high-Z2 area that is not only too hard to develop all of the above but also burns runners out and does long term damage that's never suitably recovered from unless said runners take a break from training.
However, the proper way to develop pure speed and power is baby-child simple: Just run as fast as you can and simplify how you run to maximize you fast you run. Sprint training is pretty hard to screw up. Even fitbros have made a fad out of sprinting as part of their strength training, that's how well it works and simple it is to do effectively.
Even now, a lot of coaches don't really understand how to train endurance, even elite coaches. Most get around this with talent and doping, with a little help from super shoes. What we consider Z1 and cross training is probably more of what most runners should be doing instead of "easy runs", and more carefully implementing harder/regular running around that, instead of pounding 100+ miles of it every week and then wondering why they stress fracture and RED-S themselves out of running within a few years.
Very little of it is genetic. The proper way to develop aerobic endurance is counter-intuitive. You have to train easier than most people prefer to run to develop mitochondria, capillary density, and myoglobin content. What most people consider "easy running" or recovery running is still in that high-Z2 area that is not only too hard to develop all of the above but also burns runners out and does long term damage that's never suitably recovered from unless said runners take a break from training.
However, the proper way to develop pure speed and power is baby-child simple: Just run as fast as you can and simplify how you run to maximize you fast you run. Sprint training is pretty hard to screw up. Even fitbros have made a fad out of sprinting as part of their strength training, that's how well it works and simple it is to do effectively.
Even now, a lot of coaches don't really understand how to train endurance, even elite coaches. Most get around this with talent and doping, with a little help from super shoes. What we consider Z1 and cross training is probably more of what most runners should be doing instead of "easy runs", and more carefully implementing harder/regular running around that, instead of pounding 100+ miles of it every week and then wondering why they stress fracture and RED-S themselves out of running within a few years.
So running sub-13:00 or sub-3:30 isn't genetic, or running sub-10-flat? It sounds like you've never excelled at anything.
