The Brutal truth about talent vs hard work.

It's all about talent at top level. Hard work only takes you to your ceiling and no further.

High school times George Young 4:40 mile, Frank Shorter 4:30 mile, 9:32 2 mile, Kenny Moore 4:35 miler , there are others. You never know.

That is awesome. I guess it just depends on the person and what you want. I think the non-running experiences I had in college were worth sacrificing what you describe, but that's not to say your path doesn't sound fun and isn't the right choice for some people.

In order to get really good you MUST have talent.

You're clueless. The percentage of people who have the genes to run a 3:54 mile are less than .01%.

you are honestly dumb enough to think you could pull any yokle out of a kansas cornfield, have them mimic Ryun's training and they'd have the same results?????

Those examples are from back in the dark ages of HS and College where there’s zero info about progressions and training. I don’t know about Young and Moore but I’m pretty sure Shorter would be at sub-9 if he was a HS kid today. By the way, I had never seen a 2-mile HS PR for Shorter.

In any event, about 99.9% of runners will know just about exactly what their limits are some time during college.

Lindgren ran a 5:45 mile for his very first ever race in junior high school. Ryan ran a 5:05 mile for his very first ever race as a freshman in high school.

Those times, done with little or no real training, indicate that they had an extremely high amount of innate natural ability (-talent).

The average boy runner in high school will never run those times, even after training.

Both Lindgren and Ryun trained extremely hard by anyone's standards to maximize their incredible talent., and within a few years ran incredible times in high school. Lindgren's HS PB included 8:40 for 2 miles and 13:44 for 5k. Ryun ran a 3:55 mile in high school.

People have a wide range and varying amounts of talent for running. Some have very little, and no matter how hard they train they will be a relatively slow runner. Not many people were actually born to run well. Other people have much more talent and will be a much better runner than most even if they don't train.

I really appreciate your perspective. Honestly, it is almost a cure for a burning in the soul I have felt for years. I ran 1:51 as a freshman in college and never got any faster and somewhat feel like a failure even though I ran that time later in my career as well. But, that was just my limit. Plus, when you have a loved one who cannot walk due to health issues it will put it all in perspective. We are all lucky if we have felt the outer limits of our ability at some point.

"the transition is not difficult. you don’t need to run 100mpw for 3 years to achieve your potential in the 800m. you dont even really need to run at all"

Dude. I ran 48/1:52/and 15:57 in high school. Do you think that range was achieved because a 400 guy doesn't need to train for the 800? No. It was all about putting the work in every day.

This board has truly come full circle.

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=2693

the crazy thing for me is that when i was in HS... no talent (worked my butt off though)... then in college year 1 & 2 still no talent (worked my butt off though)... then my jr & sr year all of a sudden I kinda had talent (still worked my butt off)... then post collegiately (making money) I really had talent (worked my butt off too)... that talent is so darn elusive, ya just never know, right?

Coaches recruit internationally because there is less risk involved in purchasing already existing talent than in homegrowing it. If coaches were evaluated based on their ability to grow talent rather than based on their records, the incentive structure would change

It would seem to me that without talent you don't have to worry about competing in division 1. Am I missing something?

You always had some talent. Talent doesn't change. You make it seem like you trained but ran a 25 minute 5k and went on to run 12:50 post college. Untalented people run 25 minute 5k rully trained. Talented people run 13 minute 5k fully trained. Talented people run sub 20 5k untrained. Untalented people run 45 minute 5k untrained.

News flash: genetics is not "talent".

Thousands and thousands of middle schoolers have run 5:45 right off the couch. Ryun didn’t run distance until XC of his sophomore and wasn’t cut from track his freshmen year. He ran a 5:38 in his first timed mile during XC. They both, and especially Lindgren, overtrained in HS and would have achieved the same results if they trained like other elite HSers have.

Regarding "would have achieved the same results", I'm not sure this is true. For both Ryun and Lindgren, their primary talent seems to have the ability to absorb supernatural levels of training. Training loads that would have utterly destroyed most runners.

It’s true! I studied my butt off and barely passed Algebra II and the damn Mindy W didn’t study at all and aced it! No fair!!