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.
Today not only the good people run, also the slow ones. You need to compare those 3 runners by all health young guys. Let's see:
Population 10,000 --> about 5,000 men --> about 1,000 between 18 and 35 years old --> of those let's say 70% are healthy (back then not so many folks were obese) about 700 runners --> take away those who are doing other activities or untapped talent --> 300. Out of those 300 he had 3. Et voila: 1%
Your mindset is all off. You got really hostile towards the end of your post. Hostility is a sign of a weak mind.
Someone running a 53 after two weeks is not a sign of talent. I hope you have more to base your conclusion on than that. 400 speed can be acquired through sports like tag, soccer, basketball, and weight lifting. Heck, even variations on walking can improve 400m speed, core strength, and leg strength. Maybe your friend did more of those things than you did growing up. Also maybe he inadvertently did more of them in the "correct" way than you. For ex, two people can both do barbell squats that look identical, but externally imperceptible differences in muscle use designation can cause one individual to gain much more than the other.
And the thing about academics is that little things missed in 1st grade can cause differences in ability as big as several grades by the time two individuals are in the 12th grade.
Now addressing your hostility again, it has led you to bring up an argument that didn't exist - I never claimed that I was Bob Kennedy or that I had some rise from slow to fast. You said that, not me - unless I missed something then excuse me please.
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. I also managed to eventually excel at other sports and become nationally ranked or hold national records. But it wasn't easy all of the time nor was it hard all of the time to get there. Sometimes I was able to take big chunks off of my times, and sometimes I frustratingly slowed down a bit and wouldn't improve. It took a lot of trial and error in finding the correct training methods to improve in the areas that I needed to improve as fitness inadequacies presented themselves. I varied from as much as 10mpw to 100mpw and from no quality to all quality and everything in between.
It took lots of time and frustration, but I knew I could do anything if I wanted to. You have admitted defeat, limited yourself, and given up.
I imagine that if I had your mindset, I would have never done much. I guess I hope that at the least you will understand that there are several (many possibly uncontrollable or unnoticed) factors that affect running ability, so to immediately jump to a birth talent or genetics excuse is a weak and defeatist thing to do. I've never heard of a 'running gene', correct me if I'm wrong.
Its good that youre promoting positive thinking,believing in yourself and hard work, but you look completely silly and incredibly arrogant in saying that you could have been as good as Bob Kennedy but just didnt feel like it and had better things to do.
In terms of genetics vs hard work obviously its a blend of both. Its important to stay determined to maximize whatever you consider as potential but picture this. Say someone is 5'10" when they are 20 and have finished growing. No matter how hard they try or how much they want it they are not going to be 6'4".
Finally and not to be hostile or mean lol but obviously I dont believe a word of your post. But we'll never know will we haha. At least say what other sport you set national records in to give us something to argue about.
Oh and to the original point yes it takes some measure of running ability to run under 16:00. Not a huge amount but a bit. Kind of like being the best in your class at school in something but not the best in you grade i say. Then you still have to work at it though unless youre really good.
India has about 1 Billion and far more runners than Kenya How many of them are world class distance runners? Zero. Kenya has a population of only about 40million, but has oodles of world class runners. Both are examples of fairly homogeneous populations. Genetics? Talent? Yes.
Track is the highest participation sport for youth in the US. Number of runners in the US exceeds the number in Kenya by orders of magnitude. Kenya's world class distance runners exceed US by orders of magnitude. That is genetics = inborn talent.
India has about 1 Billion and far more runners than Kenya How many of them are world class distance runners? Zero. Kenya has a population of only about 40million, but has oodles of world class runners. Both are examples of fairly homogeneous populations. Genetics? Talent? Yes.
Track is the highest participation sport for youth in the US. Number of runners in the US exceeds the number in Kenya by orders of magnitude. Kenya's world class distance runners exceed US by orders of magnitude. That is genetics = inborn talent.
India has about 1 Billion and far more runners than Kenya
Are you sure? I haven't really met an Indian that runs. Then again, this comes from observation of Indians that migrated to the US. It's not that they're not healthy but they just don't seem to enjoy running.
So I'd challenge your statement and say that there are probably more Kenyan runners than Indian runners.
Your ignoring so many cultural factors, that your argument is irrelevant.
IveSaidItBefore.... wrote:
Again with the single example pseudo statistics.
India has about 1 Billion and far more runners than Kenya How many of them are world class distance runners? Zero. Kenya has a population of only about 40million, but has oodles of world class runners. Both are examples of fairly homogeneous populations. Genetics? Talent? Yes.
Track is the highest participation sport for youth in the US. Number of runners in the US exceeds the number in Kenya by orders of magnitude. Kenya's world class distance runners exceed US by orders of magnitude. That is genetics = inborn talent.
I really like this question and discussion. I think people who have made major improvements on their own will view this very differently than those who have trained, and also coach others.
Sub 16 is a rare talent period. Handling the training for sub 16 is a rare talent. The amount of training required for sub 16 depends completely on the rarity of your talent.
It is easy to never think of yourself as talented if you choose to compete in this sport because you will be comparing yourself to a very small percentile of people, of which many will have well above average levels of talent.
If you get the chance to coach others though, it becomes a whole lot more clear what type of goals some people can reasonably make. I do agree that getting sub 16 can be achieved by many more people than actually do, but there are so many more who want to and won't. If you doubt this, I suggest looking through the results of road races, or working out with some people you might meet who run very slowly and see if you can help them to be as fast as you.
I also like the follow up question of how much talent does it take? or how do you know if you have enough talent to break into the 15s.
For a 16:00 5K the mile race pace is 5:09. So you at least need to run a 5:09 all out mile. Realistically, unless you are super human, an all out mile time of 40 to 50 seconds under race pace gives you a better chance to hit 16:00.
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.
I could, if I had any idea of what point you were trying to make.
I took up the sport of running at age 28, weighing 235 pounds. I was fat and needed to lose weight.
5 years later I ran 14:56 indoors, 8:35 for an indoor 3K during that 5K training block and am consistently in the 15:00-15:20 range on the road right now at 33 years old.
Maybe I'm talented and just never knew it as a kid, but I also know that there aren't many people out there willing to work as hard as I do to improve. I built up to 100 MPW over the course of 5 years and do weekly tempo, interval and long run sessions.
Not sure if that answers the question. I mostly just like talking about myself because I'm an insecure idiot. I'd say that probably half the healthy 20 year olds out there could get there with sufficient time and motivation.
Holy crap! If that's true, then awesome job! For someone trying to break 15, could you detail your training a bit more?
I don't believe so. I'm best built for the 3k/5k (and have an absolutely abysmal mile time, but surprisingly a decent 800), and was able to hit the mid 14s off of 55 mpw - mainly easy running and a tempo, with a small interval workout during peak.
I took up the sport of running at age 28, weighing 235 pounds. I was fat and needed to lose weight.
5 years later I ran 14:56 indoors, 8:35 for an indoor 3K during that 5K training block and am consistently in the 15:00-15:20 range on the road right now at 33 years old.
Maybe I'm talented and just never knew it as a kid,
Yep, in order to run those times you need hard work and lots of talent, like 95th percentile kind of talent.
I have a different take on this. In my view there are 3 things that determine your potential: talent, desire and opportunity. If you have all the talent in the world, but no desire or opportunity, you will not achieve much. With 'A' desire and 'A' opportunity (a great team/coach) but only 'C' talent, you can still reach your potential, whatever that is, but perhaps never go sub-16. Likewise, someone with 'A' desire and 'A' talent but with a horrible coach (so a 'C' in opportunity) might go sub-16 but not reach their true potential. Of course, to be an Olympic champion you must have an 'A' in all three.
The upshot of this is everyone has their own situation and whether or not they can reach some arbitrary goal such as sub-16 depends on many factors. So, one might be able to reach sub-16 on varying letter grades of the three aspects, but there might be some that have an 'A' in 2 of the three but still might not make it if their other grade is too low.
Do you guys think it is possible for your average healthy 20 year old guy to eventually run a 15:xx 5k given the appropriate training and dedication? or does it take some level of natural talent?
Not scientific, but this does give a little historical perspective.
In the 70s and 80s running was a huge spectator and participation sport in England (the Coe, Ovett, Cram era).
The British 12 stage road relay championships for clubs was made up of about 50 teams that had to qualify from their area (so something like top 10 or 12 teams out maybe 40+ in each region).
The club I ran for qualified one year, and finished almost last. On the short-stage, around three miles, my own time would have made two-thirds of the top teams on the day.
My bests were 800m 1:57.5; mile 4:21; 3000m 8:45 and 5000m 15:22.
So of a self selected group - those who enjoyed running enough to train and compete for a running club (and jogging clubs had only just started at that stage, so you hardly come across a middle-distance runner in club that couldn't break 17 min) - and of a high-end of that self selected group (40 or 50 club teams whittle down from over 200 by way of regional competition), 15:20 type ability still got you in the top 66% of runners.
When I moved to the US in my late 30s, on Long Island, 16:xx would frequently win local races.
On that basis, I'd say 15:00 clearly isn't easy, or else far more of those training to compete in a National competition, or running competitively in the US (where admittedly you do lose most collegiate athletes) from road races, would be getting under 15:00. And certainly as far as those in the National Road Relay was concerned they would all have been training 6-7 days a week, with a long run and a couple of hard sessions (and of course some of the world-class runners who would turn out for their clubs in those days were doing an awful lot more).
Bearing in mind that 15:00 is 4:50 per mile, I'm not sure that you could train most of the population to run a mile at that pace.