That’s funny, bowling is the only thing I could possibly have done as well as running. I bowled the Pacific Coast Bowlers Tour back in the day and still avg well over 200 as a 60+ dude bowling only once a week albeit on a house shot (Easier lane conditions than nationals or pro tournaments). I was a very competitive power lifter (bench only) but my shoulders gave out. Could have played low D2 football (running back) but I was a better runner than that.
I was a starter for one of the ten best teams in the world in ultimate frisbee. I was the sixth or seventh man for average D3 xc team. Given the size of talent pools, I still may have been a better runner.
That said, if I had seriously played ultimate in college I am sure I would have been a better frisbee player than runner.
I was a slightly above average amateur boxer as a kid and a average football (soccer) player as both a kid then some of my adult life too.
Now I’m an average runner so been decidedly average at every sport I’ve taken up..
Baseball, was playing pretty competitively up until my junior year. Switched teams and the coach sucked, really didn't love the sport and loved track. Hard decision.
Probably could have played soccer at D2 school if I continued.
I do find myself if I could have been a pro cyclist had I got started competing at early age. Shame that the sport has some tough barriers to entry.
I suck at running so I could suck at anything. I'd probably do e-sports, curling or poker if I wasn't running.
Sprintgeezer wrote:
Mikeh33 wrote:
No one is a shoo-in for the MLB. No one!
Of course you are correct, but I was as close as they come. Could hit anything, and far. In CF was fast as F and had an arm like a cannon. Good times! I didn’t think that pro sports were a legit career/life path, and in that I was probably right. In hindsight I probably made the right decisions for me, ultimately.
What round were you drafted in and what scholarships did you turn down?
That’s funny, bowling is the only thing I could possibly have done as well as running. I bowled the Pacific Coast Bowlers Tour back in the day and still avg well over 200 as a 60+ dude bowling only once a week albeit on a house shot (Easier lane conditions than nationals or pro tournaments). I was a very competitive power lifter (bench only) but my shoulders gave out. Could have played low D2 football (running back) but I was a better runner than that.
It didn’t work like that.
Americans first got interested in me at the Peace Games. This was way back. They would talk to people now and then. Schools talked to my parents, but I didn’t care, and they told them I didn’t care. Some guys from some farm teams used to watch me play and came around a few times, but I was already firmly on the aircrew track. Matter of fact they came to our house while I was gone for a week at aircrew selection.
I couldn’t have cared less about their overtures. Money had no meaning to me, because mo matter how much money you had, there was no way you could fly a high-performance military aircraft.
Hard to explain, but piloting like that is like going into the clergy. You cannot be bought, and everything else pales in comparison.
Yes, I was very young.
I did not run in HS, so am in the reverse position from most of you. Played basketball in HS. Recruited by a handful of weaker D3 programs. Recreational runner now, and I bet I could have been about the same level in running: a marginal (non-scoring) member of D3 track and cross country teams.
Sprintgeezer wrote:
It didn’t work like that.
Americans first got interested in me at the Peace Games. This was way back. They would talk to people now and then. Schools talked to my parents, but I didn’t care, and they told them I didn’t care. Some guys from some farm teams used to watch me play and came around a few times, but I was already firmly on the aircrew track. Matter of fact they came to our house while I was gone for a week at aircrew selection.
I couldn’t have cared less about their overtures. Money had no meaning to me, because mo matter how much money you had, there was no way you could fly a high-performance military aircraft.
Hard to explain, but piloting like that is like going into the clergy. You cannot be bought, and everything else pales in comparison.
Yes, I was very young.
So you were/are a foreigner?
I think I would have been better at wrestling than I was at track and crosscountry. That is, I was horribly slow. I ran 19:27 for 5k, and 5:2x for the mile (I don't remember). I also only barely broke 60 in the 400m.
The only reason I think I would have been good at wrestling is that I can now bench double my bodyweight and triple bodyweight in the squat. However, I also really appreciate the time I spent running and the friends I made along the way, so it was a good trade off.
Cringe wrote:
Distance running doesn't get near the best talent due to other sports like basketball, soccer and so on. There are so many basketball and baseball teams out there that if you are halfway decent at the highschool level you have a shot of making a team somewhere.
That was longwinded..
This logic is flawed. I would contend that running is the most competitive sport out there, in the USA and in the world. This is the case because everybody... and I mean every single person, started running when they were toddlers and knows how they naturally stack up against their peers. The natural selection into the sport of running is extremely high (i.e. I really don't know if I am a naturally good swimmer because although I can swim to survive, I have never raced anyone). Even if a great athlete is attracted to baseball or football for the reasons stated, if that athlete is very fast, they will also try running races. And if they are super fast, they may even quit baseball and football to pursue running.
I'm sorry. Pretty much every successful distance runner I know went into running because they did not have the athleticism or hand-eye coordination to be great at any other sport. I'm including myself in that. I believe it was Jerry Schumacher, talking about how every runner who thinks they could be a good steeplechaser is wrong because it takes coordination. He said if you lined up a team of really good runners and had them try to shoot a layup, almost none of them would make it.
Maybe he's wrong. It sounds like there are a lot of pro-level baseball and basketball players here. But they're already making $400K and have a trophy wife to go with the 14-minute 5K, so why bother?
Bzzzzzzt. Wrong. wrote:
I'm sorry. Pretty much every successful distance runner I know went into running because they did not have the athleticism or hand-eye coordination to be great at any other sport. I'm including myself in that. I believe it was Jerry Schumacher, talking about how every runner who thinks they could be a good steeplechaser is wrong because it takes coordination. He said if you lined up a team of really good runners and had them try to shoot a layup, almost none of them would make it.
Maybe he's wrong. It sounds like there are a lot of pro-level baseball and basketball players here. But they're already making $400K and have a trophy wife to go with the 14-minute 5K, so why bother?
It goes both ways. Distance running is not an option for most athletes in other sports.
Sprintgeezer wrote:
Hey Avocado that’s great. I used to spend hours as a kid reading books of plays, and practicing my back-rank strategies!
:)
(Curiously, almost forty years after my last serious chess game, and despite many tens of thousands of miles on the roads and trails, I'm apparently once again better at chess than at running. And sadly, it's not because I've suddenly gotten better at chess.)
BMX
Bzzzzzzt. Wrong. wrote:
I'm sorry. Pretty much every successful distance runner I know went into running because they did not have the athleticism or hand-eye coordination to be great at any other sport. I'm including myself in that. I believe it was Jerry Schumacher, talking about how every runner who thinks they could be a good steeplechaser is wrong because it takes coordination. He said if you lined up a team of really good runners and had them try to shoot a layup, almost none of them would make it.
Maybe he's wrong. It sounds like there are a lot of pro-level baseball and basketball players here. But they're already making $400K and have a trophy wife to go with the 14-minute 5K, so why bother?
I actually have pretty good hand eye coordination and taught myself to switch hit when I was 12. I can pick up new sport skills really quickly. I only played baseball one year when I was 9. I was the smallest weakest slowest player on the team. My problem with the speed power sports was that I was very much a late bloomer and the youth sport selection / high school sport selection favors those who bloomed early.
I could keep going when everyone else gave up, so I was drawn to running even though I wasn’t great at it initially. And never really got that great tbh
The other sport where I actually had success was bike racing. Started with BMX as a kid, but got smoked when all the other kids started hitting puberty and I was still scrawny. Moved to road cycling in college after shelving my junior year of track due to a stress fracture. As an adult, dabbled in mountain bike racing with a fair amount of success.
i could not have had equal success in another sport. but i think i could have been a better sprinter than i was a distance runner. (i was a 400m/800m guy on distance training to compete in XC)
i ran 11.9 FAT while running 50mpw and not knowing how to use the blocks, i would guess this is not too far off of an equivalent performance to my 4:35 mile?
I was a pretty average middle of the pack D1 runner.
I am a much much better ultra runner. So i guess ultra running.