Genetics matter. Training less so. Zero to hero…no. Zero to maybe average…possibly.

Talent for distance running is the ability to convert oxygen to energy and then to use that energy efficiently. We have a half dozen genetic markers that can predict it and a few more test.

my example is comparing a talented person (dude was still like a min off the world record) to an average person. Talent just crushes training.

And when do you think your 10 min miler will be “elite” and run say a 4:10 mile? Nobody is arguing that you can’t get faster. The argument is that if you want to be elite, you need to be born with a lot of talent. Maybe if your genetic max is 13:00 you can beat a 12:40 guy by training better. But it doesn’t really matter what the average 17 min dude does. Basically any training and you crush them.

See high school were some barely training people win against people putting in 2x+ the work. See Cole hocker running 30mpw and winning footlocker. Course then he shows up at the Olympics undertrained and gets smoked by people with similiar talent. Gets the training in and 3 years later he can beat them.

Training matters. Talent matters more….

There is a reason that we have women's divisions and age groups.

Possibly they do but it's like saying "death is inevitable so let's just pass away now eh"

Sport can be unpredictable. Even Bolt (butthead) lost his last major

The vast majority of runners aren't going to be medal contenders at the Olympics or world championships. Sub 30 for 10k is insanely fast but if you're over 29min you aren't going anywhere on the world stage. Even the 27 or 13 low or 2:09 guys don't have a realistic shot of beating the top tier.

Even for those lower tier runners who can get some financial compensation thats a lot of work for very little money.

Most of the competitive runners I know do this as a hobby and if you're young and single or older and have independent kids you can put in the time to do a semi pro regimen (50 to 100mpw). I don't do this for money (my day job pays well) and I don't do it to impress anyone. I just like running fast and wanted to see what I could do.

I was thrilled to run mid 34s and 251 even though that's not going to make me famous. I was really quite happy to be part of the crowd that could run like that.

Im sorry you will never be a decent coach. Im truly sorry.

And your post wasn’t antagonistic in any way? So you just felt like a bit of friendly advice was in order did you?

Bell would argue training matters most now she’s at 1:56. Must’ve been years of hard training.

You got maybe 90% of the way there OP. Obviously genetics play a huge factor in endurance sports. But taking that to slam people who don't become elite & question why they do it isn't it. It doesn't matter why people keep going in the sport. People have different reasons. People have different goals. It doesn't make them any more or less of a runner. Most people can understand setting a goal & training towards it. It might be to lose weight/stay healthy/hit a time goal. It doesn't matter if that time goal doesn't lead to them winning money at a race. Who cares.

No. She ran 2:08 at U15. That is a generational talent.

This is just an odd take in general. Its a bit like wondering why idiots exist at all like "you are born either dumb or smart no matter how much book learning you do if you are dumb you will be dumb so might as well kill yourself"

Like I am left wondering, why do people who are dumb even go on and keep living, whats the point?

She went 4:03 to 3:52 at 30.

Education makes you more knowledgeable, not more intelligent. And the more intelligent people gain much more knowledge than than the dumb people.

Yes, I am just making a simple point, that there is more to life than being "the best" at something. The entire premise of this post is "if you're not the best with just a bit of effort than whats the point?"

I agree with the poster that said you can out work your competition in high school and make it seem more like talent. I was a 4:10 mile/ 1:52 type 800 runner in college. In high school I was a high 4:30 guy and could not break 2. The guys that were winning a lot of the big races in my state would run between 4:15-4:25 and 1:55-1:57. Sounds dumb but I really just thought these guys had much more talent than I did, but looking back a lot of them were just really working hard in high school. My college bests were better than all but one of those guys that ran in that range from my state. I would run around 30 miles a week but if you average it out for the year it was probably more like 25 mpw. I would not cool down after track workouts, I wouldn't run more than 3 days a week during the summer etc. Idk what I was thinking back then lol, going back to school was always extremely painful for me because I was always out of shape. In college I really turned it around ran 50-70 miles a week and took it seriously, was happy with my times and running career, (still Pring in my late 20s) but it definitely would have made high school running more fun if I actually ran and took it seriously.

It takes about 3-4 years and not one day. The difference between a 9:00 and 10:00 guy is the starting point. Maybe the 10:00 guy will run 11:00 as a freshman and 10:00 for the other one. They both improve at about the same rate and the gap is never closed.

So they don’t have setting in education? They don’t differentiate work for different levels?

I think that you need to know what you are talking about before you make a comment…

You're comparing yourself to people who had more or less the same training. If everyone did the same training, genetics would be the deciding factor (more so than training since everyone's training is the same). But that 15 minutes you ran.... while it wasn't faster than your leading peers it is really really fast, and more to the point much faster than you (or for that matter the all Americans you knew) would have run without training.

You: "Hey guys, why would anyone do a thing if they are not the best in the world at it?"

Also you: "you don't know what you're talking about"