Are elite runners born or made?

I was a decent college runner but not elite. More than a year after college, some work friends asked me to join them in a race for charity. Two of them were 16 minute guys. I assumed that I would be able to hang with them after not running 1 step for about 13 months. I hung with them for about 1 mile but ended up running 16:50 even though I was stiffer than I had ever been the next day. I think the winner ran about 15:30 and there were many people at 25, 30, and even 45 minutes. On no training, I finished in the upper 2% of all finishers. Two other people from work ran 24 minutes. These were guys who ran 50MPW and were in their mid 20s. They thought I was a running God. Talent beats training.

Dr. of Nothing wrote:

Two other people from work ran 24 minutes. These were guys who ran 50MPW and were in their mid 20s. They thought I was a running God. Talent beats training.

They could be lacking in athleticism generally, and without proper motivation, experience, mindset etc. Sometimes they could be bulkier fellows. Maybe the cost benefit analysis for socioeconomic wellbeing etc precludes them from devoting more of their muscles and movements to flying with the wind over the mid and long distance

Dr. of Nothing wrote:

I was a decent college runner but not elite. More than a year after college, some work friends asked me to join them in a race for charity. Two of them were 16 minute guys. I assumed that I would be able to hang with them after not running 1 step for about 13 months. I hung with them for about 1 mile but ended up running 16:50 even though I was stiffer than I had ever been the next day. I think the winner ran about 15:30 and there were many people at 25, 30, and even 45 minutes. On no training, I finished in the upper 2% of all finishers. Two other people from work ran 24 minutes. These were guys who ran 50MPW and were in their mid 20s. They thought I was a running God. Talent beats training.

Your post shows that training is MORE important than talent but you are not smart enough to recognize this. Wow some people are not very bright. 16:50 is embarrassingly slow for a young man who ran in college. Dude you just made the point for training being more important.

An elite runner must be born with both the physical and mental talent. You must have the mental talent to be able to perfect the physical talent.

Obviously one needs innate ability to be elite but those of you who aren’t very bright seem to assume that this is like magic. It is not. Dick Beardsley was an elite marathoner and was talented, a bit like Bill Rodgers, for example. But on 5 miles per week both of them would have been beaten by 31 minute 10K guys who are training hard. Dick and Billy, like many elite marathoners, responded well to heavy endurance training. However they did not particularly stand out in high school because they did not train particularly hard and neither has elite speed for the track.

Dr. of Nothing wrote:

I was a decent college runner but not elite. More than a year after college, some work friends asked me to join them in a race for charity. Two of them were 16 minute guys. I assumed that I would be able to hang with them after not running 1 step for about 13 months. I hung with them for about 1 mile but ended up running 16:50 even though I was stiffer than I had ever been the next day. I think the winner ran about 15:30 and there were many people at 25, 30, and even 45 minutes. On no training, I finished in the upper 2% of all finishers. Two other people from work ran 24 minutes. These were guys who ran 50MPW and were in their mid 20s. They thought I was a running God. Talent beats training.

No training in 13 months and you think that shows talent? Utter crap. You don't think your body has learned anything in the years and years of running before taking your break?

Your subject is not an "or" question. Elite runners are born AND made. You can't be elite without both.

As for your question of whether or not a person with average talent could become elite through training...no.

Elite runners are both in the top 0.1% of talent and among the top 0.1% in how they train.

XXXX wrote:

Talent beats training wrote:

99% talent. 1% training.

Nope. Not even close. Talent is a necessary but not sufficient condition. I could take Kenenisa Bekele and if he jogged 3 miles per week he would not beat most top collegiate runners who trained 50 miles per week.

Once you get to a certain level, everyone trains hard. The reason some of them become elite is 100% genetics.

Your example is like pointing out that if Mike Trout didn't start playing baseball until age 25, he wouldn't be good enough to play in the Major Leagues.

Obviously it's a lot of both, this is not an either or question.

Almost ALL elite runners have a similar story, in that they eventually went out for track/xc and had very early success and big accomplishments early on. They showed they had an aptitude for the sport, then they added the hard work and went on to truly great things.

Yes it showed that I had more talent than 99% of the people in the race because I beat 98% of the people and I assume that the vast majority were training at the time. 95% of people can train their entire life and never break 17 minutes. We were not created equal. It is even more clear to me now that I am a coach. I have coached kids to 15 minute 5ks while others have as slow as 26 minutes. One other anecdotes, I ran 4:42 in the 7th grade after 3 weeks of training. The previous school record was 5:19. I probably could have been an Olympic champ if only I had trained a bit. At least that is what some of you are indicating if training is what makes you so much better.

They are born to be made.

Come on, man, you know it is giftedness. The training only kicks it into action and it shows up as "natural talent".

Someone who has lots of MHC 1 fibers as a toddler can quickly convert a sizable portion of them to MHC 2a fibers with training (while MHC 2X fibers also shift towards 2a type). All of a sudden, that kid is a unusually talented sprinter! Same sort of thing could apply towards having a naturally high volume of sarcoplasmic reticulum, so you can release more Ca(2+) during explosive contractions.

Then there is the idea that someone could, with luck or training, switch on some genetic switch (epigenetic change) that would then endow the runner with outstanding endurance - like some rat experiments have demonstrated.

You need to pick your parents very carefully so that you have the right genes to respond to the type of training needed to become an elite distance runner.

inanity wrote:

runningislife3 wrote:

Can someone with no natural running ability become an Olympic marathoner with years of training or do you also need talent?

No natural running ability? What is that supposed to mean?

It must be the slowest kid in your PE class. Aside from kids who cannot run because of disability, how slow is the slowest kid? Of course, he has no chance to make the Olympic team no matter what.

If OP meant the "average" talent (50th percentile), he still has no chance.

adsfdasfasfsafadfa wrote:

I have a feeling even with that base he would struggle after a year or 2 of only running 3mpw. For one thing he would probably gain like 30lbs:) Seriously I wonder if some people on this board even run. Has nobody ever been injured for two or three months and remember how bad those first runs were where a 3 mile easy run is like 90s slower/mile than what you used to do for 10 mile runs AND it hurts a lot more.

This is not an either or issue. Elite runners are made but you can only be made as good as your talent level allows. Nobody rolls out of bet and runs a sub 13:30. But most of US could do all the work int he world and never come close to that time.

This is what I came here to post

Mostly talent. It is true though that response to training varies wildly. Some seemingly untalented people can get much better but you can't make chicken salad out of chicken $&/+. The talent has to be there, somewhere. And it's usually quite evident.

runningislife3 wrote:

Can someone with no natural running ability become an Olympic marathoner with years of training or do you also need talent?

No. They are born and then made on external factors.

runningislife3 wrote:

Can someone with no natural running ability become an Olympic marathoner with years of training or do you also need talent?

You need at least some talent, but you especially need to put in the training.

I was a sub 29 10k runner in college, I ran as high as 110 miles per week at that time, often 90-100 miles per week. The year after college I stopped running as much, only about 40-50 miles per week. I was training solo and often cut workouts short. I ran a 10k that first spring after college, thinking I could still run something decent like maybe low 29's. I ran something like 30:25, significantly slower than when I was doing good training only a year prior. Talent means nothing if you're not also putting in the training. The difference is a 4:30 guy with no training could run a sub 4 if he suddenly trains a lot, but the 5:00 guy that never trained will probably only get down to 4:15 with the same amount of training the other guy did.

It depends on the event. An elite miler is 99% talent. An elite marathoner is more like 85% talent. Thus why guys with lesser talent at the short distances like Sell and Rodgers were able to use high mileage to be very good thoners.