I started cross country in my sophmore year with no running experience, in my first 5k time trial with the team I ran 19:37, after a couple of weeks of training running 30-40 mpw i ran 18:26 in my first race and ended the season with an 18:11 pr. I race in hawaii where it’s very humid and usually race in 85-90 degree weather. Would you consider me naturally talented? And how fast do you think I could run
You’re decently but not exceptionally talented. I can definitely see you getting down to the low 16s by junior year or maybe even sub 16 if the weather’s a little cooler than normal.
superrunner wrote:
I started cross country in my sophmore year with no running experience, in my first 5k time trial with the team I ran 19:37, after a couple of weeks of training running 30-40 mpw i ran 18:26 in my first race and ended the season with an 18:11 pr. I race in hawaii where it’s very humid and usually race in 85-90 degree weather. Would you consider me naturally talented? And how fast do you think I could run
Yes, no, and maybe.
Yes, you are naturally talented enough to not be slow. The 19:37 with no training shows that.
No, you are probably not exceptionally talented unless: you have yet to grow, or you are a girl.
Maybe you are naturally talented. We don't know if you are a girl or not. We don't know if your 30-40 mpw was good training or junk. You have barely started running (one season), so who knows...
You are at least moderately talented, but there's no telling what your potential is. I think that if you get to 16:00-16:30 during your junior season like the other poster suggests, then that would prove that you are talented and you probably have good training. If you only end up in the 17:00-17:30 range then that would prove that you either are not talented or have poor training. If you have good training and don't get much below 17:30 next season, then you are not talented. But how will you know that you have poor training? You won't. You would probably only realize that later on when you do find success if you keep at it.
if you ran under 17 by seasons end on the XC course then your talent is substantial but since you ended up at 18min, I would say you have talent but certainly nothing exceptional in the running world. Your just another runner with those times. Good, but not great.
superrunner wrote:
I started cross country in my sophmore year with no running experience, in my first 5k time trial with the team I ran 19:37, after a couple of weeks of training running 30-40 mpw i ran 18:26 in my first race and ended the season with an 18:11 pr. I race in hawaii where it’s very humid and usually race in 85-90 degree weather. Would you consider me naturally talented? And how fast do you think I could run
That calculates to 5:51 pace which is about average. The freshman you ran against probably didn't run much more mileage than you did. How did you place in the competitive meets and how far behind the winners were you?
SDSU Aztec wrote:
superrunner wrote:
I started cross country in my sophmore year with no running experience, in my first 5k time trial with the team I ran 19:37, after a couple of weeks of training running 30-40 mpw i ran 18:26 in my first race and ended the season with an 18:11 pr. I race in hawaii where it’s very humid and usually race in 85-90 degree weather. Would you consider me naturally talented? And how fast do you think I could run
That calculates to 5:51 pace which is about average. The freshman you ran against probably didn't run much more mileage than you did. How did you place in the competitive meets and how far behind the winners were you?
Misread your post. How did your times compare to the freshmen?
Talent can be overcome if you start early enough. Nico Young ran well under 17 min as a freshman but was already years into sustained training. He was quoted as saying he started running at age 6. He was already doing workouts for 3-4 years before he entered 9th grade.
I would suspect he would have run low 18:30 5k as a freshman if he had never run before. Probably 17:55 with training by end of freshman year.
You have talent but it's just that you started too late to make it useful at the very top level in HS. Certainly, you can still be good at the state level. 16 min 5k is still good.
The majority of people on this website have a very skewed idea of what talent is when it comes to running, and to be fair, it’s really hard to define.
I know runners that break 18 freshman year that work hard and only run mid 17s by the time they graduate.
I personally didn’t break 30 minutes in a full 5k my freshman year (I was a middle-linebacker that chose to stop playing because my highschool team lost 49-0 every game and it just wasn’t fun for me anymore) but I ran a 16:07 at 6’1 175 lbs for footlocker my senior year.
By many’s standards, I would’ve been considered the most untalented mfer to ever live my freshman year, but by the end of my highschool career I was state class, and not far from being a footlocker all American. Not to sound braggy, but I’d say it takes a lot of talent to run that fast with a 400m runner type build and 35-40 mpw.
I had a smart and well achieved runner tell me it can take up to 6 years for talent to show itself. If you train for a year and aren’t fast, you’ve still got a shot. If you train for 5-6 and you aren’t fast you probably aren’t all that talented at distance running.
Keep working hard, and don’t listen to anybody that tells you anything about your potential cause they dont know.
Good luck!
XC times are notoriously bad at showing true talent
Some courses and areas of the US just have different terrain and courses
Focus on track times