This is the standard thread that talks about how many would run a sub-60 400 off the street, etc.
Proving for the millionth time there's a major brain defect in distance runners who post here. Yeah, I can pick a 30-year-old in my office here, let them train full-time for 5 years, and they'll run a 2:20 marathon. Okay.
Hard work but little talent wrote:
I'm going with about 2:30 being where talent/genetics become important for the marathon. I'm definitely not what I would consider a very talented runner, nor the least talented. Been running for a little over 5 years, starting as a freshman in HS. Eventually started taking running seriously and put in extra mileage outside of practice only to run times that were just average for HS by senior year (17:00 5K, 4:50 mile). Meanwhile my teammates ran much less than I did and still beat me. A few months after graduating last year dedicated 24 weeks from October to March to train for a marathon, putting in a handful of 100 mile weeks with plenty of long runs with marathon-paced workouts in them. Ended up running 2:40 in the marathon. I think its reasonable to say that with several more years of training and marathon buildups I could eventually get down to 2:30 at best. Someone with greater talent than me would get down to 2:20/2:10. Someone with less talent may not crack 3:00. That being said, I think an average, healthy male can get down to about 2:30 with proper training for enough years. Anything below that requires above average talent.
Do you people know nothing about selection bias? You were an above average high school DISTANCE RUNNER. You were not above average for your enote school or age group. If they all trained like you did a handful of soccer kids or lazy randos that hadn't done anything would be faster than you, but you would be faster than ALMOST everyone else at your school. Selection bias. Read up.
Thinking back, I had a friend who ran a 29:48 10000m, and 66:xx half-marathon.
He had several goes at the marathon, and was a 100 mile a week guy at times, and couldn't ever break 2:30.
That's not to say that he may not have had the capability under the right circumstance, but if breaking 2:30 was the kind of thing you could train random 30-year-olds to do, someone with the ability of my friend would have been able to break 2:30 at the drop of the hat.
Unless you've got a pure slow-twitch guy, you are looking at a 15:30-15:40 5k type. If you go through results of races around the country the average winning time for 5k races is slower than that. So only a very, very small proportion of people with the inclination to train and compete in those races - already a massively pre-selected group - have the basic potential to break 2:30 for a marathon, and even a percentage of those are more speed-oriented guys (as I was) who aren't going to carry that level of performance up in distance.
Flagpole wrote:
hobby jogging harry wrote:
Every semi-competitive runner in history has wanted to believe that about themselves.
CORRECT! It's just BS. Runners with any level of success need to understand that the vast majority of the reason for that is inherent ability. You have to train of course, but if you have little to no talent you won't run even remotely fast.
The letsrun standard: Anyone faster than me is a genetically gifted athletic freak. Anyone slower than me just doesn't work hard enough.
The average 30 year old would run about 4 hours after 5 years of training.