Running is far more dependent on talent than it is on coaching

I agree but this won’t play well with the letsRun audience who are largely composed of guys who were/are 5,6,7 on their HS teams and think that if they just ran 100 mpw , they would’ve run a 15 flat 5k

Training mostly comes down to putting in the right amount of work and the right amount of recovery.
The details aren’t irrelevant, but at the same time we are still arguing about details after 100+ years of research so they definitely aren’t as important as many make them out to be. Most people can get pretty good doing just about anything if they keep the basics in mind.
Talent reigns supreme, it’s a hard truth.

And while I'm at it, screw those alter-g treadmills, creatine shakes, altitude tents, and other fancy gimmicks. Their benefit falls somewhere between marginal and minimal.

What's far more important is getting 8-9 hours of consistent sleep and eating roughly the right amount of calories. The only "modern" invention I'd bother using would be supershoes and superspikes.

Well, I am a magic wizard coach.. )) Hand on hart of course talent is number one to produce a fast runner. But a very experienced running coach can squeeze out 100% of that talent in contrary to a not so skilled coach or self coached runner.

You're pretty clearly not a wizard coach. Correct coaching (and thus training) gets you 99% of the way. The "talent" is what separates world class from merely good.

I have never had any talent for running but have been driven by motivation.

This is the truth. I know a person who ran sub 16 in HS off of about 40 mpw with one workout (that he wouldn’t finish/hit splits half the time) and basically everything else easy. I also know a few people who actually tried hard (i.e. 65 mpw, 2 workouts + long run) and could barely break 18.

Purrwegian we all know you're coach J.S. Stop switching accounts and upvoting your own posts.

How much would a schedule like that squeeze out? 85%? 90%?

At the high school level coaching matters a lot, if Nico Young came up in an area with a crappy HS coach, at best he's a solid HS runner and maybe makes state off pure talent, at worst he's never even heard of

There's plenty of mega talents that have been squandered simply because the coaches weren't adept

So, then why do the collegiate and professional runners increase their mileage and intensity? If running 35 miles a week and two workouts is all it takes, then why are the elite runners doing so much more? Even the 1500 runners will run 60-80 Miles a week. I do get that genetics is the most important key, but still, correct training makes a difference

Haha. JS is letsrun's court jester. I wouldn't use him as my coach even if I got paid to do so.

A qualified guess maybe 65-70 % ? I'm not Purrvegan.... 😉

How do you know that when never tried?

Genetics is what it takes for world records and championship medals but you aren't getting very far without competent coaching and long term training/development.

Winners need to get to the championship starting line healthy, in peak fitness, and mentally ready to rock. Plenty of incompetent coaches aren't capable of developing their athletes, they'll run them into the ground daily, overtrain them, race them in the wrong events, and the athletes suffer. Some sprinters could be sub 4 milers and some sub 4 milers could be world class distance runners with the right coaching.

That is me of course,the magic wizard coach.. ))

My coaching is so bad i`m always writing with diferent names to pretend people like my special calibrated to the individual athlete DANCAN system !! hehe ))

- Magic Wand - 🧙🍆

Yeah like look at Henry Rono, majority of his training was jogging off a hangover for 2-3 hours a day. Sure that'll will give you a incredible aerobic base to run pretty fast for the average Joe. But it won't get you world record performances like it did for him. Coaching matters kinda, but most will improve way more if they just ran more and focus on running simple workouts (but progressively faster over time).

Talented kids are everywhere! Yesterday I had a 13 year old run 2:03 for 800 and 9:23 for 3k. A few weeks ago another 13 year old I have started working with ran 34:43 for 10k (which wasn't my idea). I live in a city of 400,000 and coach these kids 1-2 x per week. They run on their own on the other days. My challenge now is continuing to develop these 2 and the other 30-40 athletes that I work with.

For all the talent that is out there you have to get the kids to enjoy the sport and want to continue long enough. One of our athletes ran 3:57.04 for a mile this year at uni in the states and he came to me when he was 10. Yes he was talented but coaching and a great training environment made a huge impact on his development.

Where are you getting 35 mpw from? The OP's post says to add a mile to each run every week aside from some down weeks. So you start out at 30 mpw and build up to 60.