E.g. for a 5k something like this?
Untalented: cannot break 20 even with a long period of uninterrupted big mileage (100k+)
Talented: can break 25 off the couch just from general athletic ability from other sports. Can break 20 within a couple months of modest training.
Potential elite: can break 20 off the couch, with modest training can get down to 15-16 within a year.
Discus
I saw this podcast a while back from yaseen abdalla from the running effect, and they talk about talent a bit in there and how it may be overrated and how people use it as an excuse to be losers .
He was a 20-24 minute 5k runner for most of his first year of running and after 9 years of running he's a low 13 guy. So maybe we need to rethink how we think about talent in running
Those metrics make no sense. Breaking 25 off of the couch is not talent. 50% of 18 year old males who are normal weight can do that. And any person who can run 100k per week for a period of time will break 20. Likely only 5% of people can do that mileage without getting injured. And breaking 20 off of the couch is normal for any athletic male.
I have been coaching high school boys for about 15 years. 60-70 boys come out for the team. 20 of them do summer running. The others show up the first day either never having run or not since May. We do a to time trial the 2nd day and the majority of the team does sub 20 minute 5k pace. By the end of the year, about 10 boys don't break 20. Most run 18:30.
Running scout wrote:
What are some indicators that a person is untalented, talented and a potential elite?
Nobody is untalented, talented, and a potential elite.
Track is about performance, not potential. The last person I thought was freakishly talented was Hobbs Kessler who trained with professional runners as a hs'er and broke 4 off like 35 miles a week if I remember correctly.
Meh. Some people continue to respond to training and improve long after others top out. Some can handle high mileage while others don’t. Some are near world class after a short period of training. All those things are talent above the average person. Anyone running 13 min 5k after any amount of training is well above average talent. Otherwise everyone in college would run that fast.
Being able to withstand a high volume training workload is a talent in itself. So you can go from really bad to really good, in theory.
One thing I look for with a new runner is if during their back kick of their stride the bottom of their foot points to the sky. If they have the aerobic engine to go with that stride, they're going to be great.
TarZanIQ wrote:
I saw this podcast a while back from yaseen abdalla from the running effect, and they talk about talent a bit in there and how it may be overrated and how people use it as an excuse to be losers .
He was a 20-24 minute 5k runner for most of his first year of running and after 9 years of running he's a low 13 guy. So maybe we need to rethink how we think about talent in running
Talent can’t be overrated and it’s 100% of the difference between serious runners. To begin with, most runners don't have the leg speed necessary to run 13:00.
It’s hard to believe Abdalla ever ran 20:00 or slower but he ran 13:10 because he has the talent to do so, and for 99.99 of runners it’s impossible to run 3:55.
Just remember there are 8 billion people on Earth. Plenty of competition.
It takes years of training to find out where ones talent exists. Most of us never come close to the elite training/fitness needed to learn about our own abilities.
I always thought I was untalented, my first mile in PE class was barely sub 7. After 10 years I could split faster than that during the marathon.
You are not very talented. I ran 2:30 in the Marine Corps Marathon with a college teammate the year we graduated. We took a month off after trsck and then ran about 40 MPW for 3 months leading up to it. We didn't know what to expect never having run more than 17 miles before.
Obviously there is going to be cases of person starting at X time and becoming elite, but for the most part I think coaches (especially at the HS level) know that talent has a lot to do with it. I think for the high end kids you can tell pretty quickly by adaptation versus what they would run off the rip first time out. For example, I've had a few kids that might start at an average time but you can tell pretty quickly in practice and races that they are improving at a not normal level. For the ones that have become high level runners it almost looks like they're improving every day when they are first starting out.
Running scout wrote:
E.g. for a 5k something like this?
Untalented: cannot break 20 even with a long period of uninterrupted big mileage (100k+)
Talented: can break 25 off the couch just from general athletic ability from other sports. Can break 20 within a couple months of modest training.
Potential elite: can break 20 off the couch, with modest training can get down to 15-16 within a year.
Discus
if this is something you have to think about or have someone else give you the answer to - then you:
1) shouldn't call yourself running scout
2) shouldn't try to become a running scout
there is no stupid formula. again if I have to explain it to you - then you really don't have any business in the business...and giving you the answer would be like giving a gun to someone totally untrained in weapon safety. So no.
TarZanIQ wrote:
I saw this podcast a while back from yaseen abdalla from the running effect, and they talk about talent a bit in there and how it may be overrated and how people use it as an excuse to be losers .
He was a 20-24 minute 5k runner for most of his first year of running and after 9 years of running he's a low 13 guy. So maybe we need to rethink how we think about talent in running
Okay, but he also ran 5:10 in the 1600 in his first season of track and then ran sub 17 for 5 as a junior with a 4:33 mile. You might not have been able to tell much from his first race, but his improvement was meteoric.
Of course talent goes away. Do you think Webb could be competitive today? Ritz? Simpson?
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