Just curious as to how fast you have to be born to under 16 in 5k. I realize that it's hardly the only factor of your maximum potential, but my goal is to make state senior year in high school, and I started out running 20 minute 5ks, during my first period ever of running.
If you've gone sub 16, what post the earliest time you remember running, for any distance. Perhaps for a PE fitness mile test?
I just hit the sub 16 club this last year after running 23:4? for my first 5k 6 years ago (not running at all for one of the years in between). I'm on a roll, and hoping to hit sub 15 this track season.
I ran a 626 for the mile in 4th grade was the earliest time i remember and prob something like 20:30 for my first 5k in 9th grade. I broke 16 as a senior in high school.
Little to none at all.
debuted with a 61 minute 10k which was after year or so of relatively light training (but I was fairly young) then by training harder and harder ended up running sub 16 5k/low 33 10k when I hit 18 off still relatively moderate mileage- probs averaging around 45/50. I was only one in my class that got the 3* award, (everyone else got 4/5* awards) in athletics out of 30 so in bottom 5% talent-wise and still ran sub 16. That said although in bottom 5% talent in athletics (generally) couple of things made me suited for distance running.
I don't think that natural talent can be equated with "how fast can I run without training at a young age."
Just my opinion.
If you're skinny, you can run sub 16.
Seeing as how sub 15 is going to be my goal this next year... what about the talent required for that? Is it pretty much the same as sub 16?
i ran 21:07 (3mi) for my first high school race, and ran 15:57 for 5k my senior year off of 45-50 mpw and no tempos
I am 42 and started running 6 years ago. the first 5k I did was in 24 minutes, within 6 months I was around high 18's, it took about two years but I got that down into the 16's with a pr of 16:01. You can rock this stuff, good luck.
Pure hard work will get you down to 16:30.
Sub 16:00 takes just a tiny added dash of talent.
I dunno if you'll break 16 in high school. Not saying you won't, it's just tough to do it that young for anyone. But as a lifetime thing? Yeah, you should be able to.
DO YOU SERIOUSLY think there is something in your genes that dictate how well you will run? (there isn't).
In my running life I have seen example after example of the wimpy doing great things in running. Usually AFTER the success has been achieved, learned people point at the successful and say, "That runner has gifted genes."
My own successes serve as a good example if only because I was such an unusual basket case of athletic handicap, doctors tested me BEFORE I ran well. My resting heart rate was 105. My oxygen uptake was 4.8lit (excused me from all physical activity). I was uncoordinated and could not get my left leg to be in place when the right one was ready to lift off the ground. (I fell a lot trying to run.)
After I set several world high school records (some of them are still unbroken), made the Olympic Team while in high school, won 11 NCAA running championships (a record), ran American records 57 times, and a world record at 6 miles (with Billy Mills) learned people have decided I have gifted genes.
At the heighth of my running, I was tested again by Jack Daniels at a high altitude training camp at South Lake Tahoe. My oxygen uptake was around 8.1, my resting heart rate under 40, and only Pre had ever tested higher in oxygen uptake. NATURAL ABILITY CHANGES!
YOU on the other hand, are solid and unchangable. YOU control your own destiny!
For me to control my destiny I trained harder (25-35 miles a day in three workouts), focused harder, (sacreficed movies, girls, television, etc.) to set a training routine for myself that would overcome my weak leg.
I have discovered that IF you are blessed with "natural ability" it is actually a curse. If you have it you don't need to work so hard. You can cruise! But if you have NO ability at all, you have to work harder. Hard work will overcome natural ability every time!
I started running when I was 7, ran 7:01 for the mile in 6th grade, 6:09 in 7th grade (though I'm pretty sure the course was short...), was around 20 for 5k freshman year, and ended HS with a 3200m PR of 10:17 and dipped under 18 for 5k.
Now my 10k PR is 35:10 which is roughly equivalent to 16:45 for 5k, though my current PR is 17:00. I run as much as I can, people say I look like a runner, and I generally try to be as good a runner as possible in everything I do.
My 5k goal is still sub-15:30, and I know I'll make it there in a few years. Maybe if I had some "natural talent" and worked as hard as I have I'd be shooting for sub-13:30 instead (ain't that just the credo of The Letsrun Poster), but I think that about 95% of people could run under 16 if they started training for it when they were 7 and worked at it as hard as Quenton Cassidy or Gerry Lindgren.
When I was 13, I was a fat, overweight, geeky 8th grader with virtually no history in my family of athletic ability. I lost the weight, trained hard over the years, and ran 14:50 - not by "natural ability", but by training hard, learning, and never quiting. I've seen many runners that had much more raw talent then me, and I've blown them away when it came time to race. Desire and an ability to work hard will carry you far - just give it time. PS - I'm now 46, and can still crank it out when I want to.
youre a cutie
Gerry, talent is necessary to run 13's and even 14's.
I trained 50,000 miles as hard as I could. I love running. I was notoriously tougher than faster guys around me. I was the last one standing when everyone else gave up. But no matter how hard I trained I couldn't break 15:00. I have been responsible for nurturing and coaching national class runners, so I know what it takes to be exceptional, and I thought I could be too, but the talent simply wasn't there I eventually found. It's okay because I loved training hard. But talent is needed to break 15:00 I know that, let alone 14:00 or 13:00.
I love how everyone becomes Pre on this board when asked about talent...as in its just hard work...growing up I ran with people who did it all right, put in the miles, ate well, had all the heart in the world and they couldnt' sniff under 18.....
Sure training will change your body physiologically (sorry to go all 430 on everyone)
the stories we hear about fat people turning into good runners etc..sure..easy to happen since none of them knew what they could do beforehand..just because you come from fatness doesn't mean that you won't have the right make up to be a runner...
of course the hard thing to get to 16/15/etc is consistency....
You need just 17% talent and 83% training to break 16
Good post Gerry, natural ability does indeed change with training. I like the quote that says something to the effect of "I found that the harder I worked, the more talented I became."
If you don't need talent to run distance, then I guess you don't need talent to be a fast sprinter, so why don't you all go train for that and give Tyson Gay a challenge? Or how come most of you all can't throw down slam dunks?
This thread smells of arrogance. I'm not even gonna comment on a certain crazy person's remarks.
If you ran 14:50 you have way more talent than most people. Just cause some skinny kid broke 5:00 while you were a fat band geek doesn't mean you didn't have more potential.