heyyou wrote:
Good post Gerry, natural ability does indeed change with training.
"I don't think that word means what you think it means."
-Fezzik
heyyou wrote:
Good post Gerry, natural ability does indeed change with training.
"I don't think that word means what you think it means."
-Fezzik
20 grams worth.
All of these people posting about how they ran 14:50 and had no talent are the same one's that posted on the Lance/NYC marathon prediction thread saying stuff like "well if I could run 2:30 on 40 mpw then surely someone of Lance's caliber could run 2:20 with the same effort"
I ran 19:08 for 2 miles in 8th grade. Ran here might be a questionable usage of the word, but that was my earliest "race". I should have been a middle distance guy, but got stuck in the mentality I was too slow to run anything less than 2 miles. I ended up running 2:39 for the kilo, 4:31 for the mile and 15:35 for the 5k. My MD times were run as times trials while focusing on 5k's.
7th Grade P.E. Mile (no training, no sports, lazy): 7:10
8th Grade Track Progression Mile: 6:35, 6:20, 6:10, 5:59
9th Grade XC and Track Times: 5:08, 11:23, 19:47
10th Grade XC and Track Times: 5:03, 11:21, 17:45
11th Grade XC and Track Times: 4:53, 10:35, 16:30
12th Grade XC and Track Times: 4:39, 10:01, 16:10
Freshman Collegeou XC and Track Times: 16:03, 28:30
Sophomore College XC and Track Times: 15:47, 26:50
... We won't talk about since then.
Either way you can keep knocking your times down if you train at a reasonably high level. You just have to stay consistant. Stay healthy and keep chicks out of the picture and you should be able to run faster.
JoggerGerry wrote:
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!
Love it.