Identifying Talent: Fast times off of Low Mileage

I'd think under 17 to be talented compared to people in general, maybe 15:30 to be a talented runner among runner. But the responses are going to differ wildly.

Talent - solid initial times from general fitness, followed by big improvements as workload is increased, and finally resistance to injury as volume/workload increase.

For a 20 something male with "talent" - sub 18:00 5k based off of general fitness, quickly dipping well below 17:00 with the introduction of structured training and increased volume.

Seeing how they respond to training is important. Part of talent is having a physiological response to endurance training ... while everyone will clearly get at least a bit better as they run more (especially if they are starting from scratch), not everyone will see huge improvements over time.

So you can't only look at time vs mileage; improvement needs to be considered.

I agree with this,

saw a kid in my highschool go from just messing around having fun at 30mpw and not taking it seriously to committing himself the summer of his senior year and going up to 75mpw and dropping his 5k time from 18:15 to 15:45. That was a pretty shock on my team at the time

Everyone knows someone who seems to be fit no matter how much work they put in but never seems to get a whole lot fitter for the training they do.

And everyone knows someone who's awful when untrained but improves enormously when they get the work in.

Who is the more talented? The "natural" or the "responder"?

Tough ground...

At the end of the day it doesn't matter to me - end performance is what counts.

age38 wrote:

Everyone knows someone who seems to be fit no matter how much work they put in but never seems to get a whole lot fitter for the training they do.

Lol, that is totally me. I can run 16:30 off sitting on my @ss on the couch all day, and maybe 15 flat off 100 MPW.

If you're doing 75 mpw and only running 15:45 you ain't talented.

shtsnggls wrote:

If you're doing 75 mpw and only running 15:45 you ain't talented.

How about if the runner in question is 50+ years old?

I think you also need to take into account how long the guy has been on 75mpw. If it's like just three months, then it's way too early to tell.

The "natural" or the "responder"?

There is a third part to talent.

How much you want to improve and how much you are will to do to achieve it.

Some people are born capable of working themselves to death, others are born incapable of working even under threat of death.

Listen to the podcast where jay johnson interviews Bob Kennedy, he barely ran 40M weeks. Then go listen to Ritz, he was running TONS of mileage... the lesson is that you can get to the same place two different ways.

shtsnggls wrote:

If you're doing 75 mpw and only running 15:45 you ain't talented.

Talent is easy to spot in high school kids who make a decent show of effort.

A kid on my team ran 10:26 indoor 2 mile as a sophomore, after already playing an early morning hockey game, he kept running 10:26 - 10:28 week after week.

We got him to actually run about 35 - 40 mpw through his senior year, and he came up with a 9:27 2-mile.

Also knocked down beers and smoked cigs!

This kid was 7th in the MASS state XC championship as a senior in the fall of '75 (class of '76), a race won by Alberto.

This guy became my good friend, and ended up faster than I over the distances in high school. Ran 9:19 as a college frosh then left the sport. I always wonder what he coulda done if he really trained! I'll never know...

lateblooming wrote:

So what do you think? If a 20-something male takes up running and spends a year gradually building up to 40-45 mile weeks by the end of the year, what times would he have to run to be considered "talented"? 5k? 10k?

My progression, experiment of one for 5K (no talent as shtsggles and 84.6% of the LRC would agree):

18 - (10 mpw) - 19 low

19 - (40-45 mpw) - 18:05

19 - (50 - 60 mpw, two months after the 18:05) 17:04

20 - (60 - 70 mpw) 16:15

20 - (60 - 70 mpw, 3 months after the 16:15) 32:50 10K

27-28 (PR 5K of 15:11, following a few years of post-college marathon training, but running ~50 mpw at time of PR)

What about 15:20 off of 40 MPW?

The problem is that the word "talent" is so vague and wide ranging in this case. While "talent" does have a definition...

"natural aptitude or skill"

...the problem is that it depends on what group you are looking at, and that you can be MORE talented or LESS talented than another.

A world class adult 5,000 meter guy would not think of a runner with a 15:30 PR as talented, but a high school sophomore that runs that time might be considered that.

If two runners each run 15:30, but one runs 90 miles a week and the other runs 40 miles a week, is the one who runs 40 miles a week MORE talented? What if you then find out that the one who runs 40 miles a week can't train more than that without getting injured? Does training ability go into the talent definition?

These are the questions I ask of you.

I had very limited physical talents as a youngster, but had the mental advantage of TRULY loving running in all it's forms and ended up world class (among peers) as a masters runner. Learn to love the journey and see where it leads....

Sub 2:00 800 for a male or sub 2:15 800 for a female off a month of training. I'd consider that talented for someone that is physically mature.

I find it funny you seem to see 40-45 mpw as low mileage. I have never run more than 29 miles in one week and run16:4x consistently.