Most naturally talented person you have known personally

I've known some freaks of nature as far as runners go.

Don't want to say names but very fast runners:

Lazy though at times.

My next door neighbor was a 3:37 1500 runner. He knew I was a runner and kept wanting to go run. I didn't want to go because I figured it would be really slow. Finally we go, and we're clicking off maybe 6:15 pace and he's just talking like it's no big deal. I figured he must have been decent in the past, so I googled him and found that out. Blew my mind.

When I was in my mid 30s in San Diego I was a decent, but definitely not pro level triathlete. This Texas kid came into town and was staying with Scott Tinley. I mostly swam with him, but did a few run workouts and bike rides with him. He clearly was an immensely talented endurance athlete. The kid's name was Lance Armstrong.

reformed triathlete wrote:

When I was in my mid 30s in San Diego I was a decent, but definitely not pro level triathlete. This Texas kid came into town and was staying with Scott Tinley. I mostly swam with him, but did a few run workouts and bike rides with him. He clearly was an immensely talented endurance athlete. The kid's name was Lance Armstrong.

Who, was internationally average.

I'm sorry. This story does not pass the smell test. He was fast in a sport with a tiny, American elite pool. Fast in the U.S. means very little.

Greg lemond on the other hand was so fast he was beating adults as a teenager. Armstrong was not even close.

Yeah but he was 15 at the time. 15

While not vouching for the truthfulness of this story, and ignoring the irony of discussing lance as naturally talented, the most naturally talented people I know still don't hold a fire to world elites, but that wasn't the question.

Pop_pop!_v2.2.1 wrote:

reformed triathlete wrote:

When I was in my mid 30s in San Diego I was a decent, but definitely not pro level triathlete. This Texas kid came into town and was staying with Scott Tinley. I mostly swam with him, but did a few run workouts and bike rides with him. He clearly was an immensely talented endurance athlete. The kid's name was Lance Armstrong.

Who, was internationally average.

I'm sorry. This story does not pass the smell test. He was fast in a sport with a tiny, American elite pool. Fast in the U.S. means very little.

Greg lemond on the other hand was so fast he was beating adults as a teenager. Armstrong was not even close.

Pop_pop!_v2.2.1 wrote:

Who, was internationally average.

I'm sorry. This story does not pass the smell test. He was fast in a sport with a tiny, American elite pool. Fast in the U.S. means very little.

Greg lemond on the other hand was so fast he was beating adults as a teenager. Armstrong was not even close.

"On the other hand"??

Lance was beating adult professionals as a teenager also. He was also national champion. What are you talking about???

rviiv wrote:

Pop_pop!_v2.2.1 wrote:

Who, was internationally average.

I'm sorry. This story does not pass the smell test. He was fast in a sport with a tiny, American elite pool. Fast in the U.S. means very little.

Greg lemond on the other hand was so fast he was beating adults as a teenager. Armstrong was not even close.

"On the other hand"??

Lance was beating adult professionals as a teenager also. He was also national champion. What are you talking about???

He doped so his entire history is nullified.

You get these stories all the time. I know this native american guy who never ran in high school but was a basketball player. He was about 5'7" tall and he could jump up and grab the rim with 2 hands pretty easy. He also was really quick and had a nice jumper. He never made it to college because he was from a small school and from what i hear never had the grades to get to college in the first place. I often wonder why he never made anything of his talent beyond high school. In my opinion he was talented enough to play pro ball overseas if he chose the right avenues.

In high school, a month into the season, a parent of a troublemaking freshman, who had never showed any sport of sporting talent, negotiated that he would do track instead of being suspended or expelled. His first day of practice was an easy five mile run. We were running easy, but he ran faster than whatever our easy pace was. In his first meet (and first race ever) after a week of practice, he ran a 4:48 mile. That was the most surprising show of natural talent that I have seen.

mediocre high school scrub wrote:

Does anyone have anecdotes of someone with spectacular natural talent?

Last season, a girl on my track team ran a 5:05 1500 with a knee brace after being injured and not allowed to run for most of the season and having had multiple knee surgeries in the past. Just think how much faster she would have run if she was injury free. I understand many LRC elders might have known some people with much more extraordinary talent than this impressive performance.

Have you met people with insane amounts of running talent who never spend enough time running to really get a glimpse of their full potential?

Maybe not what you want, BUT:

Worked at a Radio Shack in Boston (Yeh, me Mortie, who'd a guessed) with a guy who was a flat-out math/mechanical genius who'd dropped outta M.I.T. due to some sorta personality disorder. Just couldn't connect with people. Now he'd be diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. TheY gotta name for everything, now. He hid in the stock room a lot.

Forgot to mention that the five mile run was in basketball shoes. The 4:48 mile was on an asphalt track in Nike Pegasus GX.

The two most gifted runners in my elementary school got into cigarettes and drugs pretty early in Jr high. But man when we ran in Gr 6 they would be what seemed 50-100m ahead in the 400 (it was cross country style so I don't have measurements). But they had the talent.

One of those kids also played pretty high level hockey (for a young pre-teen/teen), and was obviously cocky as shit.

I'll call him RR (his actual initials) to disguise his name.

RR came out for track his senior season. He had played basketball in the past and been stellar but had been kicked out for grades. He got his grades up and dicked around at practice all season... coaches kept him around because he was so good.

By the end of the season he had run 1:54 in the open 800 with no base and probably 2/3 of the practices of a normal athlete. He would skip practice and go hit around with the tennis team, where he easily could have been varsity too. He dominated every local invitational. At state he could have won but got 5th because he went out like an idiot and got eaten up by a pack of 4 runners who drafted off him.

His most impressive display though, was the 4x800 at state that year. Our 4x800 had 3 incredible legs and one really mediocre one. They put the slowest leg second and he ran a 2:08, which had us in 15th (2nd to last place). Then RR got the stick. He passed TWELVE teams, running 1:56.0 on a cold and windy day, setting the team up for their third place finish.

Got a track scholarship, dropped out, and started his own dance studio (he was also an incredible dancer). I watched this guy in awe. I saw guys run faster (we had a guy hit 1:51.9 on a relay split when I was a junior), but I never saw anyone who was so fast with so little effort.

This dude on my team ran 2:01 for the 800 of literally nothing, he went to like 1 practice the whole year and just jogged like a mile, that was literally all he did. Big football player though, got a good scholarship. Obviously 2 min isnt that fast, but for a hs kid with no training, thats pretty darn fast

Ron Laird, Philip Dunn, Andy Minsker, Brian Tinker

rviiv wrote:Lance was beating adult professionals as a teenager also. He was also national champion. What are you talking about???

When Lance was in his early 20s everyone was saying that he was one of the most talented cyclists who'd ever come along. He definitely qualifies as "naturally talented".

Not really what you're looking for, but my best friend was shaving in 6th grade and set school records in every single event in our grade school 'olympics'. By the time other kids hit puberty too, he wasn't anything special.