Someone with no running talent- how fast can they get through hard work?

"Through Christ who gives me strength all things are possible."- Ryan Hall

No way. In my opinion, Someone who actually has all of the attributes you describe would have trouble running sub 24:00/7:00 for the 5k/mile. Go look at any 16:50 5k runner or 4:30 miler (as in someone who is actually in that kind of shape now). I can almost guarantee you that they will not look like an "average person". Most likely they will have one or more of the following attributes: higher than average calves, a relatively slim lower leg, powerful let not cyclist-type quads and glutes, and very little excess mass (not neccessary fat) on their torso and arms. EVEN if they fit none those descriptions, they will have talents you can't "see" such as a high vo2max, powerful heart, larger and more mitochondria... ect.

Secondly being able to train consistently and hard for 4 years as you describe takes talent. You can not simple say "Well if they didn't get injured..." because if they aren't talented they WILL get injured and keep getting injured trying to train hard enough to run the times you mentioned.

a male with very little talent could possibly work their tail off and get down to 4:55 mile - why? because of what I've actually seen in the sport - back in the 80's I remember many people breaking 40 in the 10K and a decent amount breaking 36 - the winning times were many times in the 28's and 29's - I ran my PB in a 10K in Bowling Green Kentucky well under 39 minutes but got beat by over a mile by Craig Virgin and Nick Rose! Back then my time put me in the middle of the pack, but now a time like that can sometimes win a 10K outright. It's actually better now for the non talented guy provided they really get after it. Of course now America's "go to" race is the 5K and there's so many of them - so in theory a non talented guy who has put in the hard training may be able to pull off a win, but the key is to find the races where there's no prize money and no history of having insane times AND pray no college boys show up or some fast "out of towner" and it's possible to take a victory as a non talented runner - I was able to pull it off one time in my life - part of you feels good because you took first but the other part of you feels bad because no elites showed up - all any of us can do is make the best of what we've been given when we were conceived and just be at peace with it.

If you can imagine someone that works hard to get down to 4:40 maybe 4:30 for the mile, I can imagine someone with that much less talent than that dude, with much lower measurable values, and can only get down to 7:00 for the mile. It's not that hard to imagine, really. I'm sure I've met some.

No speed, guy, little talent.

Ghost, Hercules Wimbledon, London,-SW19

dob. 1956, 05

1975-1987

400 - 61, during 800 race....terrible second 400, 1976

800 -2.10, White City, 1977

1500-4.19 Crystal Palace, 1977

one mile, 4.42, en route to 14.42 three mile, indoors, Bucknell, 1981

3000-8.57, indoors, Rochester, N.Y., 1981

5000-15.17, cinders, Wimbledon Park, 1978

3 mile, indoors -14.42, Bucknell, 1981

10,000-32.22, Crystal Palace, 1979

10 mile-51.20, non certified, Mansfield, PA, 1980

10 mile certified -52.03, Woking, 1978

20 mile -1.50.49, Finchley, 1978

Ghost had absolutely no leg speed. Pathetic no speed runber

Times were all achieved with no track training.

Average mileage, 50-60 mpw...

Ghost's heroes - Dave Clarke, Bob Holt, John Roberts, Simmons, Rose, Black, McCleod, Smith, Jones, Ford, Tuck, Helme, Anders, Treadwell, and many others...

If someone truly has no talent, they will not respond to training very much at all. There is a silly notion that someone with low baseline fitness has 'no talent', even if they respond to training like rocket fuel.

Yeah, but how fast could they run 1,940.325 meters in optimal conditions?

Sand Dunes wrote:

"Through Christ who gives me strength all things are possible."- Ryan Hall

Let's see you fly

You're describing someone who is about two steps away from being dead and what do you mean by "in shape?" If they're in shape I'd think they'd already done some training. Do you mean they've done some running but not really pushed themselves that much? Do you mean they're just generally active? And of your three qualifying conditions the only one most people will know is that they have poor speed, which probably describes almost anyone who goes out for track and ends up as a distance runner at least to some extent because if the person had any speed he'd be a sprinter. And even if someone knows their lactate thresholds and VO2 max they don't know what those things will become once they've trained hard and a lot. Similarly, you'd only know how well you've adapted to training by training so there's no way to say in advance that a particular person lacks the "talent" to adapt well to training. That's significant because if such a person puts up some decent performances people will begin to say that the person actually had a fair bit of talent after all and that the ability to train hard is evidence of that talent. Then there's the whole matter of no one having any sort of precise idea of exactly what talent for running really is.

With all that as background, I never ran any distance beyond a 440 at better than 6:00 mile pace in high school nor did I beat any other runners who actually finished a race until the next to last meet of my junior year, my third season. Eventually I worked up to doing 100-150 mile weeks regularly and got to thing like 15:33, 32:30, 2:35:21 for 5k/10k/marathon.

I applaud you for posting a reasonable response to the same dumb query that pops up here all the time. Most people on here have apparently never met someone with "no running talent". When they use that phrase, what they mean is like the slowest person on their track team. Someone who almost assuredly has more running talent than 90% of the general population.

From my experience, the best someone with no talent can get to lies somewhere between 15:00-16:00 for the 5k.

Sledge_hammer wrote:

From my experience, the best someone with no talent can get to lies somewhere between 15:00-16:00 for the 5k.

I am talking about males of course.

If you had them training high mileage from a very young age (like 5-8 years old) and putting them through 100+mpw and heavy speedwork sessions when they are older, I'm sure they'd eventually be able to break 5 minutes or faster for a mile even with very little talent.

If they maybe started running in their 20s/30s and went through similar hard training, even the most untalented would be able to go sub-6 for the mile or 23min 5K.

If you can survive on 100-150 mile weeks, then you have talent. Durability is a talent, and a great one too. I know some average Joes who can"t even run more than 40 miles injury-free.

Sledge_hammer wrote:

From my experience, the best someone with no talent can get to lies somewhere between 15:00-16:00 for the 5k.

Not even close.

So the average no talent runner can get to 15:00 for 5k and would be able to walk on at a D1 X-Country team?

Spinachrunner wrote:a male with very little talent could possibly work their tail off and get down to 4:55 mile

Right answer.

As I said, if someone piles on the work and gets some decent times others will say that the person really did have some sort of talent. Maybe they'll let it go with a general comment or they'll define the ability to do piles of work as a talent or even the motivation to try to do a lot of work as a talent. Ultimately no one can really win that debate because there's no agreed upon definition of what talent is. I thought I was totally untalented for running and really hurt all the time because I've had all sorts of back troubles that really limited what running I could do, You think I had talent because I could do all that running. There's no resolution.

Rme wrote:

So the average no talent runner can get to 15:00 for 5k and would be able to walk on at a D1 X-Country team?

There are plenty of D1 cross country teams with guys who have never gotten close to a 15 minute 5,000.