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

I've been around so many different hundreds of kids throughout HS and through coaching now. There are 17 year olds who are skinny and well proportioned, and have such an abysmal engine that it would be unreasonable for them to set a life goal of breaking 22 minutes in the 5k. Take the engines of these kids, and shove them in a shot-putters body, and you will get someone who cannot ever break 7:30 in the mile.

Those saying 4:40 are actually a special case of stupid. 4:40 are you joking me? I've seen people put in thousands of miles over the course of 4 years, doing weight room, eating healthy, doing speed work, form work, mentally toughening themselves, everything, and they can't break 5:50. Yes these kids are more on the rare side on a team, but they definitely exist. And these are just as often skinny dudes.

I would say for a reasonably proportioned person that is very untalented, something like 5:50 mile would be the epitome of their running life after many years of training. I wouldn't be surprised if its 6:50 though.

2:00, 4:30, 10:00 is my answer. Once you get under those times, the more genetics come into play.

1:50, 4:00, 9:00 guys work extremely hard but make no mistake, genetics are a huge component.

Everyone is different though. Some people may take 40 mpw to achieve the same times for somebody running 60 mpw.

I worked hard in HS and ran 2 00, 4 33 9 50. Continue working hard and ran 4 10, 8 58 and 14 06 in college.

could whoopi goldburg be hot ? Hot hot could she get

I don't know. I've coached high school xc/track for a long time. My slowest boy on the team each year always breaks 20 min 5k and 5:30 Mile by end of first year or during second year. And those kids are usually that slow because they are wimps. In 20 years coaching, I can't think of more than a couple boys who never broke 20 min.

how bout this proposition? It goes like this: a great deal of 'talent' begins at birth. If you eat healthily, are physically active in a variety of ways, engage in some longer distance aerobic activity regularly, are not exposed to various environmental poisons, draw from some kind of wellsprings of motivation and work ethic and maybe as a bonus throw in some time at altitude, you can expect to arrive at the first day of practice in high school with a great deal of your genetic debt erased. And perhaps 2 or 3 of the above are enough to compensate for misfortunes in other areas.

If you have great genetics, all the merrier. Of course, kids don't really have control over most of the above, but it does indicate that 'talent' is far from 100% genetic.

Absolutely no talent here.

When I took steps on my first 'run' in January 1994, I weighed 242 lbs of blob (at 5'11") at age 22. I ran my first marathon 22 weeks later weighing 193lbs, doing 3:42. In the years since then, I seesaw between 170 and 182. I learned very early on that I am not made for speed. After running for about a decade, I did achieve most of my PBs over a four or five year stretch. 36:14 10k, 17:29 5k, 5:18 mile. Those days are long behind me.

These days, ultras suit me more because I can plod along for a long time and enjoy the process and the struggle. Ran Rocky Raccoon 50 under ten hours last January.

The talented people are amazing, but many years of good running and results very possible for we no-talent types too.

maybe not the first year, but most def, if you aren't breaking 5:30 / 20:00 after several years, you either aren't taking things seriously at all or have some issue that prevents you from training. A friend of mine falls into the second group, but this year his training issues are looking to be resolved, and if all goes well, he'll break 20/5:30.

Wow! Ryan Hall was quoted in the bible.

Peter Maher was a fat kid who turned into one of the strongest workout kings. He once held a world record and ran in the Olympics for Canada .

Sounds about right.

runlikegump wrote:

Absolutely no talent here.

When I took steps on my first 'run' in January 1994, I weighed 242 lbs of blob (at 5'11") at age 22. I ran my first marathon 22 weeks later weighing 193lbs, doing 3:42.

1/10.

If you ran a 3:42 marathon after 22 weeks of running, you have more talent than most people.

Highschool wrote:

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.

Speed is talent, but durability is all about motivation and commitment.

If you get injured, just ignore the pain and hobble through. Your injury will eventually go away, like most things in life.

The Way We Were wrote:

Speed is talent, but durability is all about motivation and commitment.

If you get injured, just ignore the pain and hobble through. Your injury will eventually go away, like most things in life.

You can't and shouldn't hobble through stress fractures. Sometimes people just get hurt, and its not because they "weren't motivated enough"

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.

Right on. They don't even have to train that hard to do this. They just need to buy a bike.

Hayduke wrote:

2:10 800

4:55 1600

10:30 3200

17:00 5000

my guesses. mostly based on what the average male runner could do in HS.

But they OP's question was about no talent, not average talent. So I'd interpret that as the bottom 1% or even lower, bottom 0.1%, 0.01%. That's why I answered maybe 7:00 for a mile.

2:18 wrote:

Peter Maher was a fat kid who turned into one of the strongest workout kings. He once held a world record and ran in the Olympics for Canada .

No, Maher was a super talented kid who became a fat man and then got skinny again.

If they weren't uncommon you would have more than one example.

zzzz wrote:

Hayduke wrote:

2:10 800

4:55 1600

10:30 3200

17:00 5000

my guesses. mostly based on what the average male runner could do in HS.

But they OP's question was about no talent, not average talent. So I'd interpret that as the bottom 1% or even lower, bottom 0.1%, 0.01%. That's why I answered maybe 7:00 for a mile.

The 0.1%ile would basically just be severely disabled people who aren't going to be able to run a step regardless of "hard work." Even the 1%ile is likely to consist mostly of people whose lack of running talent extends well beyond just not quite being built for the sport.

Something like 25%ile would probably be a better definition.