How much “talent” does it take to break 18 and 17 mins in hs?

I saw a race yesterday where 4 HS guys went under 16:30 (2 under 16) and 4 girls went under 19 (1 under 17).

In total about 10 boys were 17:59 and faster.

They seemed relatively talented. Maybe even this much.

I tried to show an arrow for how much talent they had. It was quite a bit. Formatting didn't work.

Despercito wrote:

Title

Approximately 6.4 talent are required for this.

noiupu wrote:

It takes no talent to break 18 for a boy, unless your Samoan.

Unless my Samoan is what?

When I was 15 (HS age in US, isn't?) local track coach was touring schools to find boys and girls for his team. So our PE teacher rounded up all skinny guys and they made us run a TT 5k. I never trained to run before, just 60m reps at PE also lots of football (soccer for US folks). I ran 19:2XX, suffered big time, was considered untalented (true) and din't get selected. Hated running since then, untill way later in my life. So when I picked up running at 30 as a way to get fit I was amazed the "breaking 20" is even in discussion... I'm still happily slow 17:37, 37:42, 1:22:02 :)

You’re wrote:

noiupu wrote:

It takes no talent to break 18 for a boy, unless your Samoan.

Unless my Samoan is what?

Ahead of you on a narrow part

I will freely admit that I never trained and thus almost certainly never reached my potential (which probably wasn't all that great), but when I was running I was doing more miles and faster miles than most people, and I never ran even a half mile at an 18 min/5K pace.

I think it's *hilarious* that some of you are saying "Well, I had no talent. I started off as a 21 min/5K guy and just worked my way down with hard work". Dude, I *finished* as a 21 min/5K guy. That was the result of a couple of years of running most days (again, no, I didn't train optimally) and I was pretty happy with myself. If you started off there then, I hate to break it to you, you are unusually talented. Not unusually talented by runner standards, but unusually talented by random Joe on the street standards.

I would say it is all on the coaching.

16 years ago when I was in HS, my best 5K was 18:30. When I started back up running in 2016 (I was also 20 lbs heavier), I went from 19:40 (casually running 12-15 miles per week) to 17:48 in 6 months averaging 40 MPW. I just followed this plan:

https://www.runnersworld.com/advanced/a20806851/solving-the-5k-puzzle/

No it is not all about coaching or all guys on the same team would run similar times. Try coaching 100 HS guys for a year and you will see that most end up around 20 minutes, a few break 17 and a few run 24 minutes. You will have a bell shaped curve if you plot all of their times. Keep in mind that these are the actual runners from the HS, not the general population from the HS who could never run that fast. I looked through some HS data on Milesplit which shows that the median times are closer to 21 minutes but my experience is that it will be 20 minutes by the end of the season.

These threads are so predictable. A handful of posters talk sense and then a handful of poster post personal stories they think prove something other than self selection.

They can pretty much be an ad lib;

I don't have any talent. When I was in school I ran _______ all I did was ______ in training and it was easy. (I think all people are just like me because I'm not very self aware. In conclusion, everyone should be able to do what I've done because I don't understand how the world works and I don't think I have talent.) Anyone who doesn't run ______ is just being lazy.

like this wrote:

These threads are so predictable. A handful of posters talk sense and then a handful of poster post personal stories they think prove something other than self selection.

They can pretty much be an ad lib;

I don't have any talent. When I was in school I ran _______ all I did was ______ in training and it was easy. (I think all people are just like me because I'm not very self aware. In conclusion, everyone should be able to do what I've done because I don't understand how the world works and I don't think I have talent.) Anyone who doesn't run ______ is just being lazy.

QFT

Predictor wrote:

No it is not all about coaching or all guys on the same team would run similar times. Try coaching 100 HS guys for a year and you will see that most end up around 20 minutes, a few break 17 and a few run 24 minutes. You will have a bell shaped curve if you plot all of their times. Keep in mind that these are the actual runners from the HS, not the general population from the HS who could never run that fast. I looked through some HS data on Milesplit which shows that the median times are closer to 21 minutes but my experience is that it will be 20 minutes by the end of the season.

Sorry that's not what I meant. I guess what I mean with coaching is that different approaches work for different people. When I was in HS, my coach's approach didn't work for me~ they need to be more individualized for the athlete. I think a Sub 18 is doable for most HS males. Note I said doable, not necessarily that everyone would do it.

Boracho wrote:

It takes 32.48 talents.

Need a unit of measurement.

32.48 ounces of talent per square foot.

That's 32.48 ounces of talent per square foot to break 18 minutes.

But almost 50.00 oz/ft^2 to break 17.

It requires exponentially more talent for each barrier.