Why do people consider running a talent?

All of those people have a talent level that matched their achievements. No different from the people who work just as hard and run 12:40 or barely crack 30.

Recruiters jobs just got a lot easier. We just need to meet with a bunch of interested kids to find out how serious they are without regard to the times that they have run because the hardest workers will end up being the best by the time we are done with them. Normally we meet with the very fastest high schoolers to find out how much training they have done so that we can determine how much talent they have. The best finds are the ones who are running sub 4:10 on no training. The worst finds are the ones who are running 5:30 and have been running 60MPW for 5 years, sleeping right, eating right, and hitting the gym.

Notice how none of these talent doesn't matter guys are posting their times, nor are they coaching chumps to champs.

not practicing what they preachj wrote:

Notice how none of these talent doesn't matter guys are posting their times, nor are they coaching chumps to champs.

I was last or close to last in every footrace I did as a kid, and even I ended up with a 2:04 800 after a decade of hard work. Given optimal training, facilities, and dedication, could I or an average person have been an Olympic champ or even a sub 1:50 guy? No, but we would definitely have achieved the equivalent of a mid 16 5K, a sub 5 mile, a 57 second 400, a 12 flat 100, or whatever ridiculously slow times people on here are claiming that average guys can't get.

Stating the obvious. Running isn't a talent. Running fast is.

Armstronglivs wrote:

Stating the obvious. Running a sub 5 mile isn't a talent. Running sub 4 is.

Fixed.

Talent barely matters wrote:

not practicing what they preachj wrote:

Notice how none of these talent doesn't matter guys are posting their times, nor are they coaching chumps to champs.

I was last or close to last in every footrace I did as a kid, and even I ended up with a 2:04 800 after a decade of hard work. Given optimal training, facilities, and dedication, could I or an average person have been an Olympic champ or even a sub 1:50 guy? No, but we would definitely have achieved the equivalent of a mid 16 5K, a sub 5 mile, a 57 second 400, a 12 flat 100, or whatever ridiculously slow times people on here are claiming that average guys can't get.

lol. Nope. Footraces for kids are short sprints. Mo Farah probably didn't win many of those either.

You have boatloads more talent than average.

Childhood fitness is the MOST important factor wrote:

The genes responsible for developing the nervous and metabolic system are shaped during childhood so if you have an athletic childhood that is a massive physiological advantage and you will find physical activities easier your entire life because it was a huge part of your development, the same cannot be said for the guy who sat on his rear and played video games until age 30 then suddenly wants to get in shape, that guy has no sort of neurological or metabolic advantage as those genetic pathways are highly blocked and inactive as a result of never being used in developmental years.

RobbieN wrote:

the majority go sub 5... that’s the most hilarious and delusional thing I’ve ever heard. ? keep dreamin boi

Explain this:

He would have been a sub 4:30 guy if he started training seriously in his teens, and so would almost anyone else.

Pig meat wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

Stating the obvious. Running a sub 5 mile isn't a talent. Running sub 4 is.

Fixed.

Mere detail. Same basic point. Running sub 5 isn't a talent. Running sub 5 at 60 is. Fixed.

Talent is a real thing wrote:

Jim Ryun's first timed mile was a 5:38 as a sophomore. By the end of the cross country season he finished 6th in the state meet in cross country. By the end of track season he had run a 4:07 mile. On a dirt track. That's off of less than a year of training. There's a word for that. It's called talent.

Running a 4:50 mile is like getting to the other side of the country. Having talent is like having a car, which makes it easy and quick to get there.

Not having talent is like having to get there by bike or on foot. It takes a lot of hard work and planning, you'll need a great support crew, there'll be a lot of suffering in the journey, and you're not going to get there anywhere near as fast as the guy with the car/talent. But both the talented and the non-talented can get there/run that 4:50 mile.

Now if you're talking about a 3:50 mile, that's a completely different issue as even the talented guys will need to work hard for years to get to that level. So how can you expect a non-talented guy to get there as well?

Letsrun is nuts wrote:

Idiot lefties wrote:

The same logic carried through for no talent would say that men and women should not have separate categories in sports because size, strength, coordination, metabolism, VO2 max, are irrelevant. It’s all about willpower and perseverance. Bye bye title IX.

Using that logic, almost every trained young male should be able to run at least as fast as a 50 year old woman. I agree with that, but many people on here don't. FYI, 50 year old women have run a sub 12 100, a 2:12 800, and a sub 17 5K.

You cannot be an Olympic medalist or even get close to being one with average talent. But saying that an average young man can't be trained to run pedestrian times such as a 57 second 400 or a 16:59 5k is just as idiotic.

Define average... the problem with these discussions is the perception that everyone is average. It’s a bell curve and half of the guys are on the other side of the curve.

not practicing what they preachj wrote:

Notice how none of these talent doesn't matter guys are posting their times, nor are they coaching chumps to champs.

Irrelevant. If you think "talent" matters, why aren't you trying to solve the mystery of what you're really talking about when you say it? Is it some sort of magic? A spirit? If their genes somehow made a real physical difference between them and other runners, it's identifiable. Find it.

Grey-area doping aside, Salazar understood that. Let's not kid ourselves that the best American "talent" just happened to be enrolled at the tiny private school he coached at. There's thousands, tens of thousands of potential Rupp's out there; what's lacking is coaches and scouts serious about finding them.

Bad Wigins wrote:

not practicing what they preachj wrote:

Notice how none of these talent doesn't matter guys are posting their times, nor are they coaching chumps to champs.

Irrelevant. If you think "talent" matters, why aren't you trying to solve the mystery of what you're really talking about when you say it? Is it some sort of magic? A spirit? If their genes somehow made a real physical difference between them and other runners, it's identifiable. Find it.

Grey-area doping aside, Salazar understood that. Let's not kid ourselves that the best American "talent" just happened to be enrolled at the tiny private school he coached at. There's thousands, tens of thousands of potential Rupp's out there; what's lacking is coaches and scouts serious about finding them.

Yeah, that is why he is churning out so many great runners. A whole stable of sub 2:09 marathoner even.

Bad Wigins wrote:

not practicing what they preachj wrote:

Notice how none of these talent doesn't matter guys are posting their times, nor are they coaching chumps to champs.

Irrelevant. If you think "talent" matters, why aren't you trying to solve the mystery of what you're really talking about when you say it? Is it some sort of magic? A spirit? If their genes somehow made a real physical difference between them and other runners, it's identifiable. Find it.

Grey-area doping aside, Salazar understood that. Let's not kid ourselves that the best American "talent" just happened to be enrolled at the tiny private school he coached at. There's thousands, tens of thousands of potential Rupp's out there; what's lacking is coaches and scouts serious about finding them.

Talent is genetic in the same way as intelligence is genetic. It falls on a bell-curve distribution, with most in the middle. Of course, that's pretty hard for you to grasp, as you are located to the left side of the bell-curve.

Bekele is a talent

Most runners I’ve interviewed had no special background, nor did their parents run, nor did they even start before middle age. Many WRs at multiday distance were set by such people. The current over-90 WR @100K (18 hours) was set by an Italian who lived near Del Passatore.

The idiots who believe that we are all the same would then have to believe that we should eliminate women’s categories of sports. Obviously women are only worse because they’ve been discouraged for so many years.

Do people really believe that a midget or a 7 footer can run a 2:30 marathon if they had just trained their entire life. The intelligence analogy is a good one but they will refuse to believe that one also. I have two children who scored 35 on the ACT. I would like to take credit for encouraging them or educating them but we are all pretty lazy and they did nothing to earn that score. Our son ran 9:10 in HS without really training or caring about that either. Yes I realize I am backhanded complimenting myself through my gene pool but wanted to point out that we are all born different. Isn’t that why we always hear that diversity is good? The bell curve is probably centered around 21 minutes for guys and 23 minutes for women for 5k. Only 1% of guys are under 16 minutes. Almost nobody is under 15 minutes. 14 minutes? .001%.

These “talent doesn’t exist “ people are either delusional or weak trolls.

Could every able-bodied male in the world run sub 13 if their lifestyle and training were optimized? No. There are inherent differences between us - talent.

I ran 4:44 mile freshman year of HS and it had nothing to do with hard work. The first 5k I ever ran was 17:50 at the end of that season on the roads (didn’t do XC as a freshman), again - not bc I was training like an elite.

You people are ridiculous.

Talented guy and proud of it wrote:

The bell curve is probably centered around 21 minutes for guys and 23 minutes for women for 5k.

No friggin way unless you're talking about guys from all age groups, including the 80 year olds and 8 year olds. I know a 60/100 guy who's pure fast twitch - the shorter the distance is, the better he is. He ran one of those office 5Ks for the hell of it, barely trained for that event, and still pulled off a 20:46.

A 65 year old woman has run a sub 21 5K. A 20 year old guy will not need much, if any, training to beat a woman who's of retirement age.