Why do people consider running a talent?

Not even close wrote:

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.

60 year old woman or not, you forget that they are still elite athletes. Just look at 60 year old women in sports like gymnastic and powerlifting, they are still more flexible/stronger than 99.9% of the population and had a huge genetic advantage to begin with, if they weren’t genetically blessed they’d be arthritic and criipled like half of the others in their age group. I guess you could say it even takes above average genes to even be active in sport at all reguardless of placing age 60+. You could argue that if people would just take care of themselves that wouldn’t stand true but even tribal people who are active and have no access at all to junk food have arthritis. Humans aren’t perfect and it’s going to take more than pasta, spinach and running 8 miles a day to change that.

Talent barely matters wrote:

I don't know a single predominantly fast twitch guy who spent hours in the weight room and track, practiced running up the hills and bleachers, worked on ploys and sled drags, got enough sleep and recovery, and couldn't run a 12 flat or better after years of training.

I also don't know a single predominantly slow twitch guy who spent years doing intervals, tempos, and high base mileage, lived at altitude, optimized his diet and sleep, and couldn't run in the mid 16s for a 5K on a track in good weather conditions with pacers.

I don't know anyone with a more equal fast to slow twitch fiber composition who put in the work for 10+ years, was willing to struggle through the pain of an 800, and couldn't hit 2:10 as a young adult.

Because hardly anyone at the bottom end of the talent scale dedicates their life to running. 99% of people who decide to train hard are at least moderately talented.

If you take five slowest kids in your 7th grade PE class, and train them for 15 years in their best distance, how fast do you think they will become by their late 20s? Can they all hit at least one of the three benchmarks you mentioned?

It really baffles me about how many people here do not seem to realise how fast some of these times they are throwing around really are, just because YOU or even your 2 pack a day roommate quit ran 2:10 after a year of training doesn’t mean everyone can. I mean for God’s sake, you’re talking about a 2:10 half mile which is in the neighbourhood of what professional soccer players run 800 and although quite a lot of soccer is skill-based, you are truly delusional if you don’t think it also takes a combination of natural speed combined naturally high vo2 max to play above national level.

None of you really get it do you? The average person would run barely under 3:00 for an 800m with a LOT of training. I have ran my whole life and coached people from all abilities for 16 years, mostly soccer, a couple of the players have been capable of going well under 4:30 for a mile.

When I was in high school, before this whole obesity/smartphone craze you had 1 or 2 fat kids who would just point blank fail the mile because of their weight but everybody else was skinny and in their prime for athleticism but yet STILL 30% of the class would run at a blistering 9:45 pace in the mile run and sound like a dying asthmatic the whole way through.

Do you lot REALLY think that you could get one of those kids, with absolutely no natural lung capacity, to run anywher NEAR well under 5 minute/mile pace for a half-miler? These people would max out their ability probably just under a 7 minute mile pace. I have seen people completely obsessed with health and running struggle to break 23 in a 5k. Surely you mist draw the line with your delsuional “if I and a fw others can do it, everyone can” attitudes. Yes, that is a god attitude to have if you are training competitive ly but as a real world statistic, most people just really do not have the physical ability to hit these so-called “average” times.

Just Another LRC Idiot wrote:

If you take five slowest kids in your 7th grade PE class, and train them for 15 years in their best distance, how fast do you think they will become by their late 20s? Can they all hit at least one of the three benchmarks you mentioned?

The 5 slowest kids were 4 girls and a boy who's an amputee. Can any of them get those times? Probably not, but I wouldn't rule it out since there are amputees in the Paralympics who ran considerably faster than those times.

Not even close wrote:

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.

Um, he's not in the middle of the curve, dummy.

All of these "I know a guy" examples are examples of talent, not average dudes.

Just Another LRC Idiot wrote:

Because hardly anyone at the bottom end of the talent scale dedicates their life to running. 99% of people who decide to train hard are at least moderately talented.

If you take five slowest kids in your 7th grade PE class, and train them for 15 years in their best distance, how fast do you think they will become by their late 20s? Can they all hit at least one of the three benchmarks you mentioned?

No. They cannot.

It would be ridiculous to dedicate your life to running with that sort of lack of ability. Quite a few folks do. They become bad ultra runners.

Some things I have to correct here. Untrained times doesnt tell how much potensial someone has if they get the proper training. Some respond faster to training but will not get the same increase in endurance as someone who started out slow. But there sill be less late bloomers because most gets low self esteem earlier on by loosing or thinking they should do something else before reacing their potensial.

People who start training at an earlier age will often reach their potensial earlier than does who start to run later in life and most people only have a few years on tip because their bodies on a cellular level cant deal with the demands for many years

Did any of the anti vaccine, no talent crowd comment about women vs. men debate? We are all the same right? Women will probably surpass men in the next 5 years.

Take me as an example. I had trained about 5km 3 days a week for 6 months and ran a marathon in 2h 53min. Before that only doing martial arts and playing saxophone. Does it mean I will become a better runner than someone who did his first marathon with the same training in 3h30min? I dont think so. I have good ability without training, but my budy may still become bettdr than me

try to think moran wrote:

Not even close wrote:

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.

Um, he's not in the middle of the curve, dummy.

You're right. A predominantly fast twitch, heavily built short sprinter is at the slow end of the curve in the 5K, which was why his time was that slow. Slow twitch skinny dudes are at the fast end, and the guys in between are in the middle of the curve.

Not even close wrote:

try to think moran wrote:

Um, he's not in the middle of the curve, dummy.

You're right. A predominantly fast twitch, heavily built short sprinter is at the slow end of the curve in the 5K, which was why his time was that slow. Slow twitch skinny dudes are at the fast end, and the guys in between are in the middle of the curve.

Incorrect!! He's still at the fast end.

Coach Chris wrote:

When I was in high school, before this whole obesity/smartphone craze you had 1 or 2 fat kids who would just point blank fail the mile because of their weight but everybody else was skinny and in their prime for athleticism but yet STILL 30% of the class would run at a blistering 9:45 pace in the mile run and sound like a dying asthmatic the whole way through.

The 30th percentile for 17 year olds is 7:52. The median time is 7:04 -

Those times would have been a lot faster if they actually paced the mile better, instead of sprinting the first 200 and slowing to a shuffle for the rest of the race.

Well you tried and still failed wrote:

Not even close wrote:

You're right. A predominantly fast twitch, heavily built short sprinter is at the slow end of the curve in the 5K, which was why his time was that slow. Slow twitch skinny dudes are at the fast end, and the guys in between are in the middle of the curve.

Incorrect!! He's still at the fast end.

Thanks for the memo. I'll make sure to recruit the football team, particularly the linemen, to run the 3200 during track season. They'll be so good at it that they'll probably give up football once fall rolls around and join the XC team instead.

Agreed. This adult-onset, 30+ year old hobby jogger once had a best time of a 22:39 5K. In less than half a year, he was doing 3 mile tempo runs at 6:15 pace, and he ran a sub 5 mile not long after that. His talent didn't change in that timeframe, what changed was his consistency and willingness to work hard. And that performance was done on only 30 MPW! He would have been at least a 4:29 guy if he did high mileage and started serious training as a 13 year old:

No amount of training will turn an average guy into Usain Bolt, but saying an average person can't run a time as slow as 12.00 is laughable. This adult-onset sprinter is probably at the bottom of the barrel as far as talent goes -

"I was never one of the fastest kids in grade school, nor was I ever built like a sprinter. In high school, I tried out for baseball and basketball but didn't make either team. Cross country was pretty much the only "no cut" sport, so I did that for two seasons before quitting since I was fed up with finishing at the back of the pack."

He still ended up with an electronically timed sub 12 despite not having a coach or regular access to blocks:

How does quoting a few people who had some minor success with their running who probably had some untapped talent prove anything about the average person? There are people who train the same milesge, level of effort, diet who can’t break 6 or even 7 minutes and the fact that you are even assuming the average person can be trained to a sub 12 FAT makes me think you’re definitely trolling.

Coach Chris wrote:

I mean for God’s sake, you’re talking about a 2:10 half mile which is in the neighbourhood of what professional soccer players run 800 and although quite a lot of soccer is skill-based, you are truly delusional if you don’t think it also takes a combination of natural speed combined naturally high vo2 max to play above national level.

None of you really get it do you? The average person would run barely under 3:00 for an 800m with a LOT of training.

Honestly, how hard is it to run a 2:10? 12 year old girls run faster than that:

Heck, this guy nearly did it (ran a 2:11 FAT and a 2:10 hand time) with arms flailing all over the place, severe overstriding, a malnourished physique, and a sh!tload of people on the track during his attempt:

Talented guy and proud of it wrote:

The bell curve is probably centered around 21 minutes for guys

Coach Chris wrote:

Do you lot REALLY think that you could get one of those kids, with absolutely no natural lung capacity, to run anywher NEAR well under 5 minute/mile pace for a half-miler? These people would max out their ability probably just under a 7 minute mile pace. I have seen people completely obsessed with health and running struggle to break 23 in a 5k.

There is no way an average trained guy loses to someone carrying 40 lbs of dead weight on his back:

Coach Chris wrote:

Do you lot REALLY think that you could get one of those kids, with absolutely no natural lung capacity, to run anywher NEAR well under 5 minute/mile pace for a half-miler?

I don't know what the lung capacity of those kids is, but I bet that if they were trained, they could use more oxygen more effectively than someone running on a dirt trail at 14,100' altitude. And the latter did run a sub 5 mile: