Excluding D1, how much (if any) talent is needed to compete at the college level? Can most people pull it off?

Overall, the odds are against this happening, but you might be able to luck out if you go to the right schools and attend the right meets:

http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/research/estimated-probability-competing-college-athletics

The good thing about running is that it's 80-90% effort. Talent is only like ~10-15%.

It isn't just training hard, it's training smart. A good program/coach is key to success.

OldPARunrrr wrote:

The good thing about running is that it's 80-90% effort. Talent is only like ~10-15%.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Don't limit yourself just to D2. Many D2s just have good top athletes and no depth whatsover. They are pretty much filled with good internationals and crappy local runners. I would keep an open mind to any division as long as the school is the right fit. Some programs it does not matter what you can run, you'll make the team and compete as long as you are not completely atrocious, others it is a bit more difficult. Just go to a school where the coaching staff seems like the genuinely care, there's a good athlete culture in place and you can get what you want academically.

I was able to break 5:00 for the mile up to 48 years old.

I was around 2:00 in the 800 through most of my 40's.

I used to go to meets at Indoor Cornell just to watch and often thought that I could be running in some of the slower heats.

Sp maybe up to my early 40's?

OldPARunrrr wrote:

The good thing about running is that it's 80-90% effort. Talent is only like ~10-15%.

It isn't just training hard, it's training smart. A good program/coach is key to success.

The statement above is a joke.

Most people who are into letsrun and into running don't realize they are VERY talented. Do you think someone can just will themselves to being a 300 pound offensive lineman? Hell no.

I would say the good thing about running is no matter how talented you are, if you don't train, you won't be very good. That's true. But talent being like 10-15%. That's laughable. Think of it this way. There are entire teams of people doing the exact same training all across the country and only a few people on any given team are stars.

What explains it?

Wish I ran in college wrote:

Let's say you have a young male who would like to achieve all of the following objectives:

- Walk on to a D2 school

- Compete in at least 4 track meets at the college level without finishing in the bottom 10%

- Not get cut from the team

How hard would it be for him to pull it off? Is it realistic for an average person who's willing to train hard, or do you need a significant amount of talent to do it?

The average person would have no chance. Just like the average person couldn't play on a bad college basketball team even if they tried real hard. You would have to have shown SOME ability in order to run.

Agreed that it is achievable but not probable.

As a middling D2 walk-on with HS PR's of 450/1040, I would see results every weekend of a small D3/CC level meet of 2-3 teams where I would have won or placed by a large margin based on my slightly improved college fitness.

Objectively these were collegiate meets with teams of kids who presumably train every day.

However, my team would not attend these meets nor would they ever.....so I would not have had the opportunity to compete in them.

In this regard, would it be possible to achieve all 3 criteria by solely punching down? Clearly.

Could I ever have done this logistically? No.

Green Lantern wrote:

Agreed that it is achievable but not probable.

As a middling D2 walk-on with HS PR's of 450/1040, I would see results every weekend of a small D3/CC level meet of 2-3 teams where I would have won or placed by a large margin based on my slightly improved college fitness.

Objectively these were collegiate meets with teams of kids who presumably train every day.

However, my team would not attend these meets nor would they ever.....so I would not have had the opportunity to compete in them.

In this regard, would it be possible to achieve all 3 criteria by solely punching down? Clearly.

Could I ever have done this logistically? No.

Agreed. The only way this would work is by using a loophole. Achieve objectives 1 and 3 in your freshman and sophomore years, then transfer to a low tier D3 school to achieve objective 2.

The bottom 10% of most D2 races are runners like the hypothetical one you describe who probably don't belong in a college race. Most of them opt out of the sport after a season. If the goal is to finish in the 11th percentile or better, it's easily achievable. You just have to stick with it long enough to beat them. If you want to finish outside of the bottom third you'd need a little bit of talent to get there.

Wish I ran in college wrote:

Let's say you have a young male who would like to achieve all of the following objectives:

- Walk on to a D2 school

- Compete in at least 4 track meets at the college level without finishing in the bottom 10%

- Not get cut from the team

How hard would it be for him to pull it off? Is it realistic for an average person who's willing to train hard, or do you need a significant amount of talent to do it?

I did pretty much exactly this. The hardest thing was to just make sure to train over the summer run up to 60miles per week the summer before college freshman year in XC. And show up able to break 30min for an 8k in XC. I think for guys most guys can do it if they were roughly at least a mid to low 18s to 19s 5k guy by senior year of high school (It’s probably hard for many letsrunners to believe but just achieving that alone by end of HS takes some talent over the average person who goes out for the HS XC team.)

D2 teams vary a lot though I’m sure. Some will take almost anyone. I think on mine we only had one kid during my four years who was cut and it was because he barely ran over the summer and was only able to run 33min for 8k or something

EZ10Miler wrote:

Wish I ran in college wrote:

Let's say you have a young male who would like to achieve all of the following objectives:

- Walk on to a D2 school

- Compete in at least 4 track meets at the college level without finishing in the bottom 10%

- Not get cut from the team

How hard would it be for him to pull it off? Is it realistic for an average person who's willing to train hard, or do you need a significant amount of talent to do it?

The average person would have no chance. Just like the average person couldn't play on a bad college basketball team even if they tried real hard. You would have to have shown SOME ability in order to run.

There are a lot more people on an average college track team than there are on an average basketball team. I'm pretty sure that if each college had 15 or even 10 basketball teams, an average guy would be able to play in one of them.

I went to D1 college in the 80s at a school with a good xc program. I was invited too, but afraid to join the team.

They let me race in their home invitational each year and the jv guys crushed me, I placed near last, running sub 30 for a 8k; maybe I did place last a few times.

I'd I'm asked about the highlights of my college years, it would be given the opportunity to compete in a legit college meet.

There are multiple JUCO and NAIA programs where you at a non-traditional college age could get on the varsity team if you have enough ability relative to who else is on the team there.

As for your question, you should have enough talent to win races in high school, and not just flukey early season meet wins when you're sharp and in great shape when most others aren't and bigger talent isn't racing yet or is racing in bigger meets. Having enough talent to qualify for your state meet or at least place in the qualifier meet for state would be a solid starting point for those objectives.

Fallacy wrote:

EZ10Miler wrote:

The average person would have no chance. Just like the average person couldn't play on a bad college basketball team even if they tried real hard. You would have to have shown SOME ability in order to run.

There are a lot more people on an average college track team than there are on an average basketball team. I'm pretty sure that if each college had 15 or even 10 basketball teams, an average guy would be able to play in one of them.

It’s important I think to keep things in perspective. It does take some talent but obviously you can’t be good if you don’t train. Rojo is right.

The average kid who goes out for HS xc, in my experience, doesn’t run a step the entire summer, goes out for the team as a last minute decision (either in May/June and is debriefed on importance of summer training or as a last min decision in mid August ) to make friends, very often a nerdy kid to improve college application chances, and maybe do a fun activity. They (average talent) run their first race in 24-25min and maybe within 8 weeks in mid October get their time down to 22min before quitting running, only to repeat the process the following fall. It’s the ones who make it more of a year long activity (xc/track & summer training) who end up a lot better - even among this group it takes talent- some guys get to be low 9s 2 milers (rare), while others are stuck at ~5:30 for a 1600m.

Part of the talent too is having decent biomechanics, parents who can afford shoes at a specialty running store, and common sense (by not overdoing it on recovery days - very common in HS) to stay injury free.

I would wager that few of us have spent time analyzing the bottom 10% of D2 track and field performances. Nevertheless, for the answer to your question (realistic chance of pulling it off) to be "yes", the talent level and work ethic of the bottom 10% of D2 track and field athletes would have to be more or less the same as the talent level and work ethic of the middle 20% (40th to 60th percentile) of all high school track and field athletes. Highly unlikely.

This thread is worthless without times

What is a bottom 10% 10k time ?

Free_the_thigh wrote:

This thread is worthless without times

What is a bottom 10% 10k time ?

Debatable but probably 37min