https://www.telegraph.co.uk/athletics/2019/09/23/one-non-runners-quest-make-onto-british-800m-rankings-year/
Hopefully this will stop some of the endless threads on this....
Hopefully this will stop some of the endless threads on this....
I was going to post this the other day when I read it. I find it hard to believe tbh. Haven't got time to do it myself, but I guess others here will look into his background and find some undeclared running experience.
You do not have to research, it's all described in the article already. He wrote he committed to 3 sessions per week (instead of 5 he was advised to do) because he wanted to continue playing other sports. And he has done an Olympic distance triathlon before. So he was already quite active. And then a 2:03 is no 1:55 or even 1:50, just a 2:03. Definitely possible for a trained and active guy (maybe soccer player or the like) to start around 2:15 and work down to 2:03.x within one year if he has average talent and some dedication.
The soccer players on my high school track team normally would run 2:06 indoor and 2:03 outdoor, and maybe ran 20 miles a week during track but no running outside of the track season that was not part of soccer (which might be like 10 miles a week). So I totally believe this guy could get to 2:03 if he was training for a year with decent instruction/coaching.
He ought to take a break and then start up for a second season. He would surely break 2 next year! You can't maximize in just one year.
A story about one guy with above average talent answers a question about an entire population? It is the very essence of why those threads are annoying, they are filled with personal anecdotes that are then extrapolated to everyone.
Partridge wrote:
You do not have to research, it's all described in the article already. He wrote he committed to 3 sessions per week (instead of 5 he was advised to do) because he wanted to continue playing other sports. And he has done an Olympic distance triathlon before. So he was already quite active. And then a 2:03 is no 1:55 or even 1:50, just a 2:03. Definitely possible for a trained and active guy (maybe soccer player or the like) to start around 2:15 and work down to 2:03.x within one year if he has average talent and some dedication.
But the OP describes him as a 'non-runner' and then he and yourself claim that the average, fit guy would do the same.
Ben Bloom has been the athletics correspondent for the Telegraph for a number of years (he was sued by Mo Farah a couple of years ago). I would bet at the least he's been a dedicated hobby jogger for a number of years, in addition to a number of other aerobic based sports he's been doing maybe all his life.
So he's an above average talent, above average fit guy to begin with, and likely been 'running' for years. As one of the top athletics journalists in the world, I'm pretty sure has used his connections to get some good coaching, or at least coaching advice (on top of the sessions and coaching he did do).
Doesn't really tell us anything about the 'average person'.
The average person is an idiot. wrote:
A story about one guy with above average talent answers a question about an entire population? It is the very essence of why those threads are annoying, they are filled with personal anecdotes that are then extrapolated to everyone.
You make the same mistake. Just because you could not run a 2:03 (more likely due to wrong training not missing talent) and you take your 'personal anecdote' and extrapolate it to the general population, it does not mean that a 2:03 is difficult or something special, it isn't.
The average person is an idiot. wrote:
A story about one guy with above average talent answers a question about an entire population? It is the very essence of why those threads are annoying, they are filled with personal anecdotes that are then extrapolated to everyone.
The guy is clearly above average, the threads must continue.
Of course he describes himself as non-runner because it provides a good story.
And I believe him. He admits to do other sports in a frequency that it would be compromised by running more than three times a week. There are a lot of sports around, which need endurance, speed and speed endurance all the same. Soccer is a common example for this but other team sports qualify, too. Maybe even tennis is not that bad for this purpose.
You are no runner just because you do some running in other sports practices or games. In the same way I am no weight lifter or body builder just because I use some weight lifting to supplement my running.
Partridge wrote:
The average person is an idiot. wrote:
A story about one guy with above average talent answers a question about an entire population? It is the very essence of why those threads are annoying, they are filled with personal anecdotes that are then extrapolated to everyone.
You make the same mistake. Just because you could not run a 2:03 (more likely due to wrong training not missing talent) and you take your 'personal anecdote' and extrapolate it to the general population, it does not mean that a 2:03 is difficult or something special, it isn't.
No I’ve run faster than that on similar training. The mistake is taking one person and imagining they represent the average experience. If you think this is typical you never ran on a large high school team. At ncaa level you have already hit a large filter.
If everyone was the same there would be no need for clinical drug trials and learning the best training techniques for everyone would be as easy as doing one test on one person.
I did not say that the average person could do it. The average person is too old, usually unfit and maybe overweight.
But I think that it is no special or even unbelievable performance for someone who has no more than average talent, but is already active above average and involved in other sports, and shows above average dedication.
The OP and Coevett seemed to give the impression that they do not think the story might be possible at all.
Think about this: nobody would deny that there are football or soccer players who can run a 11 s 100 m or even faster, without ever having been on a track before.
On the other hand nobody would deny that it is almost impossible to run a sub 2:20 marathon without several years of high mileage running.
Now the 800 m is somewhere in between, but much closer to the 100 than the marathon, though.
zxcvzxvc wrote:
He ought to take a break and then start up for a second season. He would surely break 2 next year! You can't maximize in just one year.
+1 to this. The guy describes the feeling at the end of that race and we all know it well. I still go through the process though there's no way I'm setting PRs anymore. The feeling of a well-run (and well-trained for) race still does it for me.
Guess he's just not a runner.
It depends how much talent and natural sprint speed the person has. A person who wants to break 2:00 would need to make sure they already had an untrained top end speed of 18mph which isn’t average joe territory and requires natural ability.
Assuming the person is mid 20s and male:
Bottom 5% Below average talent: might not even break 3:00
Top 40% Average talent: may break 2:40
Top 5% High talent: may break 2:20
Top 1% Outstanding talent: may break 2:00
Big Rod wrote:
It depends how much talent and natural sprint speed the person has. A person who wants to break 2:00 would need to make sure they already had an untrained top end speed of 18mph which isn’t average joe territory and requires natural ability.
Assuming the person is mid 20s and male:
Bottom 5% Below average talent: might not even break 3:00
Top 40% Average talent: may break 2:40
Top 5% High talent: may break 2:20
Top 1% Outstanding talent: may break 2:00
Go back and watch some of the old 'Superstars' tv show 800m, where the likes of Carl Lewis, A grade athlete NFL stars, and even world class 400m runners (in the Brit version) could rarely break 2:15. Even the hyper fit soccer players didn't break 2 minutes (and back then with Superstars being a very big show, and less money in soccer and other sport, I'd bet they did train for it for at least several months).
The people in these type of threads overestimating the talent of the average Joe have invariably been running since junior school, weigh 135lbs etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTlrdczjjOAOutstanding talents are not 1%, they're more like 0.01%