"The fastest people I know all have these three things in common: ..., ..., ..."

1. Race often (duh) and love to compete.

2. Were only good at running and no other sport.

3. Calm, friendly, lacking arrogance.

My basis for the above three include a post-collegiate guy trying to break 4 in the mile, a masters runner who gets by on 50mpw, and a former Big-10 runner who was mediocre in college and will often race two local 5K's in a week...and usually goes 1-2 with near sub-4 mile guy. lol.

Self-centered, although not necessarily arrogant

Fiercely competitive, like to test themselves and not afraid to fail

Athletically gifted, usually including other sports

They take time off after their season.

They enjoy the base building period.

They don't sweat their pace being 30 seconds too slow/fast on runs that don't matter.

How do you explain Shorter, Rodgers, Myers, etc. They trained tons, and partied some, but not alot. Especially Rodgers.

How do you explain Ryan Hall?

Mick Lovin wrote:

How do you explain Shorter, Rodgers, Myers, etc. They trained tons, and partied some, but not alot. Especially Rodgers.

How do you explain Ryan Hall?

Yeah, I believe someone earlier posted that the very best don't go overboard, and this is probably true. I have a hard time believing Geb or any of those that you mentioned were party animals.

I know an 8:40 steepler who does HARD drugs.

I know a 13:40 that drinks a lot almost year round. Normally a month or so before nationals he'll stop.

There is also a current collegian who has been a top 10 guy more than once who smokes a ton of weed.

I'd say the number of elite who runners that consistantly party and smoke are limited - but don't act like they don't exist.

The top three runners I know have almost nothing in common honestly....

But I'd say...

1 - They are all three as competitive as anyone I've ever met.

2 - They are all better cross country guys than track guys.

3 - They are all, all-americans and none of them have broken 4:00 for the mile!

Had good genetics for running.

Enjoy it.

Don't get injured.

Note I did not add #4 'work hard'. Not all fast folks do.

-098yughj wrote:

The fastest runner on my mediocre DI team(top finisher for XC up until conference and school record holder at 800m) drank more nights a week than anyone else on our team, never stretched or iced, and ran slow as shit on most of our recovery days. Would also claim to be cross training and sit on the stationary bike for a half hour or take off. Has never been injured. Some people just have the talent and some don't.

Have you ever considered the possibility that because he never stretched or iced and because he ran slow enough in your team's system to recover (you said the team was mediocre and the structure of the workouts are probably one of the primary causes for the mediocrity) that these are actually some of the factors that help to make him better than the rest of your team?

pancake 2 wrote:

The fastest ones tend to drink and party a lot.

The 2nd tier on the team tend to focus and put a lot of work into their training.

Maybe the flaw of the 2nd tier is that they overthink their training and obsess over it

wanna be the best wrote:

pancake 2 wrote:

The fastest ones tend to drink and party a lot.

The 2nd tier on the team tend to focus and put a lot of work into their training.

Maybe the flaw of the 2nd tier is that they overthink their training and obsess over it

yeah how exactly do alcohol and other drugs interfere with training?

fan of running wrote:

Name one runner in the top 40 from NCAA XC Championships that lives this lifestyle? Runners who are not in the top 40 aren't considered fast. The "fast" runners take running seriously.

Being a top XC runner doesn't mean that you're fast. It means that you're a good distance runner. Your average walk on 100m/200m guy is faster than a top ten XC guy. If you want to talk about the lifestyles of fast people, you should be looking at how top sprinters live, not how top XC runners live.

Douche.

i know a 28:30 (10k) guy and a 1:45 (800) guy.

they both have 2 things in common (well, they have more in common but let's just stick with 2):

1) they are both incredibly competitive (even in the small things like ping pong or video games or just anything) - they hate losing

2) they think running first. no it does not mean they are anal and do not do anything (they can go to parties, they can even have a few beers) but in whatever they do, they decide whether or not it will be detrimental towards their running

A third thing is just a combination of everything you would think a person would need to be successful: they work hard, they do all the little things like core and eating healthy, they take care of their bodies in order to not get injured, are confident, sleep well, etc etc

Skin color

PEDS

Good coaching

Very talented, rich, love teriyaki

-098yughj wrote:

The fastest runner on my mediocre DI team(top finisher for XC up until conference and school record holder at 800m) drank more nights a week than anyone else on our team, never stretched or iced, and ran slow as shit on most of our recovery days. Would also claim to be cross training and sit on the stationary bike for a half hour or take off. Has never been injured. Some people just have the talent and some don't.

Yes, this. People keep naming really fast people who "party hard" as if that is some kind of proof that drinking/smoking/etc doesn't hurt your training/performance. AJ Acosta is talented as f@ck and would kick ass no matter what he does. Same goes for Symmonds, Pre, Rono, and whoever else you mentioned.

For the less lucky people out there who aren't talented as f@ck, they can not drink and be as straight edge as they want, but they're not going to run as fast as the most talented kids who party hard. You see worse runners being obsessive about their training because they know they need every possible advantage if they want to be any good. You see talented runners partying and drinking because they know they're good enough they can afford to do that and still kick ass. Sucks, but it's how it goes.

That said, take two equally talented guys under the exact same conditions (health, training, etc) and the guy not partying will win over the other one who does.

The ironic thing is that to believe in a correlation between drug use and intelligence is as lazy or just simply unintelligent as the perceived intellectual capacity of the people you're describing.

Using drugs and/or "partying" is an emotional response and a decision that has little to do with a person's intelligence. Someone isn't stupid for deciding to use drugs, they're only stupid if they think it's of any real benefit.

Not a chance, tell us more! You must have all the knowledge in the world!!!!

Consistency,

Common Sense,

Confidence,

all topped off with a "race before pace" attitude