You're premise is all wrong. Its not talent vs work, its talent & work & mental persistence.
This is generally part of "work". Work would be defined as both the will to execute training and the act of executing it. It also includes the extra stuff be it focus exercises or gym work.
Well, I would say it's mostly up to talent to become a world top runner nowadays No one can make a donky ro run as fast as a fullblood racehorse.😁🤣🤣
We can perhaps qualify the original statement by talented is…
Runners who would like to THINK of themselves as elite ( not the true elites) have little respect for untalented ones. Reading the posts on this forum makes me think that there are quite a few like that who post regularly on letsrun.
Interesting article about how many people who compete allow themselves to be taken over by their egos. It is one I can relate to…as I probably did the same in my younger years. That is why I no longer compete now. I have grown out of the need to fuel my ego. I train for health and enjoyment, not to compare myself to others.
This topic comes up sometimes on another forum: music, ie. improvisation. Same tune in a different key. Some people can sing or hum notes off a score, in tune. Others can write on a page tones they hear. Others can tap out a 3/4 time cadence with one hand while beating out a 4/4 time with the other. A significant number of accomplished performers cant read music. Others can read "fly specks" but not perform so well. Practice is important and goes a long way, but it doesnt make "perfect"--genes and other variables do that. Sadly, some of us do the best practices and train rigorously, but we will never get to the Olympics or Carnegie Hall as performers.
anything over a 40 yd/ 60m/ 100m type distance is work. sheer speed might win you a short sprint. because you have to tap into less aerobic/metabolic resources, it matters less what you eat, etc. but you could be built the right way and if you get a late start it will take you a year or 2 at events of any meaningful distance to catch up to the pack and your possibilities. and even then you look at the elite and they at one point do x time and at y time drop 3 seconds. did they mature more or was it work?
i do feel like body build/ lungs/ heart/metabolics matter. i often felt like my muscular calves were an issue running XC type distances that i never noticed at my usual <800/hurdles runs.
i think there are natural builds you will see xerox machined at DL type meets for, say, the 800m. but i resist it a little as i felt like i got run off from hurdles -- despite being our best 300H guy (and i'm talking around 40 as a HS soph) -- because i was so short i was horrific doing the usual drills and perceived as not trying. but i see short japanese guys who are solid at the 110H.
so how much of it is nature and how much of it is that normally a short 800m guy like brandon miller gets shifted someplace else because he doesn't fit the prototype.
but anyhow, my basic point was you could take a fit soccer player off the street and while they'd be solid at 800m or a mile my guess is they couldn't break 2 mins off the street. ditto you go grab some half-fit guy with the right build to be a stereotype 800 runner, off the street, and have them do a time trial. they might have more theoretical upside but they would lose to the worker week 1. because past elementary school or so, and past about 100m, everyone starts being so good and so hard working you cannot do it on raw talent alone. now, in theory, 50 yard foot race, i think a naturally gifted guy could win it, even with a beer belly, but only if they didn't pull a hammy. which itself hints at work still matters. just less.
that being said, i will read posts and some guy will be like help me i run a 58/2:20/4:45 i wish i could get faster, but they are running HS or college, and i tend to think to myself -- but not answer -- dude, maybe your future is someplace else. 5k, 10k, something where that pace -- but carried longer -- could compete because the distance forces a pace? 110s or something where being tall and skinny as a kid helps and depending which level it's maybe not all a sprint?
but to bring that back full circle it's because it usually sounds to me like they are working hard already, and maybe they aren't in the right spot. that they are fighting their nature.
which would be another response to the OP. like i think i was best at the 400m/300H, very fit from soccer, pretty fast but not the fastest, could easily groove a slightly longer distance than a sprint and finish hard, good endurance and was used to dragging myself down the wing of a soccer field to track a mark even when i am exhausted, up a goal and can't allow anything. i think it's important to find your best home. the work then best pays off then.
talent and bodytype set a range. work actualizes you somewhere within the range. i do not believe it's a straight line upward for work. i think there is a point where you overdo it.
i think there is a tendency among runners to emphasize work as it is what one can control and what they feel separates similar types. but they ignore the funneling effect to get to that point. plus at a point, peter principle, you hit the limits of your talent and work ethic and usain bolt is simply faster than you.
There’s an inverse relationship between people who think talent matters and how fast they actually are. Similar relationship exists between those who think everyone is doping. Make use of this information however you like OP.
There’s an inverse relationship between people who think talent matters and how fast they actually are. Similar relationship exists between those who think everyone is doping. Make use of this information however you like OP.
Nobody thinks they are talented. They all think it is because of how hard they work….
pretty much none of us are maxing out our talent. But running 14:45 versus 15:05 wouldn’t have changed anything. And given how hard it was to run sub 58, I doubt any training was getting me down to 12:35…..
as someone who did hurdles with success for a while, and thought his school was well coached at that, and who also briefly did long jump and wished he did javelin.......you're leaving out coaching. and i get you're probably lumping that under "work," but "coaching" and "work" aren't the same. some "coaching" allows "work savings." someone who does a skill event -- and that includes a lot of running and field -- may gain significant time from proper technique without added practice or meet effort. coaching is actually a preferable "lever" as some athletes who want to improve are already at 110% effort already. that and sometimes one does better times by going slightly slower this part to run the second part faster ie more even of splits.
it's a cluster of things and not just nature vs. nurture. and this whole argument badly exaggerates how much as natural. you can tell from the fall-off end of runners' careers that success is built in part on energy and health and fitness, and that when even usain bolt gets older, he slows down. since usain bolt can't really be said to be "less talented" when this happens, one sees it's obviously a cluster of things coming together, and that innate usain-ness is rarely enough to medal.
the suggestion is a guy off the streets with no fitness could dominate on talent but i have never seen that. my experience just with HS and college is if some guy off the street challenges people to a race they usually have "good JV" ceiling without the coaching and fitness and such that goes into the quality varsity athlete. much less pro. winning a race has to do with fitness and technique and speed. a guy off the street runs out of lungs or cramps/pulls a muscle or can't execute the sport technically.
eg, take your guy off the street and invite him to run the 110H. end of argument. go ahead and pre-call a friend or an ambulance after they eat it. or they get over the hurdles but in a sundial time. exactly. thanks.
i mean, common soccer coaching advice is "let the ball do the work." my favorite alltime soccer goal i was part of, opening kickoff, second half, i had noticed the opponent was very narrow. i set up wide in the back, outside their formation. kickoff goes to left back. he passes across the defense to me at right back. i see our forward making a run deep on the other end. i hit about a 70-80 yard wormburner ball swerving into his run -- which no one is there to block because the other team is narrowly arranged within the field -- he runs past his defender, shot, goal.
3 passes, 10-15 seconds. you have to be tactically aware enough to see the weakness, technically sharp enough to receive the pass to you and deliver to the next player accurately. but next to no work. just line up unusually wide and hit a pass with enough mustard to go 80 yards.
there are plenty of TF equivalents of a work smarter not harder variety and those are generally "coached." you watch some of the guys in stuff like LJ or TJ or javelin or the like, and it's like, "him?" "her?" but some of this sport is execution of an event. even in sprints, it's do you get out of the blocks on time and without tripping, quickly. do you go through your phases. as the events lengthen, do you time your kick. can you do the hurdles with the right amount of steps without stuttering, perhaps swapping legs.
I'm a guy who absolutely has no talent for running (or athletics) at all. It took me a lot of 60mile weeks (includes speed sessions) to achieve 45mins for the 10K. Talented people run this off of few weeks of casual running or some - on their first attempt. :D
And some kids run sub 50.00, sub 2:00 and 4:30 their first weeks trying track and field. Same with kids who are sub 16 their first season of XC. Talent matters. The rest have to work hard or very hard and still may never get anywhere close. Things like VO2 max, and foot speed are completely genetic. Mitochondria count is genetic but can be developed through training too. Lactaid threshold is very trainable. Luckily for LRC posters pretending to be athletes, lactaid threshold training gets you very far.
And some kids run sub 50.00, sub 2:00 and 4:30 their first weeks trying track and field. Same with kids who are sub 16 their first season of XC. Talent matters. The rest have to work hard or very hard and still may never get anywhere close. Things like VO2 max, and foot speed are completely genetic. Mitochondria count is genetic but can be developed through training too. Lactaid threshold is very trainable. Luckily for LRC posters pretending to be athletes, lactaid threshold training gets you very far.
This whole thing is pretty simple, talent plays a MASSIVE role especially for the top athletes.
It is like the idea of a “swimmers body” that if you swim a lot you’ll look like those Olympic swimmers.
False, those swimmers all had the correct body and then focused on thousands of training hours. One comes before the other.
Body type and make up plays such a large role. That’s why as you get more and more elite the people in the event start to have almost the exact same body composition.
One must be talented then work hard.
Now if we are comparing high school athletes talent is much less a factor because the results are not that impressive in the big picture of things