I started running late July of 2021 before freshman year of hs. My mile when I started was 6:40 and now it’s cut down to 4:59(ran it in a TT)Does that mean I have some talent or is this common for freshmen with no prior XC/track experience ?
I started running late July of 2021 before freshman year of hs. My mile when I started was 6:40 and now it’s cut down to 4:59(ran it in a TT)Does that mean I have some talent or is this common for freshmen with no prior XC/track experience ?
Nice job, that's pretty decent improvement over that period of time. Seems like you likely do have some talent, hard to say how much without more info and without giving it more time to develop. Keep it up :)
Yes, some talent.
Being able to go from a 6:40 to a 4:59 so fast means you're a good responder to training and certainly have some talent. Instead of worrying about talent going ahead just focus on getting 8+ hours of sleep(not using devices before bed really helps with this), making sure you're staying consistent in training, anddoing barefoot running/ strides on turf as it's a great way to build foot strength and stay hea;thy.
kek wrote:
I started running late July of 2021 before freshman year of hs. My mile when I started was 6:40 and now it’s cut down to 4:59(ran it in a TT)Does that mean I have some talent or is this common for freshmen with no prior XC/track experience ?
I don't know how you could have managed to run a 6:40 mile. Were you really trying or had you spent the previous 2 weeks battling COVID at the hospital?
SDSU Aztec wrote:
kek wrote:
I started running late July of 2021 before freshman year of hs. My mile when I started was 6:40 and now it’s cut down to 4:59(ran it in a TT)Does that mean I have some talent or is this common for freshmen with no prior XC/track experience ?
I don't know how you could have managed to run a 6:40 mile. Were you really trying or had you spent the previous 2 weeks battling COVID at the hospital?
What are you talking about? Man.
John Wesley Harding wrote:
SDSU Aztec wrote:
I don't know how you could have managed to run a 6:40 mile. Were you really trying or had you spent the previous 2 weeks battling COVID at the hospital?
What are you talking about? Man.
The kid has pretty good talent and should have been able to run at least 5:30 with no training. Maybe he needed to learn how to push himself a little bit?
SDSU Aztec wrote:
John Wesley Harding wrote:
What are you talking about? Man.
The kid has pretty good talent and should have been able to run at least 5:30 with no training. Maybe he needed to learn how to push himself a little bit?
Aztec are you trolling? That’s not how talent works and you should know that. There are plenty of kids that run 5:30 for their first mile and never break 5:00, and plenty that run 5:30 and end up in the mid to low 4:00s.
My mile time was 6:00ish as a highschool freshman and I recently ran 4:16 as a college freshman so take that how you may!
Most people don’t break 5:00 throughout highschool let alone as a freshman. Keep being patient and working hard and your talent will eventually show itself if it’s there.
Well in May of 2020 I ran 6:15 or something and then 4:27 by the end of track season. I was a senior and my first running seasons.
That said, if you worry more about talent then you won't be good mate.
CopperRunner wrote:
SDSU Aztec wrote:
The kid has pretty good talent and should have been able to run at least 5:30 with no training. Maybe he needed to learn how to push himself a little bit?
Aztec are you trolling? That’s not how talent works and you should know that. There are plenty of kids that run 5:30 for their first mile and never break 5:00, and plenty that run 5:30 and end up in the mid to low 4:00s.
My mile time was 6:00ish as a highschool freshman and I recently ran 4:16 as a college freshman so take that how you may!
Most people don’t break 5:00 throughout highschool let alone as a freshman. Keep being patient and working hard and your talent will eventually show itself if it’s there.
Typical season long improvement for newbies in XC at my HS was about 30 seconds per mile, but the OP managed 1:40? No way. You're example of going from 6:00 to 4:16 over 4 years is not a comparable to the OP's story. He didn't need to be patient at all.
SDSU Aztec wrote:
CopperRunner wrote:
Aztec are you trolling? That’s not how talent works and you should know that. There are plenty of kids that run 5:30 for their first mile and never break 5:00, and plenty that run 5:30 and end up in the mid to low 4:00s.
My mile time was 6:00ish as a highschool freshman and I recently ran 4:16 as a college freshman so take that how you may!
Most people don’t break 5:00 throughout highschool let alone as a freshman. Keep being patient and working hard and your talent will eventually show itself if it’s there.
Typical season long improvement for newbies in XC at my HS was about 30 seconds per mile, but the OP managed 1:40? No way. You're example of going from 6:00 to 4:16 over 4 years is not a comparable to the OP's story. He didn't need to be patient at all.
I think it’s fairly normal to see gains that big for newbies. I had a friend who ran about 7:00 give or take in the gym class miles and ran about 5:30 when he joined track sophomore year.
I had another teammate that improved from 22 minutes in the 5k to 17:30 over the span of a season as well.
I had yet another teammate who had a habit of getting grossly unfit during the offseason and would regularly work from 12:30 in the 3200m to 10:30-10:50 in a season, with corresponding mile and 800m times.
All I’m saying is that one should be able to run “X” untrained if they are talented enough to run “X” trained just isn’t accurate.
CopperRunner wrote:
SDSU Aztec wrote:
Typical season long improvement for newbies in XC at my HS was about 30 seconds per mile, but the OP managed 1:40? No way. You're example of going from 6:00 to 4:16 over 4 years is not a comparable to the OP's story. He didn't need to be patient at all.
I think it’s fairly normal to see gains that big for newbies. I had a friend who ran about 7:00 give or take in the gym class miles and ran about 5:30 when he joined track sophomore year.
I had another teammate that improved from 22 minutes in the 5k to 17:30 over the span of a season as well.
I had yet another teammate who had a habit of getting grossly unfit during the offseason and would regularly work from 12:30 in the 3200m to 10:30-10:50 in a season, with corresponding mile and 800m times.
All I’m saying is that one should be able to run “X” untrained if they are talented enough to run “X” trained just isn’t accurate.
Yeah, if he’d truly never concerned himself with any amount of running (or even sport, necessarily) before this July, coming to the first day of practice as a barely 14 year old kid, as the case may be, there’s no reason to doubt he could only manage 6:40 with what seemed to him like a practically 100% effort. Of course, I’m sure he did learn to push himself more fully and refine his pacing as he got more accustomed to hard running, as we all have.
His progression might have looked something like this:
Late July - 6:40
Aug. 15 - 6:05
Sep. 1 - 5:35
Oct. 1 - 5:15
Nov. 1 - 5:04
“Now” - 4:59
And this doesn’t seem like an unusual experience for a previously sedentary but fairly talented young runner.
Came back to this post cuz I'm dealing with achilles tendinitis right now, you were right man. I was hung up on the idea of "talent", as my best friend ran 4:16 as a junior when I was a freshman and had a monster kick, like 26-27.xx on the last 200 of every race. I only ran 4:44/10:14 in my freshman track season, and only progressed to a 4:35/9:47 my sophomore year. It made zero sense how I only ran 4:35 as I split workouts like this: 8x400 with 90s-120s rest, 64,64,64,65,65,65,65,63 (after being sick for a while), 7x400/200, with 30s rest between reps and 2-3:00 rest between sets, 63,31,63,31,63,31,64,32,65,32,63,31,60, 30. I thought I could've at least ran 4:25. I was averaging around 40-50mpw my soph year and then developed achilles tendinitis a month after summer training for my junior cross season had started. Its been about a year and I've still had it, at this point I've just chosen to run through it and do 70mpw. I've thrown the whole notion of "being talented" out the window and have now just chosen to run because I can.