...or luck???

It's subjective, but I wouldn't classify those as equivalent. 11.00 is about 15% off of Bolt's freakish 9.58. But 10:00 is nearly 30% off the freakish ~7:45 times a few guys have gotten.

I think sub-12 would be closer. And 12 is a *lot* more attainable without "special" genes. That was still outside the range of my skinny-white-guy genes in track when I was messing around with the sprinters, but I could certainly get well under 13 with no training. I imagine if I'd spent a year of stupidity training myself as sprinter I might have been able to hit that.

There is a difference between emphasizing "natural ability", say as an excuse, vs acknowledging that hard work is not always enough.

On a practical note.
A) I feel that it is likely that 40% of the boys at the local highschool can kick my 46 year old ass in a 100m sprint. (That includes fatties, video gamers and drama dorks).
B) That only 0.5% of the local boys can beat me in a 5k.
C) And that effectively 0% can beat me in a 40k TT or triathlon.

If I gave up triathlon and took up sprinting full time....
I bet I would only loose to 30% of the local highschool boys.


So, all the training in the world- would mean that instead of loosing to fat drama geeks and fat video gamers.....

Instead I would just loose to average drama dorks, video gamers and I might beat a few especially fat football players.

I would say more like sub-14 requires no "special genes" as sub-10 to me definitely implies some degree of superior ST genes. If we break down a 9:59 at 1:03 swim (1:40/100 m), 5:33 bike (20 mph), 6:00 total transitions, then that implies running a 3:17 mary at the end, or about 7:32/mi. Very few can run this fast in an IM race and if you're gonna say "well, anyone can average 22 mph and then just run 8:34", then i'm gonna call BS b/c 22 mph for 112 miles is well beyond most people's capabilities. Hell, the majority of triathletes can't hold 22 for 25-mi oly bike, let alone 112; perhaps with perfect training and dedication, a majority (maybe 60% of males under 40) could hold 22 for the 25-mi, but a much smaller % can hold 22 for 112. Now this is just my $0.02 worth but that has been my experience over many yrs of tri-ing.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Absolutely agree with this. It seems like the STARTING POINT for being a decent Ironman athlete is being able to go sub-5 on the bike. This is so far beyond attainable FOR ME that this formula is the one I would need to use to go sub-10.

Maybe an hour flat on the swim and a 3:20 marathon.

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/kj

http://kjmcawesome.tumblr.com/

But to say that hard work never plays a bigger role?

For that matter, I'd say luck often plays a bigger role than natural ability. Humans are more alike than we are different, so finding that special pursuit that you're uniquely qualified for is a bit of a coin toss, isn't it? How many potential Mozarts never even sit down at a piano?

In "Outliers" Malcolm Gladwell looks at what's behind famous individuals' success, and makes a good case that it's more their background, culture, etc. than innate ability. The very first chapter has always stuck in my head: In Canada, where hockey is huge, a very disproportionate number of pro hockey players were born early in the calendar year. Why would that make them so "gifted?"

I would say hard work definitely plays a role and trying to figure out to what percentage hard work and natural ability factor into success is almost unanswerable imo. I think it's rare that there is some freak athlete with natural abilities who has not also worked hard along the way.

Hard word definately plays a big role - Hard work is pretty much a prerequisite to be considered part of this experiment. I think of it this way - everyone has "their own" scale.

Guy/Gal A for instance - say she can run a 25min 5 k of the couch, no training required. She lowers it to 20 min with a decent training-program, and perhaps she could run 18 min with years and years of PERFECT training. However she NEVER, NEVER ever will come close to the WR of 14:11 no matter how hard she works. Those 4 mins are just not perfect genes.

Gal B could be more unlucky - she runs 30min 5k of the couch, works hard to get to 25 mins, and with the worlds best program she might touch 22mins.. Still - limited..

Gal C could be the one everyone is annoyed at, cause she runs a 20 min 5k of the couch, and easily lowers it ti 17:30 when she starts running. This one is the type that (could) proceed to be an elite athlete, but Id guess only a small percentage of the population has these genes.


Now for the OPs thesis, if hard work pays off more / genes play less of a role, Gal A-B should be able to come closer - relatively speaking - to Gal C in ultra running. I belive this to be true. I still think its pretty fixed that Gal C - given "theoretically perfect" training and execution, wins. But I think A/B could be closer - i.a. the work is relatively more important than the genes. How scientifically correct this is - I'll leave to someone else :)

+1... the "proof" is plain to witness if you have children on a large swim team, where you get to see multiple cohorts of kids go through a program from around age 8-10 up through HS and even college. Better yet, you also get to see pairs/sets of siblings ~ and often their parents ~ along with a few latecomers who join the program as teenagers, like a giant longitudinal study. It is just so damn obvious that some kids are naturally good with only a little work (which is not to say they don't work hard too, only that their results curve is way disproportionate to the amount of time in the program compared to kids who've been at it far longer). And as a control, they are all following the same schedule, same coaches, facilities, etc throughout the season(s).

Beyond that, you can dig even deeper into specific examples of girls who went from being super fast 13/14-year-olds to being mediocre later in HS once they finish inheriting their mom's ginormous bee-hind ~ never mind they're still on the same 50-60,000yds/week program all along; or the new kid whose strokes still look super raw and starts & turns are rough, yet she's already shockingly fast before the end of her first season just because it's clear she's got a Ferrari engine under the hood ~ and oh, by the way, come to find out later that both her parents were D-1 scholarship jocks in college. I could go on all day...

This topic comes up over and over here, and my analogy is always the same: Training is the can opener, or maybe even the frying pan if you will, but you're already born with the contents of the can. I can only surmise that anyone who doesn't yet accept this must not have kids who've gone through any sort of high-traffic sports program where you can personally observe it playing out over and over and over again through literally hundreds of families across both the ability and resources/dedication spectrum.

Kind of speaks to Gladwell's point about the hockey players. Why, in the most hockey-crazy part of the world, are the best-of-the-best usually born early in the calendar year? Because the youth leagues are based on the calendar year, and when you have a bunch of four or six year-olds out there playing some are selected as especially gifted and they're the ones that get the attention, the coaching, the resources. But you know what? They're not necessarily "gifted." The ones born earlier in the calendar year are six or eight or ten months older than the others, and at that young age six months is huge.

We tend to see "innate ability" as more of a factor than it really is. Especially when it means underestimating cultural factors.

no doubt

Sub 11 100 is like going sub 8:45 IM.

Didnt Mo Farrah challenge Bolt to a 600 or 400m race and Bolt chicken out?

You think so?
Despite the fact that a 100m is always the same (save wind), IM's are almost completely different. With that noted, check out the average pro mens IM finish times in all the major races:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MivHe2-H0c0/T_IdYr-2ZEI/AAAAAAAAR3U/Bb9KhJn_rCA/s1600/Ironman+Splits+and+Average+Finish+Times+MPro+by+Raymond+Britt.jpeg


Only one race is sub 8:45 average (germany) pro time.


Do a sub 8:45 IM and you get sponsors. Run a sub 11 100m and you get the best seats at Coachella.


(The average 100M qualifying time for the 2012 Olympics for men was 10.18 and for women, 11.29)

A thread about the existence/role of free will? You need to head over to the LR.

Just estimating. But 10hr IM is too soft for comparison. 8:45 IM may get you sponsors but it will get you no podiums in a men's race. If you want to compare Olympic level athletes, you can see what olympiads like frodo can do in the long distance. It would be rare for them to get a time of over 8:30. Anyways, I was just eyeballing it.

Another thought I just had was that if you define "success" as what %age of ones potential do you reach (none of us ever truly reach 100%) then I'd say it's easier (less work) to reach 90% of your potential in sprinting and short distance stuff than long distance, but much much harder to get that last 5-10% in the short stuff.

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2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly