My thought is everyone wants to be fast. If you are not the fastest, you go longer.

Usain Bolt is the best athlete. Smart people know the can't compete so they go longer or try obscure sports like steeplechase, curling, triathlon.

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/kj

http://kjmcawesome.tumblr.com/

Talent is important at every distance.
The greater the distance, however, the more important hard work and mental toughness.

the problem is that it's not as simple as that, as even the ability to do large amounts of hard work, and absorb the benefits of that work, has been shown to have genetic roots. Think about the workloads you've read about pro triathletes doing: swimming 5000 meters in the early a.m., then breakfast, then a 3-4 hr bike ride, quick snack, then a 90 min run. Do you think most people could do this sheer volume of training, even if they were independently wealthy and took a few yrs to work up to it??? no way in hell man, they'd be toast after 3-4 wks, if they made it that long. the ability to hammer yourself for 6-7 hr/day is largely hereditary and most people do NOT have it. for a more complete explanation, read "the sports gene" by david epstein.

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

I Agree - but as mulk said its not black and white. The balance shifts, though, as you go longer

I would not say so. Also top people who do short distances work hard.
Only if you choose a sport which hardly anyone is doing you increase your chances (e.g. double Ironmans).

I read an interview with Toni Nadal, the uncle and coach of Rafael Nadal, who also runs a tennis school. He said that eventually hard work wins it from genetics. And he talks about tennis, where most people probably would think that genetics is the most important.

It is true that the top sprinters work very hard. However, if you were to interview world class sprinters or top age group sprinters (if there are any) you will find that each and everyone of them was fast before they started training.

On the other hand, if you interview to world class endurance athletes and age group athletes, you would find that a majority of them were pretty fast when they first started, but you would also find athletes who are now in top AG or bottom tier pro that were only mediocre or straight up bad when they first picked up the sport. I for one fell into this category, my PR in high school 5k:24mins mile: 6:15, but I finish FOP in AG racing after ~5years of consistent tri training.

I 100% agree with this - at the AG level.

In the AG level, the longer the race, the more opportunity there is for many things to go wrong - training errors, pacing errors, nutrition errors, etc. The more chances for error, the greater the chances that a middling-talent AGer with great execution will outrace the more talented person who has a bad day or makes a much bigger error in one or more of those areas.

The pros and top AGers tend to have better execution and training overall and tend to make less errors on race day.

I will not argue that also people who do short distance work hard. This is most certainly true. However - what I think the OP means to discuss, and what I tend to believe, is that your ultimate potential may be more limited by genetics in short distance vs long distance. I think this argument is the most valid in pure endurance-focused sports, where your pure physical capacity matters more than techique/mechanics etc. Cycling may be the ultimate example. Long distance-running - while more effected by mechanics etc - also probably a good example.

I'm no sports-scientist or anything, but I've always imagined f.eks. your VO2 max as one factor that is genetically restricted - there are just a very limited number of people - regardless of what training they do, that could achieve something in the area of 80-85 + ml pr kg/min. Vo2MAX being your limiter, you will at some point reach a "genetic" potential you cannot break through no matter how you train. This limits your performance in sports where you compete at or near Vo2 Max, or where performance is heavily dependant on Vo2Max.

For the longer distances (and in my matter of discussing it this is 4-5-6 hrs and up) I guess your performance is way less dependant on Vo2Max, and more on other factors. Its also my assumption (guessumption?) that these factors are more trainable and less genetically restricted. As said - I dont know if this is true, and I would love someone whith proper knowledge/facts to chime in. It just seems to me that someone genetically gifted can "fake it" a lot easier in say a 3k run, 5 k run, or even a half mary, than they could in an event lasting 6+ hours.

Strongly disagree. This applies to anything:

Hard work will get you to above average.
Talent will get you above average.

The top of any sport/profession are people with talent who work hard.

When you combine exceptional talent, exceptional work ethic, and passion, you get once in a generation guys like Jordan or Phelps.

I think this is a pretty accurate. The world is full of ex-college athletes who worked as hard as anybody to get above average but just didn't have the talent to make it to the next level.

Yes. I have a two friends (technically I have more than two... ;) ). One who trains pretty much 95% of the year running, yet does 4:20 on 70.3. He swam a whole 20000m in 2016, and biked about 2000km. Another friend has a strong workout ethic, does 4:45 (a bit older than the first though). Combine both guys, and you get a 4:00-4:05 70.3 guy.

Is that why we romanticize distance so much?

As a road cyclist I did races as long as 90 miles and as short as 3. Wanna guess which was harder? Of course, there were more opportunities to mess up in the four hour long snooze fest, but even the slightest error would cost you the race that lasts under 7 minutes -- a second or two might take you off the podium entirely.

Your signature quote belies the content of your comment, Eric.

Far fewer of us can run a sub 11 sec 100m than can complete an IM in 10 hours so I'd agree that longer is 'easier' to achieve than faster.

This. I've run everywhere from 200m to 26.2; from 800m on up, if you don't feel like puking at the end of your race, you were sandbagging.
And what KingMidas said. I think it just feels like you are closer to the front in the distance events. There's always some distribution of talent*hard-work, but the population of long distance makes the curve wider. Unless you're a D1 or burgeoning Diamond League stud, you just won't compete in sprints beyond the age of 22. And no race director includes an open 100m in their 5k/10k race fest.

You're not the first person to say this about my signature line but the way i interpret my line is that I can become the best athlete, engineer, or whatever if I have the hunger and the drive.

Regarding 11 sec 100 m vs sub-10 IM, how do you know that they are equal accomplishments???

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

IMO, I think both require an equal amount of mental toughness, just in different capacities. In shorter races you have to execute absolutely perfectly while red-lining. While yes it's not the slow burn, all day toughness you need for distance I would not discount it.

Are you saying that the only reason marathoners run marathons is they are Inferior to Usain Bolt? So if Bolt decided to race marathons he would kick all their asses?

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
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Agreed that it plays a bigger part in longer distance than shorter distance, but disagree that hard work ever plays a bigger role than natural ability

Not too sure about that. Much of this discussion depends on how you define "success", which the OP never really laid out.

This forum will probably (just a guess) have a natural bias towards thinking that LD success (however defined) is more dependent on hard work than shorter distances, given that most in here tend to skew towards longer distance stuff. Everyone who works hard likes to think that they are the hardest working.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

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

Yes, the only reason marathon runners run marathons is they are inferior to Usain Bolt.

No, obviously some people are better suited to distance running and Bolt is not one of them.

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/kj

http://kjmcawesome.tumblr.com/

To me the emphasis on "natural ability" or talent usually seems like either a disservice to athletes (underestimating how hard they work) or a cop out (I can't because I'm not as "gifted" as they are).

I think he's saying everyone wants to win the 100/200 m dash races and so the only reason they even have longer races is for people who aren't that fast in the sprints. I don't think he's saying Bolt would beat the top marathoners, since we should all know by now that this would be impossible since Bolt has way too many FT fibers to be even semi-competitive with top mary runners. :)

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

I wonder if Alistair worked harder for his 2 long course wins than his 2 Olympic Golds.

I'd say hard work is more important at short distance. Moving your "red-line" is hard. getting better below your "red-line" is easier (not easy - just easier).

I agree with your quote, btw.

I don't suggest they are equal accomplishments, I just believe one needs the genes to run sub 11sec but one can work hard to achieve the sub 10hr and not require special genes (unless perseverance, determination and hard work come in gene-form).