Perhaps because of the popularity of David Epstein's talent-centric book The Sports Gene, much of the modern conversation about high-level distance running has turned to talent: where it comes from, how to spot it, and how to develop it. One piece often missing from the conversation is what it actually means to be talented. We speak about "talented runners" as if there is one specific set of criteria that we evaluate talent against, but in truth, there are several different types of talent which don't have any inter-dependability. By this I mean that just because one runner is talented in a certain way does not necessarily imply he or she will also be talented in another.
Broadly, I believe there are (at least) four different ways one can be
naturally talented as a runner. Some are more easily assessed than others.
Natural running ability
This is what most people are thinking of when they
say someone is a "talented" runner. They mean he or she has a high
natural set-point of aerobic endurance, someone who can run fast times or
impressive workouts without much or anything in the way of formal training. Some
people like to explain this mostly in terms of genetics, while others point to
an active childhood as the determining factor. Both, of course, are important,
but for a coach, neither matters—you work with what arrives at your doorstop on
day one. And if that newly-minted runner can already run at a high level
without any history of training, that is always a good thing. This does not guarantee success, as I'll explain
below, but people who start at a very high level of fitness naturally have a
distinct advantage.
Natural running ability is also the easiest type
of talent to identify: all it takes is a race or time trial. At the school I
coach at right now, our best runner was spotted as a freshman thanks to a fitness
test all sprinters on the track team undergo called the Cooper test. It was
devised by Dr.
Kenneth Cooper, sometimes known as the "father of aerobics" (rightfully
so, given that he coined the word), for quickly and accurately evaluating the
VO2 max of a large number of test subjects in the field, e.g.
military recruits. The test is simple: cover as much ground as you can in 12
minutes, ideally running but taking walk breaks if needed. The distance you
cover, in meters, is plugged in to a formula which predicts your VO2
max. Cooper's test is reasonably accurate when comparing test results to
lab-determined VO2 max.
In our case, this freshman "sprinter" ended
up finishing over 500 meters ahead of everyone else at the twelve-minute
whistle. Within a few weeks he was running distance workouts with our top athletes.
For distance runners, any time trial of 1600 to
2400 meters should suffice for evaluating natural running ability. Longer tests
can mask true running ability, because it's very hard to run a good 5k or 10k
off natural running ability alone—these events just rely too much on training,
not to mention proper pacing, which is an acquired skill. Sprint and true mid-distance athletes should
be evaluated with shorter time trials that more accurately measures the shared
aerobic and anaerobic components of the specific event—a 300m time trial for
the 400 meters, for example, or a 500m time trial for prospective 800m runners.
Response to training
Any coach who's worked with a large number of
athletes knows that people respond differently to the same training. This
individual variability is one of the most exciting topics in exercise science
research, because it has far-reaching consequences beyond sport—the same
training response variability affects things like exercise's interaction with risk
factors for heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
Nobody really knows why some people respond more
strongly to training than others. Do the non-responders require a higher
"dosage" of training? Would they benefit more from a different type
of training (e.g. high intensity/low volume instead of high mileage)? Are they
just naturally closer to their genetic potential as a runner, and thus get far
fewer returns than someone with a lot of headroom to improve? It's hard to say,
but the existence of variable responses to similar training is undeniable after
you've been involved in the sport for a few years.
This past fall, I headed up our middle school
cross country program, in addition to assisting with our high school varsity
squad. At the beginning and end of the season, the middle schoolers always do a
one mile time trial on the track so they can see their progress throughout the
season. The variability is impressive: some barely improved at all, while
others bested their initial time by well over a minute. Of course, there were
several factors that explained some of this variance: I noticed that better attendance
at practice tended to be associated with a greater margin of improvement (go
figure), and some kids push themselves harder than others in workouts, so doing
the same workout is not necessarily
the same stimulus. Still, there's no
denying that some athletes seem to respond a lot stronger than others to
particular kinds of training.
As a coach, it's important not to write off
someone who does not improve in your program as a "non-responder." It's
much more likely that the fault lies in your training program: you're not
giving that athlete the right stimulus he or she needs to improve. Once you've
discovered what works, though, take note of it. Some athletes thrive off certain
kinds of training, but wither when exposed to others.
Injury resilience
Injury resilience
There are many risk factors for running injuries—you can read
about them elsewhere on RunningWritings—but some runners seem resistant, if
not impervious, to overuse injuries. While some people suffer stress fractures
running 20 miles a week, others can do 20 miles a day just fine. There is a lot
you can do to ameliorate your injury risk and improve your resilience, but like
with natural running ability, some people start out at a higher level of
resilience than others.
Runners who go through their first several years
without any significant injuries are good candidates for a training program
with higher mileage and larger amounts of quality. All else equal, the runner
who can handle more training without suffering from injuries is going to have a
distinct advantage, especially in the long term. Particularly in the 10k, the
half marathon, and the marathon, it's very hard to reach your potential without
high mileage and a lot of long, fast running. Being able to handle this kind of
work without breaking down can open up opportunities that would otherwise be
closed off.
Mentality and attitude
We like to tell ourselves that attitude,
disposition, and mentality are things that are developed or instilled. But some
of your comportment is natural; it's just as much "you" as your hair.
Your core personality can be styled and molded in many different ways, and it
may even change over time, but it's still, to some extent at least, an
intrinsic part of who you are.
In most metrics, great distance runners are highly
variable: some are introverted, while others are extroverted; some are rational
thinkers, while others trust their emotions and intuition, and so on. But great
runners do tend to share some
personality traits. They tend to have an instinctive understanding about how
training and racing works—they're quick to pick up on the difference between
running fast and running hard, they have a sense of how and when
they should attack in a race, and they have a high "personal
sensation" or connection with their body, sensing exactly how hard they can
push themselves before their body gives out. An ability to compartmentalize
running is useful too—being passionate but not obsessive, and being able to
learn from disappointments, but move on quickly.
It's harder to quantify and identify what kind of
personality traits make a good distance runner. There's no standardized
personality test that can predict whether you've got the mind and spirit to be
a great athlete. Rather, it's something that will likely only be noticed by an
experienced coach. Indeed, many great coaches probably disagree on what the
most-desired personality traits are—it
may be that different styles of training are handled best by different types of
people. Or, if we strive to keep the athlete at the center of our training plan
(which we should), we ought to say that the
training program must be tailored to each individual athlete's personality and
disposition. This is something of a radical proposition: it might result in
two athletes with the same fitness levels training for the same event doing vastly
different training.
If you've studied the history of training, you
know that athletes of similar ability training for the same event have used
very different approaches to reach the top with equal success. Perhaps 800m
great Peter Snell, who was famous for his 20-mile long runs and 100-mile weeks,
was not only physically inclined towards high mileage and aerobic endurance,
but also "metaphysically
inclined"—it suited his personality, his spirit, his disposition.
In his 1995 book Road to the Top, storied Adams State coach Joe Vigil provides some perspective, cautioning us not to write off athletes who appear to lack the right mental composure to be a great runner:
At times we come into
contact with people who are waiting for their vacuum to be filled by some
person who can impart vision and steer their energies into the direction of
their goals. As a coach, I never looked at the athlete as being lazy. They were
only athletes whose energies had never been tapped in the right way and had
never been motivated to act.
As with adaptability, it's important not to use mentality
and attitude as a way of writing off runners. You should, however, make sure
you don't pass over athletes with the right mindset. Even if they lack the other aspects of
talent, their ability to improve and turn out great performances can be
tremendous.
Summing it up: What is talent?
The reason I broke down talent into these four
categories is because I believe they are mostly independent of each other. You
can have a high natural fitness level but a low adaptability to training, or a
strong mentality and fitness level, but poor injury resilience. It's important
for a coach to consider all four of these factors when planning out training or
when trying to spot young athletes with potential.
Viewing talent through a single lens—typically the
lens of high natural running ability—can distract you from athletes who can
reach the same or higher level of fitness by exploiting their other talents—be it high adaptability to
training, good injury resilience, or a strong mentality for distance running. Because
I think these factors are distributed in a random fashion across the
population, it's exceedingly rare to find an athlete gifted in all four
categories of talent. There are tremendously accomplished athletes at most
levels of competition who are decidedly untalented
in at least one aspect. Usually, the coach's job is to leverage the talents
a runner does have to overcome the areas in which he or she is weak. If ever
you come across a runner who is talented in all four areas, he or she is surely
bound for greatness, and you are one lucky coach.
Hi John
ReplyDeleteInteresting post and I agree with what you said. IMO training is kind of an art where you have to fit the training to the individual and not the opposite. Of course there is basic principles you need to follow if you want to succed in a running distance, but training need to be fitted to the response of the athlete. I think the most extreme example would be 800m training. Here you can have athletes who respond very well do high milage, but another type of runner would react very poorly to the same type of training.
Myself I have found out after years of trial and error that I respond much better to shorter faster intevals and longer recovery, this is also training I like to do and I also can basically "feel" that the body respond well to it in comparison to long runs and long tempo runs. I did high milage for years because I though I had to but it was probably not the best for me as my performance during that time was not good at all. Its easy to get affected by all we read about different training regiment of top athletes and train like you think its the best for you, but when its really not. I think the best training can be done when you have some knowledge about training, and more importantly have a great sense of awareness of how you body feels, during, after and inbetween workouts. You need to push yourself, but know you limits, and probably not be obsessed as you mention but rather passionate about running.
What has been my problem and many others runners problem I guess is the ability to really hammer the training sessions, but not perform as well in the competition. I have been thinking this could be due to nervousness/tension or maybe that the best athletes actually hold a bit back on training but saves the 100% effort to the races? Opinion?
I know some athletes dislike training, but really enjoys racing, and then other athletes who enjoys training alot but fears competition.
And what is your opinion on not timing yourself during intervals? Sometimes I probably train too hard because I have a intervaltime in my head I want to achieve, and without considering my shape for the day I will do what I can to run at exactly these splits.
So I am thinking on only time the recoveries and let my body decide the speed of the intervals and not the clock. My reasoning is that my body knows better than my mind(clock) what is the correct speed for the intervals on that exact day. I have done this a few sessions now and as the splits might be slower than when I am timing them, I still get quite tired so I dont think that it would be any issue of me not pushing myself hard enogh for a good training stimuli. Opinions?
Great post John.
ReplyDeleteI attended a training camp with Australian distance great (and one time HM WR holder) Steve Monaghetti. He bemoaned the number of people who have come up to him over the years saying thay were faster than him as a junior and thus had more talent, and could have done what he did if they kept running. He replied with a similar argument to yours - they only had one type of talent - he also had the talent to train log and hard, and not get injured.