> I don't particuarly agree with the ol' adage, but I don't think that's > exactly what it is saying. The gist of the argument is that distance > runners can overcome a lack of talent through hard work, whereas sprinters > either have it or they don't. That doesn't mean a sprinter with immense > talent will make automatically it, just that they have to have the talent > to have a chance.
Which is a load of crap. EVERYONE has to have immense talent to make it to the top. I'm a distance athlete myself and I get sick and tired of hearing talk about how such and such an athlete has no talent, but he works hard to make up for it. There's a number of false implications here. First is that if you are not successful as a distance runner, you are not working hard enough. Second, that distance runners work harder than sprinters. Both are insulting. Folks, if you can run even a 31 minute 10K, you are in the tiny fraction of the top percent of the world's population in terms of talent. Period. End of story. Whether you do it off 10 miles per week or 150 miles per week, you're still basically a physiological anomoly. And you're still lapped three times by the best in the world :) Certainly it's true that sprinters "seem" to be able to get closer to the top than distance athletes with minimal amounts of work, but I'm not sure that in the global context even that is correct. Lord knows there have been enough 18-year old Africans (and even if they are really 21, they are certainly not heavily trained) producing eye-popping performances at the distances. To be a top athlete in the world takes both talent and hard work. The more of one you have, to some extent you can have less of the other, but in today's competitive marketplace you must have ample quantities of both. Sprinters tend to peak at a younger age than distance runners, and more of the nitty gritty physiological adaptations required for distance running success are long term than are those for sprinting. But that is mostly just noise - Both talent and hard work are critical all around. - Ed Parrot
