What to do if you've 'no' talent

African runners made a clean sweep of the top ten places in last weekend's Chicago marathon -- except for Brian Sell, who grabbed sixth in a personal best 2:10:47.

Sell describes himself as "a redneck from the Cove that likes to run" and is a role model for anyone who wants to know how to succeed through sheer hard work.

After running 2:10:55 at Boston -- 4:59 pace for 26.2 miles -- he said: "After the race ... I started thinking about how I just ran 26 miles faster than I could run two miles in high school. I think that was a big thing. I just hope that people look at it and say, 'Hey if this yahoo can do it, then I can do it too.' That'd be cool if people thought that. It's just a matter of putting the miles in and working. It's not so much how much talent you have."

Putting the miles in, for Sell, means running an average of 110 miles a week. He's done that for the last five years.

* Source: interview with Brian Sell by Duncan Larkin. Posted September 28, 2006 on www.eliterunning.com