UVA has a triathlon squad. They swim with the club swim team, ride with the cycling team, and run with the club xc team. I'm planning on being on the tri squad, I'm nowhere near good enough to swim or run for UVA. There is a strong multisport community in Charlottesville - there's a few pros, and UVA actually had the collegiate national champ a few years ago!! I'm pretty excited - the pool is gorgeous, and mountain rides are ten miles away!!

As someone that started racing bikes at 17 and quit completely at 23 I can attest to the burnout. I don't think it has a lot to do with motivation to get work done as it has to do with being completely enveloped with a singular aspect of sport at such a dynamic time in your life. I was a Cat 1 by 20 and completely devoted to trying to make it as a pro. But I quit completely at 23 after a disappointing summer in Europe and an even more disappointing crit nationals.

High level training in high school and college can be very, very tough. You make a lot of sacrifices that can really start sapping your motivation, especially if you start plateauing a bit and the results aren't coming the way you expect them, too. Even being on teams and hanging out with your teammates gets very old and you realize that there's a whole world out there that you're completely oblivious to.

I was traveling around every single weekend, sleeping on hotel room floors with 6-7 other dudes. Crammed into vehicles for 8+ hours at a time just to try to get to the next big race where I'd try to get primes and prize money just to cover gas. A couple of seasons of that and it starts getting old.

I would make it a top priority to NOT let your life completely revolve around triathlon or cycling or swimming or whatever. High school and college offer a lot of opportunities that you may well not get later on. That's not to say you shouldn't have a big focus, but that you shoyuld be cognizant of such opportunities and not spend every waking moment weighing the opportunity cost of a new experience versus hitting your next workout (which is something I constantly did). Almost every one of the guys I came up through the ranks with who were in cycling as heavily as I wash moved on after college (two that didn't are on or were on protour teams).

As someone that started racing bikes at 17 and quit completely at 23 I can attest to the burnout. I don't think it has a lot to do with motivation to get work done as it has to do with being completely enveloped with a singular aspect of sport at such a dynamic time in your life. I was a Cat 1 by 20 and completely devoted to trying to make it as a pro. But I quit completely at 23 after a disappointing summer in Europe and an even more disappointing crit nationals.
High level training in high school and college can be very, very tough. You make a lot of sacrifices that can really start sapping your motivation, especially if you start plateauing a bit and the results aren't coming the way you expect them, too. Even being on teams and hanging out with your teammates gets very old and you realize that there's a whole world out there that you're completely oblivious to.
I was traveling around every single weekend, sleeping on hotel room floors with 6-7 other dudes. Crammed into vehicles for 8+ hours at a time just to try to get to the next big race where I'd try to get primes and prize money just to cover gas. A couple of seasons of that and it starts getting old.

I would make it a top priority to NOT let your life completely revolve around triathlon or cycling or swimming or whatever. High school and college offer a lot of opportunities that you may well not get later on. That's not to say you shouldn't have a big focus, but that you should be cognizant of such opportunities and not spend every waking moment weighing the opportunity cost of a new experience versus hitting your next workout (which is something I constantly did). Almost every one of the guys I came up through the ranks with who were in cycling as heavily as I wash moved on after college (two that didn't are on or were on pro tour teams).

I didn't read the other comments so it may have been said.


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By training a lot and studying engineering, A. Brown will prob miss out on some killer parties, but it sounds like he is OK with that. I'm not aware of any "opportunities" that are unique to HS/college, since you can always go back to school at any age. OTOH, you are only 18-29 once so you have to do those things like sport at a high level, or joining the military, that can only be done before age 30. My $0.02:)

Lance had a very high vo2 max and was an hour behind nyc marathon winner so we can say its part of the equation but not the sole answer .
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Vo2 is useless.

Having an adequately high VO2max is a necessary but not a sufficient conditions for elite endurance athletic performance (or for that matter, a normal, healthy life...but the standard for what is "adequately high" is lower in that context).

that's my point Vo2 is useless. It's about how you train your mechanical efficiency. I love slowtwits people agree in different terms to sound correct. And every topic goes sideways so people can be right rather then get it right.

And I guess you don't know much about lances nyc marathons. That he trained for over one year after me bombed the first year. Not to mention he comes from a triathlete background and was a good runners.

You have your whole life to do sport. And probably do it better than what you can do with limited money/resources, etc. I'm faster now in my 30s than I was in my 20s. And I have money to go race and buy the things I need to do. And it's way, way more enjoyable.
Anyway, he'll do what he wants. I simply wouldn't write burnout off and trump it up to one's mental faculties or motivation. And I wouldn't devote my life to sport in a vain attempt at going pro or something. If you're not national level by 20 or 21 then the probability of doing anything further at the elite level is likely just a pipe dream (at least in cycling). But it sounds like he's good to go in that regard and is going after a good program of study, so I wish him all the best.