I'm just responding in general.

Dave became the best in BMX by falling on his bike over and over again in his back yard. No foam pits back then. Certainly no coach uploading workouts and analyzing video. Definitely no internet forum to seek out advice on how to be good at BMX.
He hit the road at 15 years old, on his own, doing state fair shows all over the US for maybe $100 a show. His teachers, like most here, told him he was going about things the wrong way and a more traditional approach would be smarter. Some teachers would call him out in front of everyone and tell him if he didn't alter his ways, he was going to amount to shit.

He just kept doing his thing, his way.

What I find hysterical is most of the folks on this thread would quit the sport if they had their own ST threads following their every move. That is a fact. Unless, of course, you are an active, likable member of the forum, in which case most folks would simply kiss your ass.

The fact is he is going to do it his way, by taking hits over and over again; not the "Slowtwitch approved" way.

He is going to learn through HIS experience, not the collective experience of Slowtwitch, no matter how good it is!

Deal with it.

Chromedome,

So if one runs Dave's 10 mile run through the Vdot calculator that translates into a 52.9 Vdot. Ale Martinez's excellent Ironman run estimator shows a 3:3422 marathon at 80% of run FT which is darn tough for many to do and a 3:48:40 for a more doable run. Those were both based on a 53 Vdot so his projected pace would be a bit slower. Now if his run fitness has improved a good deal that would obviously change things.

Hugh

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Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

Brian,

Give the guy some time. Has he said his going to KQ with a 67?

He got in a pool 2 years ago and it was very very ugly.

IMO, he can get down to low 60s, get stronger in the water, in the next year.

going from zero to low 60s and coming out strong in 3 years, from where he was, is good.

All I EVER heard him say or see him write is his goal is to qualify for Kona and not take a celebrity slot.

I've yet to hear him say, "I'm qualifying for Kona at IMLP 2015." or, "I'm qualifying for Kona IMMT 2015."

Lots of people in this thread talking like Dave said he was going to KQ at a specific event on a specific date.

Dave is making simple mistakes that have already been made by hundreds of other AG'ers, Ironman really isn't a mystery, I think people are just pointing out the mistakes to help him with the learning curve, which his coach should really be helping him out with.

He can do things his way, like he did at LP and now at MT but as you see they aren't turning out well. He is obviously a strong biker, if he was just smarter about his race he would start to be more competitive, KQ? Probably not yet...

Here is the crazy thing. Guys like Dave Scott, Mark Allen and women like PNF had to figure it out by trial and error. Many of us racing tris in the 80's did it thru trial and error. Now there is so much info on the internet, in books, publications, through coaches, and other resources all well outside of ST based on solid 35 years of aggregated trial and error that you can just rely on all that info and not re create the wheel. I am sure he IS relying on some of that as he is riding a super bike and not riding a Dave Scott issue Centurion steel bike with 32 spoke box Mavic GP4 rims and his running shorts and singlet flapping in the wind....so if I he able to use the best equipment, I am sure he is probably using some of the state of art knowledge too. Chromedome said he is using a heart rate monitor, and if you recall Pauli Kiuru and Mark Allen used those very effectively to put up times in Kona that would be competitive today....so he's using some of the knowledge base from there too. It's not like he is starting from scratch as you seem to be making it out to be.

I think LP was an anomaly this year, and I don't know why. Conditions were not ideal, but not so terrible as the times reflect. DM's 5:06 bike split was near fastest of the day, and while a good LP bike split, that is hardly an astounding bike split on that course. Overall and bike times were slow this year. Maybe the lack of a pro field slowed everyone else down....

Dev, we all already know you competed in the days of Fig Newtons, bananas and clip on aero bars. No need to point it out.

Makes zero sense to compare the knowledge base that you and Dave Scott had versus what Dave has today.

The only point in that post is to tell us all you were around back then; which we already know.

My point:
-Dave is going to learn, mainly, through experience. Yes, he has a lot of resources, and chooses to use a lot. IMO, he has a lot of very, very good results at the half distance proving he has put in the work, and used those resources.
-The full is going to take some time, and he is going to learn what most of us already know through experience.

Mirra needs a 67 min swim 5 hour bike 3:20 run to control his destiny in M40-44 these days.

Dev,

What is grossly underestimated by many newer/modern triathletes is the time and the volume of training it takes to knock out this sort of performance - with consistency!

Here's what I see generally these days in age-group triathlon - lots of relatively fast cycling, but slower swimming and even slower running.

It takes YEARS to build up the volume of training to swim in the 60's and on down to an hour, and it NOT kill you. Remember that. Then it's on to the bike, and again, you need to ride, close to 5 . . . and again, it NOT kill you. Then, if you have ANYTHING left, to be competitive in those middle age-groups for men you need to knock out a 3:30 run or faster! It's ALL ABOUT setting up the day to run strongly. If you get off that bike and you are waxed, you are done!

I've not followed the Mirra story at all, but my sense is from other comments here and what I've read elsewhere, he's two years into this! And I think he went right to 70.3 and IM racing.

My suggestion - take two more years. Gradually build up swim and run volume - it's does not need to be terribly sexy or complicated - just keep putting in the time. Optimize performance at sprint & olympic distance racing ( yes - you read that right). Then in the 3 year come back to 70.3 and IM and have another go at it! But NO ONE ever takes this advice from me! :)

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

I totally believe he could eventually do it. I don't dislike the guy at all. I dislike the fact some of his supporters made his first IM about being a legitimate KQ attpt when it really wasn't. And still isn't yet we get breathless hyperbole about his chances, which at his current experience and fitness is effectively zero. That's not a knock on
The guy, that's just reality.

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-Of course it's 'effing hard, it's IRONMAN!
Team ZOOT
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Pretty sure you completely missed the point of Dev's post.......He doesn't HAVE to learn "mainly through experience". Sure, it is always an important criteria, but plenty of people before him have made the same mistakes and they are well-known. Wy bother learning what doesn't work when it is already known what doesn't work?

To do otherwise seems purposely stubborn or overly prideful....neither of which make learning the distance any easier.

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How did you come to this conclusion? Given the healthy egos of most triathletes I figure they would welcome the attention.

Sorry, I think you missed where I was going with this. What I was trying to get to, was that there was a time when everything happened through trial and error and each athlete had to learn on themselves or ask a few peers. After many years, a body of knowledge emerged. Heck Mark Allen ignored that body of knowledge. He figured that what worked for him at 6 hours at Nice would work for him at Kona, but he OVERBIKED 6 times in a row and kept getting beaten by Dave Scott.

Dave Scott somehow, through his own trial and error and solo training days in Davis (Dave raced a lot less than Mark and perhaps could do more trial and error in training on a week in week out basis) figured out what the pace and fueling needed to be for 8+ hours. Finally Mark Allen gave up and said something along the lines of, "I will swim beside Dave, bike with him and run with him. When Dave slows down, I will slow down, when he drinks I will drink, when he eats, I will eat". That's what it took Mark Allen to finally have a good IM. He had to just do what someone else had already figured out.

Mirra can be like Mark Allen and just hammer a 9-10 hour race like he is doing a half IM (much like Mark Allen used to do) and then blow up. Or he can learn from the body of knowledge that is out there and apply the basic principles rather than figuring it all out through experience.

I concede that we all need some experience to know what happens to our bodies when we get into the 6th, 7th and 8th hour of racing and fine tune our decisions from hours 1 through 6 to make everything that comes post 6 hours "better". But that is fine tuning related to sweat rates, calorie absorption, mental tolerance etc etc

Heck Mirra can pick up the phone and call Dave Scott or PNF to get some really solid guidance. Look what PNF did with Apolo last year. Apolo did not try to re invent the IM prep and tactics. He just listened to and did what Paula told him and he got a FOP age grouper result at Kona that would have KQ'd him outright anyway.

Dev and Power13,

I understood Dev's main point 100%.

Sorry for sounded like a bit of a dick. Dave is a friend, so you stick up for your pals.

You guys are both correct.

With that said, I don't think you understood the point I was making, and to be honest I don't want to rehash it too deeply.

Also, the Apolo and Dave comparison is not a good one.

Apolo-coaching at a very young age, at an Olympic level, within a sport that likely required year round aerobic conditioning. Not only was Apolo ready for the sport aerobically, his mindset was conditioned to take instruction.
Dave-self-taught for years and years, basically inventing the sport along the way.

Two different brains, Dev.........

Cheers,
Mike