I think that what Dev is trying to get across is the simple reality that in life there is a pointy end and triathlon is-no-different. While I completely agree that you should believe and pursue your goals by giving it all you have - sub 8:30 is the definition of uncommon, elite, special, ridiculously fast or whatever else you want to use.

Desire, belief, and endurance are some of the great lessons we learn and perfect in triathlon, but even if you have all there of those it is just a totally different realm to go 8:30 - those are our precious few, our 1 percenters (yes that one competitor radio intro). With the explosion of triathlon in the we are seeing faster and faster times from the weekend warriors/age groupers, but some performance times belong to a special few. Who will be in that group gets decided every year in Roth, AZ, Canada, UK, etc - but it is still a very special small group. It is the same with a sub 1:50 OLY or a sub 3:50 Half-IM or sub 2:20 marathon or an Olympic trials slot - our beloved sport is no different.

Will that special group grow? Sure, if we had 1/2mm Iron warriors racing then maybe we'd see more sub 8:30s, but I doubt the percentage would change much :)

What did we see at Roth 07 = 10 guys. At Kona last year? 7 guys - that is it:
1 08:15:34 McCormack, Chris
2 08:19:04 Alexander, Craig
3 08:21:30 Sindballe, Torbjorn
4 08:22:33 DeBoom, Timothy
5 08:23:31 Vanhoenacker, Marino
6 08:25:49 Lieto, Chris
7 08:26:00 Llanos, Eneko



1996 Kona:
1 Luc Van Lierde 27 Belgium 08:04:08

2 Thomas Hellriegel 25 Germany 08:06:07

3 Greg Welch 31 Australia 08:18:57

4 Peter Reid 27 Canada 08:24:37

5 Dave Scott 42 Colorado 08:28:31

Thunderlegs good luck and keep at it, you might become a part of that special crew someday, but if you don't you'll just be like the rest of us and there ain't no shame in that.

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//semi retired - old school = http://www.iwilltri.com //