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Re: Ashley Horner Iron Cowboy, etc. [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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devashish_paul wrote:
Optimal_Adrian wrote:
I think you encapsulated it pretty well there.

I wonder how these types of efforts like AH-- an outsider or 'intruder' from another sport trying to take on very lofty goals-- are received in other sports? There are not many comparisons to make that are 1:1, Gwen moving from Tri to distance running seems to be the best fit, but even then there is strong overlap in skill set. Trying to come up with other examples, but something like Michael Jordan or Tim Tebow attempting pro baseball doesn't seem to fit compared to AH since there are hard gates and systems in place to determine skill level. Same with Usain Bolt making a possible go at a soccer career. I know many would not expect success from those athletes trying another sport, but there is also not likely the same personal investment between an intramural baseball or soccer participant and an amateur, but passionate, triathlete.


I think you nailed it. Practioners of any sport, be they pro or amateur or weekend warrior who are invested in their activity in general (and not just in triathlon) feel that those making the transition from another sport to theirs should go through the hoops of "approval".

As you mentioned Michael Jordan doing baseball (or should we say banished to baseball), or perhaps a better examples are athletes like John Elway (drafted in 2 sports, by the Yankees and Colts) or David Winfield who drafted in the MLB, NFL and NBA drafts. Winfield was actually drafted as a pitcher with the 4th overall pick by the Padres, but his hall of fame career was as a batter (>3000 hits, >1800 RBIs). Or Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders playing MLB and NFL. There is a gating system in other sports where people can claim to be "validated" by the other sport that they step across to.

Ashley, is stepping across sports, and "self validating" via social media.

If Tom Brady steps across and claims to be a better pitcher than Washington National's 2017 Cy Young Winner Max Scherzer, you can bet all kinds of people from the baseball world will be all over Brady. While Ashley is not claiming to be superior to Daniela Ryf, or Gwen Jorgenson, she's kind of implying that she can do way more than them and do deadlifts and squats along the way, and in effect putting the difficutly of the entire sport down.

So she's "self validating" while dismissing the level of difficulty of the sport she is stepping into...damn right people are going to call her on her self promotion.

She is dismissing the difficulties of the sport because she is ignorant/arrogant/uninformed etc. She did, what, 1 or 2 70.3 s and bunch of unconfirmed claims of spectacular accomplishments and then barges into Ironman. Her attempt does not threaten my IM accomplishments at all. What bothers me about her is her irresponsibility. Claiming IM is mind over matter and sharing it with half a million people is irresponsible. I would like to ask any of her followers to ride 180km and then ask them at, say, 70th km how is that mind over matter working out. I think she is also a personal trainer. Her claim that running uphill on a treadmill strengthens your quads for a bike is also irresponsible and should make here laughing stock in the personal training community.
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Re: Ashley Horner Iron Cowboy, etc. [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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I had a bone to pick with the whole thing because as somebody that has done 10 self-supported ironmans and a self-supported ultraman, for charity btw, I knew how insanely difficult they are to pull off even for somebody with lots of experience. The logistics and redundancy planning for contingencies is crazy. And you simply can't know what to plan for unless you've done lots of ironmans and know all the things that could go wrong. So here was somebody bragging how she is going to do 50 in 50 different places in a row with no experience? It was basically impossible, and we saw that on day one where Haiti wouldn't even let her bring her bike in. No amount of sweet spot intervals are going to get you past that. You have to have traveled to an Ironman and had your bike lost or smashed by the airlines to remember to have backup bikes. Yet here she was getting even more attention than our best pros for having done nothing yet.

So I had an idea for the thread - the Deadpool. There was a guy a few years ago that was going to swim the length of the Amazon River. Our office put up a bingo chart where you could put what week he would quit or die and from what cause. Weeks were down the left, reasons were across the top. You pick a spot and put in 5 bucks. 5 weeks, malaria. 2 weeks, killed by natives. 6 weeks, "that fish that swims up your peehole and thrashes around." Whatever week, whatever reason, we had it. It was a huge hit and people loved keeping up with his status.

I started the deadpool for this 50/50/50 thing and that took off, probably because everybody finally had a place to put their own reason why her goal was ridiculous and when it would happen. What was very interesting was nobody really gave her more than a few days. I was an outlier at "5 days, hydration issues." There was nothing like "30 days, blisters" not to mention 50 days. This really got people debating and the thread rolling.

And to the point some people try to make that her doing whatever doesn't affect your own accomplishments... yes it does. She didn't even have to do any to get the idea in a lot of people's head that she could, would, even did do 50/50/50. So when you say you've done and ironman, now you have to deal with the general public saying, "I heard they aren't that hard. Didn't some lady do 50 in a row with no training?" No, she didn't. She said she was going to, but couldn't. But the public doesn't remember that part. All they hear is you did (a proper) one but didn't somebody else on ESPN do 50 in a row? How hard could it be if somebody else did 50 nonstop? More than a few rounds of golf?

So once she got started, We kept repeating if you do them, you have to do the full distances or they don't count. Actually a lot of people started saying that. Then we got blowback from some people that don't know any better saying it doesn't matter. Yes, it does matter if you want to parade the ironman name around and get fame and fortune from it. And we have the technology to check. It's easy... do the whole distance and you can call them an ironman. Don't and it's not. And don't blame the pool owner or the airlines. You planned this mess, so own this and you can get the credit if you do it. We got a lot of pushback on that with all the "for the children" stuff whenever she had logistics and measurement issues, but she found no sympathy from us. If she had actually gotten some ironman experience, she wouldn't have had those kinds of problems. Her failures where totally her own making.

She did do two ironmans in a row, which got my respect for her fitness in general. That's pretty badass. And I think people should lay off of her now since she's retreated home and licking her wounds. There's a lot of unnecessary piling on and being mean now by people, and they forget she's a person and we all make mistakes and it's over so let it go. I don't think she's this horrible liar and fraud that intentionally wants to ruin the ironman world. I think she is a victim of the "social media as a career" disaster nowdays and got herself surrounded by yesmen that allowed her mouth to write checks that her lack of experience couldn't cash. It affects us, but it wasn't totally on purpose.

And that's the story.

----------------------------------------------------------
Zen and the Art of Triathlon. Strava Workout Log
Interviews with Chris McCormack, Helle Frederikson, Angela Naeth, and many more.
http://www.zentriathlon.com
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Re: Ashley Horner Iron Cowboy, etc. [ZenTriBrett] [ In reply to ]
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Very well said
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Re: Ashley Horner Iron Cowboy, etc. [newguy] [ In reply to ]
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newguy wrote:
I was trying to speak in a collective sense when I shouldn't have been. Overgeneralizations don't work, I know. I don't necessarily think she could have, no. But I also am a firm believer in "what ifs" I suppose. I'm not her, not in her body or mind, nor am I able to fully understand her motivations- nor could I honestly predict the outcome. I could only speculate, and I too took a negative approach to it and was proven correct. But what if she accomplished 10? At what point during the attempt would we sit back and think- " holy sh8t" . I personally think it was a car wreck from the start, and people love to rubberneck. But it also puts the IC's accomplishment in a different perspective in my opinion. And I don't for a minute think that you should or would think that your accomplishments would be threatened either. You kinda earned your ethos a long time ago.

To me, the effect of "holy sh8t, she did (hypothetically) ten in a row" is indeed lessened when it falls short or far short of her claim. If she had said "I'll do one every day for a work week" and almost managed it, that's more impressive than a bald-faced ridiculous claim followed by the same result. Hubris is a thing, and it is a bad thing. So is ignorance. If I said "hey ST, I'm going to run a 90 minute marathon for charity", everyone would crush me for being an idiot, and they'd be right to do it. No matter what performance I turned in, it would be diminished by being far short of my boastful and ignorant claim. Or imagine if a college QB said "yeah whoever drafts me I'm going to take to 19-0 my first season". He'd be mocked for that, and probably called an attention whore. Which is indeed an insult, but not sexist.

The point is, ladies and gentleman, that speed, for lack of a better word, is good. Speed is right, Speed works. Speed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.
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Re: Ashley Horner Iron Cowboy, etc. [ZenTriBrett] [ In reply to ]
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ZenTriBrett wrote:
Her failures where totally her own making.

She did do two ironmans in a row, which got my respect for her fitness in general. That's pretty badass. And I think people should lay off of her now since she's retreated home and licking her wounds. There's a lot of unnecessary piling on and being mean now by people, and they forget she's a person and we all make mistakes and it's over so let it go. I don't think she's this horrible liar and fraud that intentionally wants to ruin the ironman world. I think she is a victim of the "social media as a career" disaster nowdays and got herself surrounded by yesmen that allowed her mouth to write checks that her lack of experience couldn't cash. It affects us, but it wasn't totally on purpose.

And that's the story.

Great post IMO and what I would speculate.
I mentioned earlier that I come from the AH world and traditional lifters were some of the first to get a taste of a few crossfit types that truly and honestly believe they train harder than anyone and believe they can do any event at any time just as well as anyone. I've been around a lot of AH'ers that look very much like her and live as if a walking inspirational meme. Many that I personally know have indeed inspired themselves out of some sort of dark hole in the past, such as, an eating disorder, depression or being overweight. There are a world of these types out there that have a backstory that the general audience that will stay at a shallow level and like the story of fighting through the odds and the more people try to talk reason, like Ironman/triathlon is not that easy, the general audience just digs in even deeper as a fan. Those trying to reveal the truth only make the person seem more credible in their daily plight. The more the fans fight for her the more she will dig in to what she has built up even if it is totally delusional.

I agree and guess that she believes what she writes, the inspirational videos, pictures with children and all that to be genuine.
I am a former national level bodybuilder, but I always wore normal clothes in public and most of the time wore long pants and long sleeve shirts just to go away from the typical stereotype even in the summer. I see more and more females in the grocery store the past few years with almost thong like painted on shorts and a sports bra with tattoos from ankle to neck built equally as well as AH.

Am I against this? Not really. I very much admire the training it takes to get in that shape and stay in that shape year round. IMO the AH'ers are a dime a dozen now so perhaps she feels she has to raise the bar to stay above the multitudes of other women that look just like her. Meanwhile she is brand building and the more followers the more money, but again I believe she has convinced herself that it is not for the money but to help inspire people to overcome.


It all seems like a carnival freak show and yet there I was yesterday going out on the web looking at her posts and videos to see who she is. She won again because I couldn't help myself to see what all the talk was about so I paid the price at the carnival and she got another person (me) to take a look at her. That is ultimately what she wants. :-)
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Re: Ashley Horner Iron Cowboy, etc. [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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devashish_paul wrote:
While Ashley is not claiming to be superior to Daniela Ryf, or Gwen Jorgenson, she's kind of implying that she can do way more than them and do deadlifts and squats along the way, and in effect putting the difficutly of the entire sport down.

I believe that it is more than putting some pro triathletes down, or even putting the entire sport down...That would not get the visceral response that was elicited. I think what this did was make a personal jab at every person that felt a sense of accomplishment from completing an IM (or training to complete an IM). AHs attitude made completion of an IM seem trivial, which in turn called everyones efforts to compete/participate in IM trivial; and she had a platform to make this attitude spread to others...and that can get personal very quickly....because there are so few things in life that are viewed as non-trivial to anyone outside of our close circles, and the bar to outside significance is quite high. She no only was knocking IM competitors notoriety of accomplishment, but she was gain notoriety herself in the process...so it was adding insult to injury. People are quite simple when being brutally honest...they just want to feel good; and AHs effort was only going to make AH feel good by stepping on the perceived accomplishments of others which made it personal.

Or I could be completely wrong.

Stephen J

I believe my local reality has been violated.
____________________________________________
Happiness = Results / (Expectations)^2
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Re: Ashley Horner Iron Cowboy, etc. [newguy] [ In reply to ]
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newguy wrote:
And I don't for a minute think that you should or would think that your accomplishments would be threatened either. You kinda earned your ethos a long time ago.

But most people are not self-validated. They are validated by others; and AH was cutting down the possibility of outside validation by making it seem less significant. That moves it to the personal arena. She could have been a hero to everyone if she was not acting/communicating in a way that was not stepping on the bodies of others to raise herself.

Stephen J

I believe my local reality has been violated.
____________________________________________
Happiness = Results / (Expectations)^2
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Re: Ashley Horner Iron Cowboy, etc. [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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This is probably my first and probably my only post on this, unless some people want to join my challenge...ha

I think this rubbed me the wrong way because it was a joke from the start.

1) She made a claim that was going to belittle the accomplishments of a ton of great athletes who have spent years putting up impressive results and wouldn't get near the coverage she did just because she had a social media following.

2) There was also no accountability on her end. She guaranteed it was going to happen. When it didn't was she going to give up her social media presence? Instead she feel back on the "it's for charity" claim. Anytime she wanted to spar with someone who gave her flak on social media she brought up the charity aspect. You can support a charity, you just have to have accountability in it. Put up some of your own skin if you fail.

For example, there's a charity that I like to support that's been talked about on this forum involving two brothers who are doing Kona this year. My friend has been talking trash to me all year about how fast he did in ironman in 2014. I've told him that I'm going to beat his time this year. To make things interesting for every minute I go under his time (9:xx) he has to take the mins and multiply by ten and donate to the charity. For every minute over, I have to donate. The only caveat is if there is a bike mechanical. Others are welcome to join in on this.

Also, the best part of this was joke was watching it. On day 2/3 after she finished the swim she posted a video and she had that look I've seen on people's faces when they are on a 100 mile bike ride, riding with a group that is outside their ability and they have 40 miles to go and don't know how to get back home and it's 100 degrees out. I knew it would be over shortly then.
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Re: Ashley Horner Iron Cowboy, etc. [stephenj] [ In reply to ]
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stephenj wrote:
devashish_paul wrote:

While Ashley is not claiming to be superior to Daniela Ryf, or Gwen Jorgenson, she's kind of implying that she can do way more than them and do deadlifts and squats along the way, and in effect putting the difficutly of the entire sport down.


I believe that it is more than putting some pro triathletes down, or even putting the entire sport down...That would not get the visceral response that was elicited. I think what this did was make a personal jab at every person that felt a sense of accomplishment from completing an IM (or training to complete an IM). AHs attitude made completion of an IM seem trivial, which in turn called everyones efforts to compete/participate in IM trivial; and she had a platform to make this attitude spread to others...and that can get personal very quickly....because there are so few things in life that are viewed as non-trivial to anyone outside of our close circles, and the bar to outside significance is quite high. She no only was knocking IM competitors notoriety of accomplishment, but she was gain notoriety herself in the process...so it was adding insult to injury. People are quite simple when being brutally honest...they just want to feel good; and AHs effort was only going to make AH feel good by stepping on the perceived accomplishments of others which made it personal.

Or I could be completely wrong.

Stephen J

It is funny what you say....I'm probably one of the guys on this forum who has done the most Ironmans. I did 31 over a span of 25 years, not 31 in 31 days forget about 31 states. My best year was 4 in a year. That was huge mentally and for family and around work, but it sure was fun. Right now I am not able bodied enough to finish a sprint tri, so I look at all of you doing IM's with a really high bar since I cannot even walk to the end of the street.

When she said she was gonna do 50/50/50, I thought "why not, that would be awesome if a woman can come and do this more legit than Iron Cowboy". I thought he was studly, but his ethics were slippery on many counts.

I was kind of hoping she MIGHT one up IC and do it clean.

I'll say this.

If one is able bodied and fit and knows how to swim and ride a bike and can jog 10K, getting up to an Ironman is NOT that hard. But you have to be able bodied and do all components which discounts many of us from entering and competing (myself excluded at this time from even doing a super sprint tri).

I think if I coached her for a year, I could get her to 50/50/50 on a closed loop with no travel in between doing half IM's. I think she has the underlying athletic ability to pull it off, but she needs time. I don't think she has the engine to do 50/50/50. If IC did it on a closed loop, he would have done 50 legit IM's no problem. That guy was an 11 hour IM guy. An easy day for him is 13 hours. That leaves him 11 hours to get ready for tomorrow. If she is an 14 hour IMer right now, 16 is easy. This only leaves 8 hours to recover and get ready for tomorrow. There is just not enough time to pull it off.


. I think I could get coach most of you guys on how to pull of 50/50 half IM's. There is enough recovery time to pull it off and you can walk most of the daily run and still have plenty of time to recover. I am kind of an expert on being able to do big volume training for multiple days in a row and maximize recovery and start again the next day (anyone who has been to my epicman training camps will know what I am talking about).

Seriously, I wanted to see her pull it off. I had no idea of her athletic background and the crossfit/fitness model instagram culture until this entire thing. She's a Bullshitter with good athletic ability. My patience for people with slippery ethics is ultra low, so you know what I think about her attempt now. But as someone who did 31 IM's in 10 different locations over 25 year, I lean towards wanting to see people do a ton of these events. It makes me really happy to see people do what made me so excited for such a long time.

If she barged into the sport, played by the rules and did deadlifts every evening and completed daily legit IM's, then more power to her. Kind of like Macca mouthing off that Kona was nothing and getting some humble pie before he backed up his mouth twice and then won it twice. If she backed up her mouth and "won it", then more power to her. Guys like Peter Reid and Tim DeBoom were not entirely thrilled with Macca dismissing their Kona wins and rightfully so.

But like Bo Jackson switching in between football and baseball, dammit, you better do the sport by the rules and norms of the sport...step up and deliver!!!
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Re: Ashley Horner Iron Cowboy, etc. [ZenTriBrett] [ In reply to ]
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Well said. But now I need to know how the Amazon swim ended, and whether a peehole fish was involved.
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Re: Ashley Horner Iron Cowboy, etc. [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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devashish_paul wrote:
Seriously, I wanted to see her pull it off. I had no idea of her athletic background and the crossfit/fitness model instagram culture until this entire thing. She's a Bullshitter with good athletic ability. My patience for people with slippery ethics is ultra low, so you know what I think about her attempt now. But as someone who did 31 IM's in 10 different locations over 25 year, I lean towards wanting to see people do a ton of these events. It makes me really happy to see people do what made me so excited for such a long time.

I really commend that attitude of being open minded; but you are not the ordinary IM finisher (and I mean that in a positive way). Let me ask this question...If an acquaintance asks you what you did over the weekend, and you tell them that you were racing, or even doing a workout, what is the response most of the time. In my experience, most people will reply with their own exploits, as opposed to asking more about how your race/workout went. Im not saying that this is a bad thing, but just a thing that I have observed. People like talking about themselves, and they like to feel important; and having others believe that something that you did is extremely challenging would understandably make someone feel important.
My negativity of AH is of the way she went promoting. By going about it the way that she did, my take is that it made a lot of people (especially on this forum) feel kind of crappy as I get the feeling that it diminished some of the pride that they felt in their accomplishment. It threatened their ability to have friends and family regard them as 'that crazy athlete who did and IM'...It would make it seem less special.

There are other things that I did not like about AH and IC, but many of those things are my own issues. I think that what I state above is what drew out the huge negative response here, as per the original questions posed by Dan.
But again, I could be completely wrong. Humans are notoriously difficult to extract interpretable results from.

Stephen J

I believe my local reality has been violated.
____________________________________________
Happiness = Results / (Expectations)^2
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Re: Ashley Horner Iron Cowboy, etc. [ericMPro] [ In reply to ]
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ericMPro wrote:
dunno wrote:


Either way AH has probably got bigger arms than 95% of the guys in this site and does have a masculine look,, that’s not misogynistic just fact.


AH looks in no way masculine.... she's a woman. She's hot AF. If you have a problem with how she looks, it says more about how you feel about yourself than it does about AH.

She's attractive for a woman who takes steroids and lifts. But that has nothing to do with the derision she has earned.



Which is... self-promoting BS passing for accomplishment. It's all about publicity, and she has already succeeded massively with this stunt. I avoided all AH threads until yesterday because I'd never heard of the name and wasn't interested. But now I'm another person adding to her fame by "knowing who she is".
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Re: Ashley Horner Iron Cowboy, etc. [PBT_2009] [ In reply to ]
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PBT_2009 wrote:
There are arguments here about social media celebrities, making money off that, etc., to me that's all secondary or unfounded except on an individual basis. If an individual is bothered by the social media-centric status of society, I feel that's a separate discussion which does have value. But...

My take is the primary thing that AH did to irk Slowtwitch was break, in my view, an important unwritten rule of triathlon: she blantantly didn't respect what she was undertaking. Plain and simple.

Most of the sentiments expressed stem from that simple principle.

Hit the nail on the head. No matter the distance, triathlon tends to humble you. She seems to assume that since she's a cross fitter, no big deal.

I don't buy most of the sexism/misogyny stuff. I really believe the reception would have been identical for any male X fitter that tried the same stunt.
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Re: Ashley Horner Iron Cowboy, etc. [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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Slowman wrote:
i quoted you in a new post over in the womens forum.

Awe man, now I gotta go catch up over there, too? Impossible to stay up to date anymore.

To breathe, to feel, to know I'm alive.
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Re: Ashley Horner Iron Cowboy, etc. [ZenTriBrett] [ In reply to ]
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I think this is the best post on the subject so far
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Re: Ashley Horner Iron Cowboy, etc. [rruff] [ In reply to ]
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rruff wrote:
But now I'm another person adding to her fame by "knowing who she is".

Don't worry, in a few months I'm sure we'll all be saying "Ashley who?"
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