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Re: GET FAST: 2 hrs per day/~14 hrs per week/~750 hrs per year, 56 hrs sleep per week, ~6% body fat [cbump] [ In reply to ]
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cbump wrote:
Very motivating.

Been doing a trainer road plan and there wasn't a scheduled workout today.
This thread got me to the local mountain bike trail for a 8 mile ride and a 4 mile trail run.
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Re: GET FAST: 2 hrs per day/~14 hrs per week/~750 hrs per year, 56 hrs sleep per week, ~6% body fat [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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Gordo's training group coined JFT. I've got a JFT jersey and socks. :)
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Re: GET FAST: 2 hrs per day/~14 hrs per week/~750 hrs per year, 56 hrs sleep per week, ~6% body fat [Mark Lemmon] [ In reply to ]
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Mark Lemmon wrote:
Gordo's training group coined JFT. I've got a JFT jersey and socks. :)

Maybe they stole it from Fleck...Fleck is kind of a freeware/open source type of guy. He doesn't bother taking credit for any concepts, but was doing this long before Gordo!
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Re: GET FAST: 2 hrs per day/~14 hrs per week/~750 hrs per year, 56 hrs sleep per week, ~6% body fat [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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Dev, I'm at the point where following training plans has actually made me worse.

I was at my best when I wasn't following any training plan but running and cycling just about everyday, and most of that was at a snail's pace. I PR'd swim, bike, and run during that 12-18 months I was training like that.

Now I have admittedly not been super focused on training the last couple of years but those 3x or even 4x S/B/R training plans just don't work for me. Been trying to do that the last year and it's not working for me. I like the JFT mentality.

So I'm going back to doing a one hour bike + one hour run brick (to save time) 4-5x per week plus a 90 minute Saturday run and 2:30-3:00 Sunday ride. Swim at lunch when I get a chance. Wake up at 5am, eat some breakfast, take a dump, hop on trainer, go run, shower, go to work. Rinse and repeat each day.

Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One
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Re: GET FAST: 2 hrs per day/~14 hrs per week/~750 hrs per year, 56 hrs sleep per week, ~6% body fat [stringcheese] [ In reply to ]
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stringcheese wrote:

And I would add having a truly supportive significant other into the equation.

Chronic guilt is not compatible with long term success.

So true! The entire tenor and value of a session changes for me when I know I've got other things I could be doing but on my way out the door my wife makes it clear that she understands how important it is to me and supports me. The indolent Catholic guilt melts away and all that's left is joy and performance.

Great thread!
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Re: GET FAST: 2 hrs per day/~14 hrs per week/~750 hrs per year, 56 hrs sleep per week, ~6% body fat [RichardL] [ In reply to ]
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RichardL wrote:
So you are saying I will improve my 40K TT time just by riding 1-2 hours a day at L1/L2 without doing any type of HIIT, such as threshold or VO2 max intervals?


N=1, three or fours years ago, I wanted to try something different. In the past, I had pretty much trained lots of Sweet Spot or 20m Ftp intervals consistently year around. That spring I decided to train in high z2 (around my believed AeT) for two hour every day for three months, every single ride was at this intensity and never varied outside this zone. Results= Upside- I had second best 20m FTP ever only missing the best by a few watts. Downside- I was really crap at any effort above threshold. I have one of the highest W/Kg in my category but was get dropped early every race. It took three / four months of anaerobic work to get it back to normal but I was a monster after that.

BoulderCyclingCoach.com
Last edited by: rockdude: Feb 25, 17 8:35
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Re: GET FAST: 2 hrs per day/~14 hrs per week/~750 hrs per year, 56 hrs sleep per week, ~6% body fat [rockdude] [ In reply to ]
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rockdude wrote:
N=1, three or fours years ago, I wanted to try something different. In the past, I had pretty much trained lots of Sweet Spot or 20m Ftp intervals consistently year around. That spring I decided to train in high z2 (around my believed AeT) for two hour every day for three months, every single ride was at this intensity and never varied outside this zone. Results= Upside- I had second best 20m FTP ever only missing the best by a few watts. Downside- I was really crap at any effort above threshold. I have one of the highest W/Kg in my category but was get dropped early every race. It took three / four months of anaerobic work to get it back to normal but I was a monster after that.

My coach has me doing something very similar. I was able to fake my way up to consistent Cat 3 top tens with good sprint genetics. I ended up inheriting my coach's coach this off-season and his first comment was that I had no motor. Everything was based off of fast twitch muscles. He's had me do an enormous amount of zone two and just like you guys I'm working full-time and doing these on the weekends and at night. I do feel like my snap is gone, but I also feel like my engine and on bike efficiency has improved immensely.
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Re: GET FAST: 2 hrs per day/~14 hrs per week/~750 hrs per year, 56 hrs sleep per week, ~6% body fat [The GMAN] [ In reply to ]
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The GMAN wrote:
Dev, I'm at the point where following training plans has actually made me worse.

I was at my best when I wasn't following any training plan but running and cycling just about everyday, and most of that was at a snail's pace. I PR'd swim, bike, and run during that 12-18 months I was training like that.

Now I have admittedly not been super focused on training the last couple of years but those 3x or even 4x S/B/R training plans just don't work for me. Been trying to do that the last year and it's not working for me. I like the JFT mentality.

So I'm going back to doing a one hour bike + one hour run brick (to save time) 4-5x per week plus a 90 minute Saturday run and 2:30-3:00 Sunday ride. Swim at lunch when I get a chance. Wake up at 5am, eat some breakfast, take a dump, hop on trainer, go run, shower, go to work. Rinse and repeat each day.

I bet within your JFT approach you are modulating your intensities to handle "high enough loads" on the days that your life stresses permit and on other days, your intensities just get inherently jacked back down by feel. You are advanced enough an athlete at this point that when you raced without seeing your powermeter your NP for a 70.3 was within watts of seeing the numbers and following the numbers. You're probably doing a bit of the same during you JFT sessions hitting numbers within 1 percent of what you'd have achieved if the plan was presecribed in detail on a spreadsheet.

What people forget is that the human body is this organic thing but its performance is pretty darn deterministic on the days it wants to perform. I can predict my 100m swim splits or 400m track splits to the second or my 90 second bike intervals to the watt and then close my eyes and go on feel and see the number at the end being exactly the predicted one. But for my athletes, I could do the same thing also once I get to know them "enough". This stuff is not really rocket science. But you can't beat setting up your personal framework/infrastructure such that it is repeatable and you are motivated to do more training consistently adding in as much training load as the body and mind can take.
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Re: GET FAST: 2 hrs per day/~14 hrs per week/~750 hrs per year, 56 hrs sleep per week, ~6% body fat [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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devashish_paul wrote:
I would say the number 1 habit of highly successful endurance athletes is that they somehow magically.

What is the rest of this sentence? Or are you saying that they are just magic?
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Re: GET FAST: 2 hrs per day/~14 hrs per week/~750 hrs per year, 56 hrs sleep per week, ~6% body fat [johnnybefit] [ In reply to ]
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johnnybefit wrote:
devashish_paul wrote:

I would say the number 1 habit of highly successful endurance athletes is that they somehow magically.


What is the rest of this sentence? Or are you saying that they are just magic?

Sorry, the rest must have gotten cut out by mistake.....they magically make the training happen when other guys cave or come up with excuses.
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Re: GET FAST: 2 hrs per day/~14 hrs per week/~750 hrs per year, 56 hrs sleep per week, ~6% body fat [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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devashish_paul wrote:

Sorry, the rest must have gotten cut out by mistake.....they magically make the training happen when other guys cave or come up with excuses.

Agree but I think it could be "They INTENTIONALLY make the training happen". No real magic - they just do it!
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Re: GET FAST: 2 hrs per day/~14 hrs per week/~750 hrs per year, 56 hrs sleep per week, ~6% body fat [johnnybefit] [ In reply to ]
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johnnybefit wrote:
devashish_paul wrote:


Sorry, the rest must have gotten cut out by mistake.....they magically make the training happen when other guys cave or come up with excuses.


Agree but I think it could be "They INTENTIONALLY make the training happen". No real magic - they just do it!

Yes, it's not magic, just like you don't make money through magic. Making time for anything or making money take a ton of effort. From the outside it seems like magic but the person pulling it off, for that person its no cakewalk. Just a ton of organization and persistence and support from those around.

It comes back to the "find time" vs "make time" that exists in the vocabulary of people that can't make a priority happen. They say, "I could not FIND time for XYZ"....it's exactly like the person who says, "I was walking down the sidewalk and did not FIND any dollars on the street to pay for today's dinner"....well of course you're not going to FIND time or FIND money. It just does not happen. Its all about MAKING it happen.
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Re: GET FAST: 2 hrs per day/~14 hrs per week/~750 hrs per year, 56 hrs sleep per week, ~6% body fat [sebo2000] [ In reply to ]
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sebo2000 wrote:
I think a lot of it was cased by HIIT, famous "Time crunched cyclists" etc, magic BS gains in 8 weeks.... same as magic diet that allows you to loose 20kg in 30 days...

Somebody should expose HIIT for what it is, and stop blowing smoke up untrained beginners asses and promise them god know what in 8 weeks.

Books like Time Crunched Cyclists causes more injuries than car accidents, I would even say more bad than good.

There is a lot of people starting in the sport, and books like time crunched cyclists are the most appealing, talking about Cyclocross worlds after 8 weeks of training...

Carmichael should be hang by the balls upside down....

Well that's quite the rant... but every time crunched plan I've ever looked at, including Carmichael's, included the caveat that the plan was not optimal for reaching your maximum potential, but rather designed to get the best bang for the buck out of low to moderate volume, not because that is the better approach but because for many people it is the only practical approach.

You know, shocking as it may be to some in the ST world, many people have families, jobs that require long hours, etc. and can't make training the primary focus of their nonworking hours.
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Re: GET FAST: 2 hrs per day/~14 hrs per week/~750 hrs per year, 56 hrs sleep per week, ~6% body fat [tttiltheend] [ In reply to ]
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tttiltheend wrote:
sebo2000 wrote:

I think a lot of it was cased by HIIT, famous "Time crunched cyclists" etc, magic BS gains in 8 weeks.... same as magic diet that allows you to loose 20kg in 30 days...

Somebody should expose HIIT for what it is, and stop blowing smoke up untrained beginners asses and promise them god know what in 8 weeks.

Books like Time Crunched Cyclists causes more injuries than car accidents, I would even say more bad than good.

There is a lot of people starting in the sport, and books like time crunched cyclists are the most appealing, talking about Cyclocross worlds after 8 weeks of training...

Carmichael should be hang by the balls upside down....


Well that's quite the rant... but every time crunched plan I've ever looked at, including Carmichael's, included the caveat that the plan was not optimal for reaching your maximum potential, but rather designed to get the best bang for the buck out of low to moderate volume, not because that is the better approach but because for many people it is the only practical approach.

You know, shocking as it may be to some in the ST world, many people have families, jobs that require long hours, etc. and can't make training the primary focus of their nonworking hours.

Well there is always the option to change jobs and open up more time for other things if the long working hours are getting in the way. It's really a question of what someone wants out of life. There are only a few jobs in this world that you can't switch out of. The rest, you can if you want to. It may involve making less money, or the work might be less interesting or glamorous, but there are other options that allow people more time with family and for fitness. Most of these things are a personal choice. Less job, less fancy car/s, less fancy everything, more time for family or training. These are all personal priority management choices at different phases in life.

But hey, if the long work hours make one happy (and I know that in general my work life has made me quite happy as I get paid to do my other hobby which is tech), then it is totally fine if one wants to short change training. It's fine. But if someone is miserable because of their long work hours and they can't enjoy exercise which they want to do and want to work less, it sounds like they are prisoners in their own self created jail cell.

This may or may not be you. I've gone through that myself at times and just made sure I inserted by 2 hours of training somehow, work be damned....or I changed jobs. There is still 8-12 hours per day (depending on the company and the mission) for work. Honestly if I can't produce in 6 hours what other guys doing the presenteeism routine are doing in 10 hours then I'm just being inefficient (because by and large most people are work are inherently inefficient). On the other hand, I am in an output measured industry, so it's easier for me to say. If one is in a service oriented or manufacturing oriented company where every unit of input time equates to an output then you can't get away with my mindset.


And I should add, just winging 2 hours of training per day WILL NOT GET ONE to their max potential, just like Carmichael won't on HITS. There are much better ways to get to max potential. In general terms though, 2 hours per day and getting to low body fat and lots of rest through sleep will get most guys and girls really far towards the max potential. Then you have the last 5%, but the last 5 percent over a 10 hour Ironman is the diff between the 10 hour guy and the 9:30 guy. 5% does not sound like a lot but it's a completely different world. For that, you really do have to apply proper science. JFT 2 hrs per day will go only so far.
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Re: GET FAST: 2 hrs per day/~14 hrs per week/~750 hrs per year, 56 hrs sleep per week, ~6% body fat [tttiltheend] [ In reply to ]
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tttiltheend wrote:
not because that is the better approach but because for many people it is the only practical approach.


I'm going to completely disagree. Having been on that side that felt it was the only "practical approach," I was fooling myself because I didn't want to take the plunge and put in the mental effort required to do 14-16hrs a week. I rationalized that I could get by with 5-9hrs a week. That HIIT was just as good if not even scientifically better. But the truth of the matter was and is that there is no substitute for hard work. But that's just it, it's "hard" work and we all know the mind breaks long before the body. This is especially true after you spend 8-9hrs at the office.

Here's the crux: People basically want to come home from work and have the training equivalent of a microwave dinner. Push a few buttons on the smart trainer and off you go...

So personally, I would reword your sentence "not because that is the better approach but because for many people it is the mental easier approach."
Last edited by: cabdoctor: Feb 25, 17 19:01
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Re: GET FAST: 2 hrs per day/~14 hrs per week/~750 hrs per year, 56 hrs sleep per week, ~6% body fat [cabdoctor] [ In reply to ]
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No I think you are missing the point there. I don't think there is any doubt that 5-9 hours per week is (obviously depending on workouts) easier than 14-16. For some people, doing 5-9 may be the excuse. But For some people, 14-16 is simply not practical because of other things in their life--whether those things come by choice or are dictated for them. They too still have a place in this sport and, thus, so too do training plans made for those athletes to maximize the benefit of their training time on more limited hours. Those are not the athletes Dev is speaking to...back on topic.

Great thread...consistency rules!
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Re: GET FAST: 2 hrs per day/~14 hrs per week/~750 hrs per year, 56 hrs sleep per week, ~6% body fat [cabdoctor] [ In reply to ]
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Quote:
Here's the crux: People basically want to come home from work and have the training equivalent of a microwave dinner. Push a few buttons on the smart trainer and off you go..


This is so true. I have a handful of guys in my small-ish training group that just expect the work to be doable/easy since it was given to them by their coach and that they should be able to get through it. They end up taking complete stopping rests on hard interval sessions because they aren't mentally prepared for the work or willing to suffer for it.

I get up at 4, coffee and poop, then S/B/R mentally ready to work hard, then enjoy the rest of my day at work knowing I hit, or at least tried to hit, my targets of my personal goal for the day.
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Re: GET FAST: 2 hrs per day/~14 hrs per week/~750 hrs per year, 56 hrs sleep per week, ~6% body fat [DFW_Tri] [ In reply to ]
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DFW_Tri wrote:
No I think you are missing the point there. I don't think there is any doubt that 5-9 hours per week is (obviously depending on workouts) easier than 14-16. For some people, doing 5-9 may be the excuse. But For some people, 14-16 is simply not practical because of other things in their life--whether those things come by choice or are dictated for them. They too still have a place in this sport and, thus, so too do training plans made for those athletes to maximize the benefit of their training time on more limited hours. Those are not the athletes Dev is speaking to...back on topic.

Great thread...consistency rules!

Hey, just to be clear, I don't think that for the 5 hour per week guy, opening up 14 hours is likely. This person perhaps has other life priorities and that's fine. I do think for the 9-10 hour week person, 14 hours is totally in reach with some semblance of organization. Most people are just disorganized in terms of how they give their time away to others for low priority, useless and unproductive things. There is a ton of low hanging fruit in people's lives that can be harvested out of their lives to create a clear path for high priority endeavors. If training is one of them, then bonus.
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Re: GET FAST: 2 hrs per day/~14 hrs per week/~750 hrs per year, 56 hrs sleep per week, ~6% body fat [Ktri] [ In reply to ]
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I agree with much of this. Consistency is critical, but so is purpose. I know plenty of guys that do 15-20hrs a week of either z2 or anaerobic all out. They never get faster.
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Re: GET FAST: 2 hrs per day/~14 hrs per week/~750 hrs per year, 56 hrs sleep per week, ~6% body fat [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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I wasn't responding to your post but rather to the poster who assumes that those who choose to train less are mentally weak.
Last edited by: DFW_Tri: Feb 26, 17 7:07
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Re: GET FAST: 2 hrs per day/~14 hrs per week/~750 hrs per year, 56 hrs sleep per week, ~6% body fat [cabdoctor] [ In reply to ]
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cabdoctor wrote:
tttiltheend wrote:
not because that is the better approach but because for many people it is the only practical approach.


So personally, I would reword your sentence "not because that is the better approach but because for many people it is the mental easier approach."

So have you ever had children? I spent many years where I could only get a few hours of exercise a week. My family came first, my job second. Not to mention house renovations that I did myself, doing my own landscaping, etc. etc. There's lots of advice given in threads like these to change jobs but it's the exception rather than the rule that one can move to a job with less hours and not give up some professional advancement potential, job satisfaction, and compensation. Do I wish I could have exercised more, and competed? Sure! Do I regret my choices? Nope, not for one second.

Now I have flexibility to train a lot in the manner that Dev recommends, compete in triathlons, etc. and it's very nice to indulge myself this way and reach the higher levels of fitness that it enables. But it doesn't make me morally superior or smarter in any way shape or form than my younger, hardworking self.

It's also ironic to me that a time crunched approach is viewed as less mentally challenging. High intensity work to me is much mentally harder than the L2 base work that gets added with additional volume.

I don't doubt that some people use time-crunched programs as a mental excuse but for many people it's a matter of making responsible choices with their life.
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Re: GET FAST: 2 hrs per day/~14 hrs per week/~750 hrs per year, 56 hrs sleep per week, ~6% body fat [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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Miagi say, "find your balance"

Not everything is as it seems -Mr. Miyagi
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Re: GET FAST: 2 hrs per day/~14 hrs per week/~750 hrs per year, 56 hrs sleep per week, ~6% body fat [DFW_Tri] [ In reply to ]
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DFW_Tri wrote:
I wasn't responding to your post but rather to the poster who assumes that those who choose to train less are mentally weak.

I think in some EXTREME situations yes only 5-9 hrs is available. But I have to agree with the other posters that for the vast vast majority that say it isn't possible, it's because of mismanagement of time and a generally unwillingness to put in the effort to try and find that time.
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Re: GET FAST: 2 hrs per day/~14 hrs per week/~750 hrs per year, 56 hrs sleep per week, ~6% body fat [cabdoctor] [ In reply to ]
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Or, by choice. Again, you are assuming that athlete X wants to dedicate every free minute of their week to triathlon. if so, there is surely more than 9 hours there. But work, family, other stuff going on in life may take precedence and soak up that other time.
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Re: GET FAST: 2 hrs per day/~14 hrs per week/~750 hrs per year, 56 hrs sleep per week, ~6% body fat [tttiltheend] [ In reply to ]
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tttiltheend wrote:
My family came first, my job second. Not to mention house renovations that I did myself, doing my own landscaping, etc. etc.


tttiltheend wrote:
it's the exception rather than the rule that one can move to a job with less hours and not give up some professional advancement potential, job satisfaction, and compensation.

I think you hit the nail on the head with both of these comments. To make this work you do have to sacrifice..a lot. It maybe it's yourjob, it may mean hiring someone to do your yard or home renovations, or maybe choosing to live some place with very little upkeep. I think the point that most of us are making is that to be successful, and I hate to use that phrase because I think any happy athlete is successful and so i consider you a successful athlete, but to be a winning athlete it takes a lot of premeditated sacrifice. And that's true at any level no matter how many or few hours you put in.
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