I went to 1-2 XC ski training and technique camps per year from the mid-90s through about 2010 or 11; Silver Star most years and then always the one in Winthrop, WA where ex-Olympic skiers(Leslie Thompson Hall, Laura McCabe, who skied for the US in the 1994 and '98 games) lived after they retired. Laura usually took the racers. There was one year that I particularly remember that was about 2005 or 2006; a group of us had Laura as the coach that year and she was visibly very pregnant with what would be her first child, a girl. We were doing no-pole skate drills up a longish and fairly steep hill on a Friday morning. We were struggling and sweating up the hill while she appeared to effortlessly float up to the top as she skied beside each of us, giving feedback as we went. For the last hour before lunch we went and free skied (i.e., no drills) on the trails at Sun Mountain. After a short while when we were on flat ground she announced it was time to pick up the pace so the group behind her all did so; her version of 'turning up the effort' was to resemble a human bullet shot from a gun and she was a few hundred yards ahead of us in what seemed no more than a blink of an eye. She gave birth the next day.

The top American Triathlete in Rio was a woman.

I don’t think a lot of moderately fast people realize how strong and fast many pros are.

That’s part of the issue here.

We have a former Danish national track cyclist champ at work who is decades removed from that. He’s much much older now.

Yeah, he’s only a couple minutes behind Hincappie up Paris Mountain in Greenville. He’s got me for sure. He appears to avg 4-8 hrs a week riding. About the same volume as myself.

I was on a hilly ride with a 6* TdF rider (last Tour in 2005) last weekend. He retired in 2009, at age 41 today. I do not know exactly how much he was riding in the past couple of years and in the first months of this year, but he at least looked fit. Sure he still knows how to handle his bike and would have probably left all of us behind on a short, hard crit-style ride. But he dropped a bit towards the end of an one-hour long climb (@ ~250W/160lbs; so not really charging super hard). So, 13 years after the last grand tour, a former Pro definitively becomes mortal ;-)

Using myself as a case study...

Olympic trials qualifier in the pool and raced d-legal and long course tri for a few years professionally before being T-boned in Kona in 2009, and then spent 5-6 years fixing derivative hormonal issues.

Over the last 8-9 years i swam on average twice a year. Two years ago i hopped into an OW swim race and won it. Last summer i did the same and while i won it it was a lot shittier performance. I can still rip a 200 in under 2min but barely and anything longer than that is a disaster (zero swim endurance).

I've intermittently farted around on a bike in the years since i ceased racing and can count on two hands the number of times i've expressly gone "hard". At sea level i can put out 330-340 for a 30ish minute TT (90kg).

Run is the worst... have strung some multiple month streaks together of consistent jogging but don't find that it improves the condition much. Did a 58min (sorta hilly) 10k last year at 5300 feet.

Genetically i'm more of a VO2 athlete than an endurance one and can use that to "cheat" a bit at shorter distances. Technique on the swim also let's me get away with a lot, i'm not sure why i have resilient bike fitness but i'll take it, I like running but just can't fake my way to fast.

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
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I can see how running fitness / endurance fades fast.

I am surprised you can still put up those watts. Impressive.

Swimmers baffle me. It is incredible how the technique / muscle memory sticks. Even more so how they can just jump back in and cruise at paces I could only dream of. I would guess you would gain back your endurance in months.

Thanks for the response!

 
She was already slowing down in 2011. A 2009 Warriner would of put 30mins into that, but 2010 killed that.

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