Agreed. There are lots of things in this world that many unanswered are physically or mentally capable of doing. The fact that someone is actually doing it, while others choose to sit at home, highlights, rather than undermines, how impressive it is.

When you break it down as physical, hard labor day after day? This becomes less impressive because it is so slow. So it compares more to normal physical labor that Farmers and Factory workers do day after day. That Soldiers in a hot war zone do day after day.

But his rides turning into massive draft packs degrade the accomplishment. Recreating Forest Gump on his run walks? Cool for him.

Am impressed? Slightly. I can readily admit that he's doing something that I'm not currently in shape to do. But anyone who was a knuckle dragger in the service who did sustained operations in the same set of fatigues for 60 days is a bit more impressive than a dude who gets massages, and hot food every day for 100 days and massive amount of sycophants buffeting his ego.

As noted in the thread where we have over 1000! Posts, which Lionel Sanders doesn't even get. It was mentioned that the charity he's working with is also under investigation!

Dude can't even get the charity support stuff figured out!

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

I have a theory on where a lot of the controversy comes from. Based on my tri friends, I divide the triathlon crew into basically two camps:

-The epic training crew. These guys are all about the long training days. They seem to be more about the training more than the racing. I know quite a few who explicitly say so. It makes sense, since unless you are a professional your race performance does not matter, except to yourself.

-The race performance crew. They are focused more on race placing and times. If they can get a better race performance for less training time, that is great. You don't see this bunch post about epic training nearly as much. It is just a means to an end.

In relation to the IronCowboy stuff, I think the big conflict is between the epic training crew and the racing crew.

Racing is all about head to head competition, failing that it is comparing performances on the same course with the same rules. Nobody is saying what IC is doing is easy. It is just not racing. He has no competition, and essentially no rules.

The conflict comes when the "epic training crew" keeps trying to compare what IC is doing to a competition or race - particularly an Ironman race. Even the title of the thread ("draft legal tris") shows that.

But what he is doing does not resemble a real draft legal tri in any way.

I’m tracking with you and agree for the most part.
But (or, additionally) as a ‘epic training crew’ guy myself, I don’t hear ‘triathlon’ or ‘Ironman’ and equate it to a race. So I can say triathlon or Ironman and know that I’m completely competing against myself. I don’t compare my 11:53:xx Ironman finish to somewhat with a 11:30:xx and think I’m less of an athlete nor the 12:30:xx finisher and say I’m a much better athlete. I see myself as the dude who trained my tail off and spent a couple hundred hours training to finish the race with my arms raised high and a smile on my face. Not racing an ‘Ironman race’ and my guess is that most don’t race it apart from racing their internal goals (ie, in my case, the 12:00:xx goal)

I don't think there are really two camps in terms of training vs racing people. If you want to get to the pointy end of swimming or cycling you will have spent a chunk of your time doing 30-40 hrs training weeks and if you wanted to get to any level of running you would have done a large part of your life hovering around 100-150 mile running weeks anyway.

So you'll inherently have an appreciation for what IC is dragging himself through. yes there are are the 12 hrs ride and 3 hrs run per weekend athletes also who will perhaps be more mentally aligned with him, but anyone who has done pointy end sport and been through the drudgery of the ultra high load training periods or camps will also strongly relate.

Where it may fall apart is ultra high performance people who feel that somehow IC is diminishing their accomplishment of speed (IC gets more ST views in general than anyone but Lionel and Lucy), or people who think they are performance types who actually have not even scratched their performance envelope with the types of volumes Frodo or Peter Reid crank/ed out. I can assure you if we got to ask Peter Reid or Thomas Hellriegel what they think of IC they would be huge fans. I bet Faris would love what IC is doing. Heck Hellriegel is closing on 50 and he keeps posting all kinds of IC like workouts from all over he world.

I don't think huge training and performance sport are decoupled, rather they are highely intertwined. I think some of the animosity is actually from age groupers sitting at home doing regular jobs who are way faster than IC, kind of envious that they are in the corporate drudgery and this guy is living a life of exercise off zero racing pedigree. Or semi fast people who may feel that the IC event is taking away from their accomplishments

On my side, I would put myself in the camp of performance through lifestyle fitness. I logged my biggest training year in almost 20 years with zero racing on deck. It was lifestyle with an eye to future performance. I kind of dig that IC made up his own events to give himself a performance focus during this pandemic whle the rest of us mark time helplessly waiting for others to put on races for us to realize our performance and "head to head" goal (I totally get the head to head part which is why virtual races are uninteresting to me).

impressive (adjective) - evoking admiration through size, quality, or skill; grand, imposing, or awesome

while I can acknowledge what he is doing is "uncommon" I don't admire it in the least. I also think that quite a few people would be physically and capable of doing what he is doing, but they have too much wisdom/intelligence to dedicate that much of their time and effort to such an endeavor when there are so many more useful things that could be done with that amount of time and support.

It seems like total excess, with no useful benefit to anyone, other than to feed this individual's own ego. If he inspired a million people to follow in his footsteps, tell me how the world would be a better place?

My only point is being "impressive" or whatever other adjective that has real meaning is completely subjective. You may be impressed or you may not be, but no matter which side of this you are on, there is no true objective basis, its just how you feel about it.

Most people think a 70.3 or 140.6 or 50mi or 100mi Ultra is total excess, so it’s all relative.

I know someone that ran from San Fran to CT (coast to coast) - it is an all consuming lifestyle.

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https://www.strava.com/...tes/zachary_mckinney

Something like that may be an all consuming lifestyle for two or three months they're doing it, but the overwhelming majority of ultra runners who go long fit their training in around fairly regular jobs. There's a normal work and family life waiting for them when they go home, even after an epic run.

Running 120 miles/week in training isn't a bigger time investment than many age groupers spend doing IM, and running is much easier to schedule than the complexities of a SBR program. 16 to 20 hours of running is far more flexible, with fewer constraints dependent on location, weather, time of day, equipment, facilities, etc.

"All consuming" is often more reflective of the individual, rather than the activity that they may be pursuing.

Yeah I meant the 100/100 IMs or running coast to coast is all consuming - you can't do anything else during this time period. It would be tough to manage a business at the same time.

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https://www.strava.com/...tes/zachary_mckinney

It's only two or three months though. Not everyone runs a business. Most people I know don't.

No different (timewise) from someone taking that time to backpack around South America or hike the Appalachian Trail or give their time to help with a building project in a developing country. And sure, not everyone is in a position to pursue such endeavours and for those who do, it's certainly balanced against other demands and responsibilities in one's life at the time.

But, it's only a few months out of a lifetime. Which goes on before and continues afterward pretty much as normally as it did when you left it.

I have a colleague returning to work from maternity leave soon. I'll be sure ask her what else she did with her time off. ;-)

I don't think the all-consuming bit is such a big deal. It's just the circumstances of Forrest Gumping it are a bit unusual.