He was a cyclist I believe, no idea how early he started that.

Macca, Crowie come to mind.

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I think Crowie had coaches. I know of at least one.

edit : They refer to Frank as "mentor" to Crowie

When Ryan Hall ran 2:06:17 at London to place 5th which, at the time, the world record was 2:04:26. So to say "50" Ethiopian and Kenyans were faster than him at this time (considering the Olympics were a few months after this). He was 45s behind the eventual Olympic Gold Medallist Sammy Wanjiru. I believe he ran too conservative in the Olympics (this was the one in Bejing where they had high temps and high humidity), but then again, that win by Sammy (he ran 2:06 in those conditions) is considered the race that changed the sport of marathoning forever. Also.. Ryan Hall's 2:06 that year was the 9th fastest time in the world. If you spread it from the beginning of 2006 to the end of 2009, Hall had the 16th fastest time in the world. If you spread it to the end of 2010? 22nd fastest time. Hall was definitely a freak of nature. The only thing he did wrong in his career was not go back to faster running before going back to the marathon. He ran that 59:43 solo basically a year after running 13:16 or something like that in college. Him and Dobson were on a roll and then ran into a very fit and tough Tim Broe at the World Champs in Long Beach (which I was luckily enough to attend).

So I'd argue that your assessment in Hall is definitely off based. Hope you appreciate the little history lesson. People forget how on fire he was from 2005 until he wanted God to coach him.

for most of his carrer macca had a coach from france.
and crowie had a big team of advisers so i would not call this self coached.

Ryan Hall made infinitely more money than Joe Skipper therefore in my book he's a lot more successful. Let's not forget that Joe Skipper until recently barely made ends meet and recorded a whole podcast ranting against the cost of going to Kona. How else do you think he is flying the 15 hours to Kona if not in economy? I think triathlon is such a small world that some people completely lose perspective, make some athletes into amazing stars, and forget that "having a bike sponsor" in tri (which Skipper didn't have for a while) generally means you get a free bike.

Frankly, I can't believe Skipper didn't do this race. It is right up his alley and even had prize money. Where was he? It's like it was custom designed for him and he didn't participate.

He was an elite cat roadie over ten years ago - I am guessing he would have been late teens/early 20s at that point.

His road racing history is on here, you can click through the years using the drop down - Points - Individual (britishcycling.org.uk)

"I did my first Triathlon at the end of 2010 initially for a challenge, I wasn’t swimming or running but was cycling and fancied a challenge so entered a half ironman.
In 2011 I won the amateur British middle distance champs and Lucy Gossage persuaded me to race Pro, I couldn’t afford to enter races as an amateur and she said you get free entries and sometimes they will put you up."
http://joeskipper.co.uk/about-joe/

It was snarky, but not pink. It was more about how triathletes don't take strength training seriously enough to propel themselves forward.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

I remember one of his interviews with Bob Babbitt circa 2016-2017. He mentioned he felt amazing the race he broke 1 hour for the half marathon and he was never able to duplicate that feeling in a race his entire career.

Ferris Al Sultan? I believe he was self-coached and won Kona. Maybe he didn't have the longevity, but putting it together for a short time on his own is impressive.

This one is easy DAVE SCOTT. Dave not only did his own training program but shared most of it with us. Hell I am 80 years old just back from Kona still follow a lot of his teaching and wisdom.