I am curious about the last bullet point - too many life stressors. What would be some of the examples? Having kids? A demanding job? Financial struggles?

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Next races on the schedule: none at the moment

Tried to break 18. Yup that was me. Really rude awakening after I dropped nearly 2 mins on a 5k plateau after ramping from 35 mow to 70mpw on pfitz marathoning. Unfortunately that seems to have captured 98% of my performance. Sure maybe I'd get sub 18 with coach and.years more of big training, but I'd say that still farrr from what a typical kq guy could run even on tri training.

Exactly. Take on all 3 of the above stressors at the same time (esp. young kids without additional support) and most athletes' stress bucket is entirely full! IOW, their tolerance for also throwing a bunch of training stress into the mix is essentially non-existent.

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Alan Couzens, M.Sc. (Sports Science)
Exercise Physiologist/Coach
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Alan_Couzens
Web: https://alancouzens.com

Totally agree with you. I'm one age group older and you've summed it up pretty well. While "attrition" might help us, a setback could also take us out without much time/hope to get back to where we were.

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Indoor Triathlete - I thought I was right, until I realized I was wrong.

These stressors are true limiters but there are plenty of under 33 yr old men with no kids who train 10-12 hrs per week for years and def aren't close to kq let alone local tri age group podium.

That's a genetics limiter. They are not going to become kw rock stars by doubling training hours unless they were slacking off to start with.

Yep I was in that group for running before tri. Not even as fast as the worst d3 runner.

You can believe whatever you want but that exact profile sums up a good portion of athletes that I've worked with towards their KQ - MOP results while training 10-12 hrs/wk, doubled their volume over the course of a few years, achieved an Ironman podium and a KQ. Bottom line: Work works.

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Alan Couzens, M.Sc. (Sports Science)
Exercise Physiologist/Coach
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Alan_Couzens
Web: https://alancouzens.com

I believe you but again your group is almost certainly highly biased with those clearly with enough results and promise to seek out a high level coach AND commit 18 hrs a week to training. That is vastly different field from the typical m35, and certainly are not the ones who are self selecting out because of poor improvement rates despite trying really hard.

You do it with total randos and then it's.legit.

Where I would push back is that imo them doing 10-12 hrs and not getting podiums, etc isn't a genetic limiter. To me it's simply they aren't doing what they could be doing to even come close to their full potential. But of course this is only a hobby to most people, so some are ok with "only" training 10 hours a week and the results of that "limited" training will be what they will be. They maybe like chasing woman, or boozing every Friday with the boys, or are on the work focused grind. The issue becomes when they are training to those limited hours and bitching that they aren't winning races- they aren't winning races cus they likely aren't training up to the demands of competition.

So whatever you do and whatever goal you set- you just have to match what your going to put into it to achieve the goal. And the actual goal imo isn't even the end game really. You could have the PR of your life time but maybe 2 other guys simply beat you and take those KQ spots. In that event, your work and outcome basically matched, you just missed the actual outcome goal. But the process of training and putting together a race that rocks- you nailed it. You just got "unlucky" and you shake their hand and go get them next time.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

The mental fortitude to put in the time is in and of itself a genetic limiter. There is a large portion of athletes (already a self selected group) that just don't have the genetic make up to put in the required time. Cross that with those that are genetically predisposed to handle the volume of work required leaves a small subset of athletes that can have the ability to KQ. It is nowhere near "most" can KQ, there is still a huge genetic component, it may be he/she is fast/efficient or can just handle big training loads.

So how about we look at the other end of the field.If "most" people can get into the qualifying range then surely everyone could finish in under 15hrs..
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One of the most insightful things I have ever read here in ST is many years ago when Jonnyo said that if you look at the times required of each sport to go under 10hrs,it isn't really that "fast". I did it once and I'm a lazy beer drinking slug so I agree.
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I will now put my flameproof suit on. :-)

The hard part is stringing them together!

I was sort of goading Alan into this very conclusion. I don't doubt - based on his written work - that he is a stellar sports scientist - but I do believe that the athletes he succeeds with are largely self selected with a massive skew towards the genetic predisposition to not be broken by the massive workloads.

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Next races on the schedule: none at the moment

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That is one of the mystic secrets of doing well in Ironman with the other one being getting your nutrition right on race day.I believe that so many people have put the challenge of Ironman on such a high pedestal that they have talked themselves out of achieving what they are perfectly capable of even before they sign up and then train accordingly.

Nah I actually think for most people they get what they deserve with the end result. If your a "finisher" and your putting in finisher type of bare min workouts, your going to get a bare min type of result. And I think there are a ton of people out there who do that....not because they think it's this mythic hard race- just that with their life/work/balance they simply can't do enough to actually race it well.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

This was me in my early 30's. Averaged about 8-9 hours a week usually, and around 10-12 hours a week in a 16-20 week build for a race. On that type of volume I managed a 4:43 Half IM. In addition, my training was all over the place. Missing sessions, sometimes even whole weeks.

I didn't know how lucky I was. I had a job that let me run or swim at lunch, and supportive family that gave me flexibility to train on weekends.

Now I'm in my late 30's with injuries and a new job with limited flexibility and lots of travel, am out of shape, and that type of fitness seems like a distant memory I'll never get back.

I look back and think damn, if I had of had the discipline to even just build volume to 15 hours a week for a year, and hold consistency every week and every session I could've done so much more. Nothing special, just doing the work as required. Oh well, hopefully life circumstances change in the near future and I can do things properly this time around

Spot on.

My body really struggles with volume, mainly swimming & running. Throughout my 40's, and even with regular 'maintenance', I struggle to put together more than 12km swim weeks consistently. Shoulders, elbows, whatever...something tends to come up. I did two Ironmans on approx 6km per week average.

And running...? Even worse. From memory, I maxed out at about 40kms in a single week, because both my achilles just couldn't take it.

OK, let me be the first then: I swam Masters in my 20s and was swimming 40,000 yd/wk for 4 yrs pre-tri, so I had a pretty good fitness base before tri. When I took up the B and R at age 30, I trained 20 hr/wk, 50 weeks/yr, for 10 yrs. I focused mainly on Oly dist (5-6 races/yr) and half irons (2/yr). Despite training more than anyone else I know, the best I could do, on my very best days, was 2:10 for an Oly dist and 4:42 for a half. This was back in the mid to late 90s when you could KQ in Oly dist races and half irons. The KQ guys were going 1:58-59 in the Oly and 4:15-ish in the half, in the 30-34 and 35-39 AGs. I've always been able to swim with the KQ guys but, no matter how much I rode and ran, I just never could hold their pace on the B and R. I think the only reason I could swim with them is b/c I had really maximized my swim ability in my pre-tri days, whereas they just did enough swim training to get by, or else they just did not have any swim ability. I mean it's not like I was some hotshot AAAA distance swimmer but rather I was just a Grade B distance swimmer, acc to USA Swimming standards. :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Putting in the right # of hours isn't enough. How did your training look like? Give an example with a typical week or training block. But if it was back in the 90`s it could be different. Apparently pretty much everyone were better bikers back then.

I think global warming is the reason.

Typical week was 20,000 m swim, 200 mi (320 km) bike, and 40 mi (64 km) run. I'd do 5 weeks of this, then one week easy of about 1/2 of these distances. I simply never got past averaging around 18-19 mph (29-30 km/hr) as a daily average speed. On really good days I might average 21 mph (33.6 km/hr) but only if flat, little wind, and feeling really good. On the run, I was slightly better I think but still at 40 mi/wk I generally averaged 7:30-8:00/mi (4.7-5.0 min/km). However, on the swim I could routinely swim 3600 m under 1 hr (under 1:40/100 scm) every day, and go 21 min (1:24/100 m) typically for the 1500 m OW swim in races.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I was thinking more in terms of intensity. Were you going really easy on the easy days and at the right intensity on the hard days? From what you write I get the impression that you were trying to hit a certain speed at every session.

I don't mind going 8min/mile, or even more, on my easy days. But for tempo runs I typically go 6.20 and on the track I am in the 5.45 - 6.00 range for threshold intervals. And I leave the ego (most days at least) at the door step regardless of session.

Same on the bike, but more in terms of a combination of power/RPE/HR than speed.

(1.30/100 in the pool is a different matter. That is more like all out for me after 2-3 reps on X x 100 than threshold )

Well, 10 hours is on the low side. I don't doubt that most folks doing 10-12 hours per week have the potential to reach another level if they increase their volume to 18-20 hours per week, I don't think anyone disputes that. But I think when you get into training 12-14 hours per week consistently, year after year, you do start get a pretty reasonable idea of your ceiling. No, it's not enough to reach your potential by any means, but increasing your training another 6-8 hours per week isn't going to take someone from the USAT 50th AG percentile to the 95th or higher. I know about three dozen people that have done IM distance events, and 2 that have KQed. The two that KQed are not BOP even when they're training moderate hours, even on 10-12 hours per week they get on the podium in local events. The additional volume in the years they've focused on IM events gets them winning local AG categories and in shape to KQ. One of them, a mid-40s male, has an FTP of 310-320 and W/KG of around 4.1-4.2 when he's training hard. But even when he's slacking he's at least in the high 200s and it seems even on minimal training he hits 300 very quickly. Those are not necessarily elite genetics but they aren't average either. Your average mid 40s male of average build who trains pretty consistently is likely to start hitting the wall in the mid 200s, not over 300. And at 3.3-3.4 W/KG instead of 4.2, the road to KQ is going to be pretty tough.

But I'd love to see actual case studies and actual data showing truly MOP folks (not folks that can already podium in local races) transforming themselves into KQers. I'd like to be convinced! So far all I've seen is anecdotal evidence.

Thank you for the kind words.

So, just so I understand your central thesis, you're saying that a disproportionate number of athletes who approach me to coach them, even though not high volume at the time, have some latent genetic predisposition to handle high work loads that is not present in the population at large?

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Alan Couzens, M.Sc. (Sports Science)
Exercise Physiologist/Coach
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Alan_Couzens
Web: https://alancouzens.com

That's my gut feel, although I am sure that you also filter some applicants that are not coachable, etc.
Of course, I don't know how many of the athletes you coach never overachieve despite the hard work/high volume.

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Next races on the schedule: none at the moment

Thanks. Very interesting. Seems like a bit of an odd assertion but I guess it's impossible for me to confirm or reject how genetically 'normal' my sample is other than to see the same patterns show as it gets larger.

Regarding those who fail to 'overachieve' despite the hard work, obviously there is a range of response but, at the numbers that I am talking about, i.e. 1000+ hours, all who have done that (to date) have achieved KQ. I would be hesitant to say that they 'over-achieved' given that other, more genetically 'talented', athletes have also achieved a KQ on almost half that volume

Of course, you could be right. Perhaps I just haven't come across all of the guys like Eric - the 1000hr a year for 10 years (!) guys who still fail to KQ. Based on my experience to date, I doubt it but I am open to that possibility.

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Alan Couzens, M.Sc. (Sports Science)
Exercise Physiologist/Coach
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Alan_Couzens
Web: https://alancouzens.com

How many IM races did you do during that time period? I know there weren't many in the mid to late '90s, because that's when I was trying to KQ. I think the quantity of training you were doing would probably have led you to more AG success in an IM than a HIM or Oly. The "1000 hours" guarantee that AC appears to be making is for qualifying at an IM for Kona.

I qualified at IM Canada in '99 and '00 at ages 40 and 41, both rolldown spots, with finish times of 10:58 and 10:53. Those were the only IM races I did those years (other than Kona). I qualified at Blackwater HIM in '97 with a 4:34 (third in AG, first rolldown spot) but that was only the first or second year it had Kona spots and there were 500 to 700 total participants in the race. I did multiple Kona qualifying events around the country from '95 through '00.

I certainly didn't train 1000 hours those years, more in the 650 to 700 range. I wasn't married or in a serious relationship, didn't have kids and had a paper-pushing desk job where I rarely worked more than 42 hours per week. Triathlon was my social life. I had been competing regularly in running and multisport events for more than 20 years. My fastest open marathon was a 3:08. I may have been able to compete at a D3 level as a cyclist if there was such a thing.

I'm only bringing up my KQ history because Eric discussed trying to qualify in the same time period. The competition for KQ spots is obviously much deeper now than 20 years ago.