Hey Jeff,

I wouldn't argue that there isn't a genetic component to durability but my experience has been that the athletes who need to do more are also the athletes who are able to tolerate more, i.e. 'talented' athletes have a tendency to be fragile, while athletes who lose the genetic lottery on the former tend to be more hardy. I see this as a 'thoroughbred v workhorse' classification.

Still, the above is theoretical for most as it's not genetics but lifestyle that limits most athletes from a durability perspective..
* Excessive intensity/inadequate base
* Poor nutrition
* Inadequate sleep
* Taking on too many life stressors.

When athletes are unable to hit relatively high annual training loads, 9 times out of 10, one or more of the above factors are at play.

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 8 min/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 )

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.

Mark - I wish that I could say that my 1000 hr/yr made me more comp at the IM dist but sadly that is simply not the case. What I have found is that I am at my peak position-wise at the end of the swim, e.g. in my 30s/40s I could be 5th or 6th OA out of the water, and then the fast bikers start to pass me, then the runners. In sum, I do better the less time the bike and run take, which is typically the Oly dist. In an Oly, I'd typically be say 5th OA out of the water and then maybe 20th OA at end of race. In my last half iron, I was 6th OA OOTW and then 66th OA at the finish. And then in a full iron, it just gets worse. :)

I think he addressed this in his response to me. He didn't to specific sessions, but rather went by daily feel.

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink :)

I guess you tried everything, but let me ask you 2 questions:
1) did you do in training bike-sessions like 5*5 minutes all out?
2) did you eat in the IM during the bike and the marathon at least 80g carbohydrates per hour?

I think from memory Eric spent a lot of those “1000 hours” via bike commute.
To be clear even if it was actually 1k hours per year, that is exorcise not training. Still awesome and would lead to some great low end benefits that you could actually start training from but if you’ve never done that who knows?
Also he never signed up and raced an IM.
Also a mid 10’s in the 90’s would have gotten you in to Kona....pretty much in most age groups if you banged on the door a bit.
Maurice

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

Nope, zero commuting. Typical day would be starting at about 5 PM: ride 30 miles, run 6 mi, then swim 4000 yds, shower, get home around 9.30 pm, take dog for 1 hr walk, eat, go to be around midnight, sleep 'til 7 am. Weekends Sat would be 5000 yd sw/60 mi bk/14 mi run. Sunday would be 3000/20/4. 3 to 4 days per week I would try to go as hard as I could during last part of each workout.

Eric,

If you did IMs during that time period (still not sure) and your in-race nutrition was good I'd guess you didn't race as well as expected because your taper was inadequate and that you carried too much fatigue into the IM events. From your description of your training in the post right above this post, I'm also not seeing any long rides or runs (100+B, 20R) or recovery days, which were certainly emphasized back in the day.
To those that write that commuting is not training, I disagree. I commuted to work on my bike during all my IM training years and still do and I think it definitely contributes to my fitness. I qualified for Kona three times in four years without a coach. As I wrote in my earlier post, there was a lot less competition to KQ 20 years ago, but I think most AGers who qualified during that time period were self coached except maybe for coaching they received in group swim training. We raced at a variety of distances and trained as much as we could without breaking down or getting slower in races. As Fleck as written many times here, it isn't really that complicated.

From memory so perhaps I am confusing you with another poster.
Currently, if you’ll entertain me:
What AG are you in?
Kids or no kids?
Is your work 40 hours/week clock in/clock out or management etc at 50-60 hours

@Lifetri -

Your posted times belies that you are almost certainly in the "I'm lucky to have pretty decent natural talent in tri but I totally take it for granted" camp.

Here is your criteria from your very post:

Let's assume a medium difficulty course and normal temperatures of say 70 degrees F with modest humidity, and otherwise average weather. Also assuming average equipment. The athlete puts in on average amount of work in. All things equal here (with the exception of GENETICS)...I think we all get it.

Oly:
G - 1:55
A - 2:05
U - 2:35


Seriously? 2:05 Oly for a 'medium difficulty' course on AVERAGE work = "average"???? Just look at almost any race results outside the national Oly championships, and a 2:05 puts you into the top 5%, and sometimes even wins the overall outright.

If you are the kind of guy that an achieve a 2:05 on 'average' training, meaning the same hours and relative intensity than a unlucky but hardworking guy (me), you are looking at this entire thread from the highly unbalanced rose-colored glasses of someone with significant talent.

Here's a better exercise - throw out ALL of your n=1 personal data, and look at the bulk of everyone else's results. Just go to any local, medium, and small race, and look how many people are finishing at the times you posted, and see if the reality is more likely that your n=1 results are skewed from someone who is probably a very good responder to tri training, compared to your hypothesized reality that the main reason why people aren't going 2:05 Oly (and the other times) is that they're so lazy and unmotivated that they can't even train enough for an AVERAGE plan. Yeah, right.

At least from this link, the AVERAGE finish time for an Oly tri in 2011 was 3hrs. Start from that reality and work backwards.

Maurice - I am 64 now, 65 in Jan 2020. Never had any kids. I'm retired now but when I worked I was an engineer and sometimes a manager/leader. I spent a lot of time in the USAF so you were a "leader" not just a "manager". Definitely not a clock in/clock out but generally most places I worked were fine with flex hours.

Also - please see my response to Mark Lemmon above about why I never bothered to try an IM.