I don't know but I would guess there's not going to be that much crossover, world beater at 25 is going to be an age-group giant at 50, and vice versa.

I looked up running world records at one point for a lecture and was surprised to see some of the guys holding the AG group world records I recognized (e.g. Willie Gault for the 100m dash).

I'll add, I know the person who was head of the Armstrong Foundation for awhile, and did charity rides with the big wigs. Even back when Merckx was fat and not riding much anymore, he could sit on the front and ride with Armstrong and Hincapie and those guys and cruise at 24-25 mph at least at the start of the ride.

I saw Pauli Kiuru a few years back do a sprint. He's a local politician these days. We wasn't fat but did no training. 2nd out of the water level first at t2 faded to third to a guy young enough to be his son. He still had the drive in his eyes but still joked with people as he went past about being unfit.
Big Miles and good genes stick with you for a long time.

Case study, Pete Jacobs


CC

Good genes for sure but I think triathletes don't give enough credit to technique. I like to think most (all?) pros are dedicated enough to become excellent at what they do; get coaching, watch video, drill or move mindfully to make things perfect. It's the good movement makes us more efficient, reduce injuries and what's great is that it stays with us for a long time, perhaps forever. This perspective makes Lionel Sanders even more interesting to me but that's a whole other thread.

Ian

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Ian Murray
http://www.TriathlonTrainingSeries.com
I like the pursuit of mastery
Twitter - @TriCoachIan

for a fun datapoint:

my swim coach as a kid was an John Vogel and his brother Steve won an Olympic silver in the 100 fly. John was super fast too, just not quite at that level.

These two dude raced one afternoon a good twenty years removed from their peak. I doubt John had been in a pool (hot tub another story) in 10 years. They were fat and probably hungover. And both popped off sub 30 second LCM 50 flys.

You can probably find the study they did on Indurain ~15 years post retirement on google somewhere. The tl;dr - Turns out, if you're a stud athlete, you tend to stay a stud athlete.
Have ridden "with" (I use that term loosely) some former pro's that only ride "recreationally" (still on par with most AG athletes) now and it's still a completely different world they are in.

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My Blog - http://leegoocrap.blogspot.com

I think there is a mental component that comes with being a pro athlete that can't be discounted as well.

The WAC hot tub stories are legendary.

Yeah, that is separate from the nature vs nurture your fitness for sure.

As an AG’er I see it most obviously in the pool when getting lapped by former D1 swimmers that would struggle to run 1/2 a block.

The technique I’m sure fades, but a good chunk of it sticks with athletes. I would guess a much higher % than overall fitness.

I have no doubt that any good pro, with minimal AG-er like training, would crush AGers quite easily.

However, if they do ZERO training for years, they can get pretty ugly! I was at birthday party at a condo pool recently, and an ex D1-swimmer was there. Except he hadn't even been in a pool for literally 18 years - I found out because he mentioned it as he took a dip in the pool for his first time in that timeframe.

I asked him to do the pool length (prob 25yds) as hard as he could, right then and there just for kicks. He was a good sport about it - after the expected "I'm gonna suck, don't be surprised", he gave it a go.

Sorry to say, he actually did suck. I actually was pretty amazed at how badly he sucked. Looked almost like a BOMOP swimmer it was so ugly. 18 years off with no training has an effect apparently (duh).

Of course, I'm actually 100% sure that you give him like 2 training sessions of 30 mins each, and he'll be killing everyone again. Talent tends to stick around.

My estimates of how a person performs relative to their innate ability at different training levels (for fitness events between 5 minutes- 2.5 hrs)
25 hr/wk - 100%
15 hr/wk- 95%
8 hr/wk- 90%
4 hr/wk- 85%
“Staying active”- 75%


People will be closer to their “innate ability” with fewer hours in shorter events (especially those <5 minutes) with less training and father from their abilities in longer events (>2.5 hrs).
.

Also factor:
1) - .5% for every 1% extra body fat above “ideal” (more for running less for bike/swim)
2) - .5% for each year over 35
- 1 % for each year over 65
3) Form is very important in swimming
4) Taking decades “off,” smoking, heavy drinking, drugs- are also detrimental

I went to a swim workout on Friday night at Equinox in New York City. I wont drop the name but you can figure it out if interested. The workout was for people new to swim workouts, lots of rest and very short intervals. Kinda fun but its not going to get you ready for an Ironman. The only reason I went was my wife had people over and I needed to be out of the house.

The workout got interesting when I realized I had an Olympian in my lane. The top American Triathlete at Rio. He still looks super fit and of course was the fastest guy in the pool by far. I asked him if he had any races coming up. He said nope, I got injured and had to get a job. He does plan to race in the future but we didn't talk long because it was a workout and one of us was out of breath.

I'm not sure if this makes him mortal, I though it was awesome to have him the workout.

Generally speaking, if we are talking about a pro that was pretty good:

1. If they train like an age grouper, they will be really fast for their age as long as the keep it up. Getting fast takes talent and a lot of work but staying relatively fast upon "retirement" does not take as much as most people think,especially if you got talent.

2. If they go full on couch potato, they will be able to make some serious progress in 6 months but how fast they get in that short time frame will depend on how far they let themselves go. But even after years off, they will not be a typical couch potato based on a combination of their natural talent (which got them to pro and is still there), their decent base fitness that takes a super long time to get totally lost and unrecoverable and last but not to be overlooked as it is huge, they know how to train and get it done. If nothing else, you're looking at a fat out of shape slob with great genes and who knows how to train.

Care to elaborate?

Interesting - I didn’t realize he got hurt.

No idea how he would translate to longer stuff - pretty well rounded as an athlete, maybe a bit more of a runner than a swim/ biker?

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team

We had a guy who'd won a stage of the Tour de France join my club one year. He was still riding a bit, but not racing seriously. He could completely explode the local crazy group ride (Central Park Night Ride) at will.

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http://www.jt10000.com/

I'd actually agree for the most part with those percentages you throw out for the shorter distance races AND assuming one has spent years building up the experience and base to support it.

The longer the race, the more specificity required, and the harder it is to 'cheat' your way there. Which is a big reason why triathletes can often run really well for their ability in 5ks through HMs, but will fall apart at 26.2 relative to their shorter-distance performances, unless they train specifically for the marathon. (Gwen is an exception who is not the rule!)

I believe it. Many club guys think they are fast, but even an out of shape pro can usually take them all to the woodshed in a drunken stupor.

I think we will find out as I am sure Crowie will be doing sub 4hr HIM IN 10-15 years.

Yes. Though this ride often includes some cats 1s (and lots of cat 2s). Real racers, just no where near top pro level.

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http://www.jt10000.com/

Never. Rob Barel. Kona last year M60-64. Non TT bike and a road helmet 9:46:54! Won by over 51 minutes to Greg Taylor. Congratulations to him for keeping in such great shape.

Another data point for you (and with all due respect to SalmonSteve!)

• 2011 IMNZ, Sam Warriner 9:28:24 (1st Female overall).
• 2018 IMNZ, Sam Bradley 9:57:35 (1st Female 45-49, 10th female overall, 2nd female age grouper).

Can't comment on the relative conditions as I didn't attend 2011, and only did 70.3 this year (which was fast).


I've never seen these two athletes together... :o)

2011 was completely in the rain...not too cold (probably 18C for the high) , but completely wet :)

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Team Kiwami
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The first US Olympic medalist (bronze in Athens in 2004) in triathlon (Susan Williams), is still pretty much crushing everyone in her AG when she races.