On the plus side, I would have thought that male pro triathletes have a much bigger opportunity to be part of their children's day to day lives given they don't have to be sitting in an office or at a job away from home for 8 plus hours a day.

Sometimes amazes me the things people say on this forum. Sure the dude is clearly still learning. But how many 70.3s did he win this year, was it five? Jeez.

Rodger that.

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2024: Bevoman, Galveston, Alcatraz, Marble Falls, Santa Cruz

I think this is definitely THE best part of this job for me right now. I can honestly say if not for the value I see in this - being around a lot, I think I might have walked away a lot sooner after the struggles of the past few years.

I do think that the biggest struggle is not actually that family takes away physical/mental bandwidth; at least in my case, I think the biggest struggle is *ACCEPTANCE* of that fact. I've actually been able to match - and regularly exceed - the caliber of training that I was able to do when I did not have kids. Where I've struggled is that I cannot ALWAYS do that. In other words, I think having a bunch of kids - for me anyway - is less of an issue that my ability to accept that I have a bunch of kids. That's what I'm really trying to work on. After 11 years as a pro, I think I don't need to train the same way I did when I was a first year pro. But I have a very hard time actually believing that. It's super easy to write that now. But in mid-July, what I do speaks a volumes over what I say... But I really am trying to change.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

Hammer, meet nail.

I just can't think of too many World Class - Best in field athlete's, that tried to go it alone and make it work. I see it as just removing an unknown variable. A world Class coach would not have had Lionel wear a camel-back in the biggest race of the year. Or draft off of Matt Chrabot in the swim leg. Or the poor nutrition choices that seem to hamper Lionel in the late stages of some of those 70.3 races. i.e. stomach distress etc etc.. The list of what appears to be very basic mistakes are long.

A World Class coach will guarantee Lionel nothing. However, it will eliminate an unknown variable ( How would I perform under the watchful eye of a World Class Coach) and also provide a counter voice on the misguided strategies mentioned above. He is just too good to leave that to chance. Way too good...

Crowie thought it was important enough to leave a great training ground in Aus each year and uproot his family and move to Boulder. With Great results, come great sacrifices.

If it continues to fail, then at least you tried to cover all the bases and left nothing to chance...

Last I checked he was in the Windsor, ON area. So right over the border from Detroit. I think there's a descent swim club in town there as well. But he'll need to pay for some private coaching. Just a 30' session a week can do wonders. There's a guy locally that does this. He's a assistant coach in the private youth program here, but does private lessons on the side. I think a youth coach is better than a college coach in many cases for stroke refinement. They are more accustomed to try to correct a stroke while working within a athletes natural tendencies. You're looking to correct flaws, not try and duplicate a textbook stroke. Everyone ideal stroke mechanics are different based on physiology. Similar to teaching someone squat technique. Everyone's hips are different, so nobody should do it exactly the same as anyone else.

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TrainingBible Coaching
http://www.trainingbible.com

You and Lionel both need this guy as your coach.

I think it is important to remember how new he is to triathlon. While I agree with everything you have said, I think it is somewhat important to make some of these mistakes and learn for yourself. The Frodo's of the world learned this stuff when they were 16 or 18 years old. Sanders just happens to be learning 10 years later. I think one of the reasons why people talk about him so much is because he almost appears like an age grouper that can also thump most pros in the sport, so they can relate to his learning curve. Based on the comments on his FB posts it seems like he is coming to the conclusion that it is time to take what he has learned on his own and hand some of those duties off to a coach. I truly believe he has the best bike/run in 70.3 (I include all of the ITU studs coming up in that statement), and believe he can get there in the full distance as well. What a great platform to take to a coach.

All true. But I think some of the frustration is due to the perception that he's wasting all the natural talent.

As a MOP AGer and someone of limited potential, I look at LS and have to shake my head. I've enjoyed following him since he came on the scene but lately just don't understand what he's doing.

If I discovered that I was a monster and could make a living competing in this sport, and who knows, possibly be one of the greats, I would quit my job, move across the globe, get a world class coach faster than you can say W-T-C. Heck, if I won the lottery tomorrow, I'd probably do the same thing.

So to see someone who could do all that and then not do it because ... Do we even know why? It just doesn't compute.

As you point out, the current competition have a 10 year head start. (You could argue that they're not the competition because LS isn't IM competitive on the world stage.) As others have mentioned, some fast youngsters coming along in the near future. I'm not convinced he has as much time as some have suggested.

Rooting for him but not encouraged by what appears to be a lack of insight. An endless freaking pool?! Seriously?!

I just can't think of too many World Class - Best in field athlete's, that tried to go it alone and make it work.
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Tim DeBoom did it on his own. IIRC- he tried to go with a coach and hated it. He was a much better athlete self-coached.

Not saying that Sanders is on DeBoom levels of awesome, knowledge, and independence. I'm thinking that Sanders' current level of understanding of sport needs work. DeBoom had it figured out.

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

I would be curious to know the coaches and if one of them has a favorite color ;-)

I can't agree more with this statement as I just did the exact same thing. Put a year of dedication into a very prominent coach and had nothing but negative results. And I was the best student you could ask for. Never deviated from the plan and always did what the doctor ordered. Still had the worst season of my career.

He's not that new any more. He did his first IM at Louisville in 2009 so he has had 7 years in the sport. He won his first pro race at Muskoka 70.3 in Sept '13 so he's been at/near the top for 3 years. Assuming he trained say 5 months for IM Lou, then he has been SBR-ing for about 7.5 yrs now, so not all that new.

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

Your mental debates with yourself albeit related to a much higher physical level of performance, are very much in line with many competitive age groupers, trying to do it all after kids and having difficulty believing better result can come with burning the candle less quickly at both ends. But the mental assets of what makes triathletes good triathletes, is also the biggest hurdle to get over at times.

Lionel should just start a coach selection reality TV show and allow all of us to watch and also grill the coaches on his behalf. It could be like a Donald Trump reality TV gig and all the coaches get subsequently fired, until one of them gets the reward of coaching him. Seriously, if you're a coach who actually knows what you are doing, would you not love to take this guy from ~30th place in Kona to top 3 and then be able to claim that? We were kind of joking that a donkey could coach Chrissie with all that natural talent and claim podiums, and it's almost in the same category here. The challenge coaching Lionel would be applying the right workload at the right team and beat the race day execution into his head and get him to follow a plan. The crazy thing is if he used his 70.3 plan in Kona, (sit on his watts), he'd likely have been fine. But at 70.3 World's that did not work, so he tried to apply the Kienle 70.3 plan (which is the chase down the lead group), except he had the impossible task of doing that from 8 minutes out. For someone starting that far back, better to just sit on 290ish watts (Powertap pedal for what it is worth) and just let blown riders (and then blown runners) come back to him.

This reminds me of a post by Sanders a while back where he went for a sweat test and was shocked to learn that he had been dehydrated for most of his triathlon career. This was followed by racing with a camel-back.

An athlete with this much potential should not be learning by trial and error.

Life's not fair. People have different views and expectations of the athletes they follow.

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

And people have different views and expectations of those people!

yeah, this is what i was thinking. Rapp has got a taste of what most of us face. its a matter of recognising that some days you need to not follow your training plan. the trick is knowing when those days are vs the days when you should push through. the more complications you have in your life, the more flexible your training plan needs to be.

back on topic of Lionel, this is why there is a lot of value in taking responsibility for your own training - not necessarily being self-coached but not blindly following a plan, wherever that came from. you need to understand the structure, the purpose of each workout, which ones you can push through and which ones you need to be firing for - when you should be fatigued or fresh and hence when you might be better to rest and recover rather than digging a hole

it seems to me that Lionel just takes this to the extreme of not wanting to do anything just because he's been told to, always wanting to have worked out for himself what he should do so that he completely understands what and why he is doing. i'm quite like that too but its a hobby for me rather than a job

Yes, definitely on the favorite color. Auburn orange (with a past passion for Duke Blue). Lauren Hancock - http://www.auburntigers.com/..._hancock_971648.html

Beyond that, it would be just my two "regular" coaches, Michael Krueger of Denmark (2009-2013) & Joel Filliol (2014-2016).

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

More on Lubos here:

http://www.slowtwitch.com/...bos_Bilek__4011.html

After reading his blog frankly I am surprised he even bothered to go to Kona. And my other thought is, are his sponsors aware of how he trains? And are they OK with his 1/2 hearted efforts. And I mean that as it seems he trained for about 1/2 the distance of the race he entered.
I would think after awhile they would get tired of it.

And I also wondered why he didn't post a pre-Kona blog. He seems to be a pretty prolific blogger at times and I was assuming there would be a pre race report with all his hopes and expectations. I think the silence was telling.

I have an idea of what you did, but I'd be curious to hear how you trained with a USA Swimming Club team. Did you back off what you were doing in the bike and run while you made the investment in the swim? And if you did "back off," specifically how much did you cut from the bike and run? Did you put in place a strength and conditioning program or were you doing one already?

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http://www.magnoliamasters.com
http://www.snappingtortuga.com
http://www.swimeasyspeed.com

I'm sure his sponsors love his results throughout the year.

And they probably find it funny that ST used to argue that he trained too much but now Pat0 is here to argue he's not training enough.

But it's cool. Make off-handed comments about his sponsors. You're not a joke, or anything.

Here are Tim Reed's thoughts on LS (mostly as regards LS's comments following the 70.3 Worlds and drafting, but also some 'analysis' of LS as a triathlete):

http://firstoffthebike.com/...ng-on-a-big-6-weeks/

"Lots of people asking my thoughts on Lionel Sanders post race comments. I think he had some very valid points and much of what he said I completely agree with and have been saying for years. Sanders is an absolute phenomenon and a great thing for our sport. His ability to train the way he does for so many races each year, frankly makes him quite unbeatable most of the time. However, I know that when I get it right once or twice a year, I can come close to matching his cycling and running and my swim is a fair way ahead. Mt Tremblant we both rode most of the ride solo and rode the same bike split. His power reading was 1 zillion watts while mine didn’t look so impressive but people often forget there is probably a 12-15 kgs difference between us, the same as if Lionel is riding with two extra bikes on his shoulder. He ran much better as I cramped my way through the final 5kms but I walked away from that race knowing that when my bike is on I can compete with this guy.


If Lionel learns to swim, all hope is probably lost over the 70.3 distance. If Lionel learns to actually ride his bike, then we are also in pretty big trouble. He has the best engine on two wheels but his skills are a little lacklustre. Guys like Kienle or Dreitz have incredible power combined
with incredible skill. The few times I’ve ridden with Lionel I’m in shock with how much time he loses in every corner, descent or even dismounting his bike to get into transition. He is a clever dude though, I’m sure he’s already worked this into his plan for next year."