holy crap would you stop boohooing about somebody getting criticized go find somebody else to stand up for.

Ah yes, the burned triathlete that continuously called her a man/dude/guy because she's just more fit than...perhaps a mirror would be nice for you.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

I am not on IG which tells you how much I know about it. But yeah, 200K more followers signed up which lets her claim a bigger base. But let's see how many of them, and of her original followers she keeps after they watched her flame out. I prefer looking at the longer term, not the day after.

What planet are you from? I don't understand how saying what your thoughts are on someone's appearance is misogynistic or sexist. And to clarify she does look like a dude.....imo..
and yes her Level Fitness is outstanding you see how well it fared for her as well as her level of intelligence maybe you can find a way to defend the rest of her decision making.

At first. But there is a very short life cycle that one can put up with following them.

Lol strobro is either an epic troll or the ultimate white knight.

Either way AH has probably got bigger arms than 95% of the guys in this site and does have a masculine look,, that’s not misogynistic just fact.

Yes, Hannah Eden is just better all around...


...But have you seen Alexia Clark?

Ty!!!!

He is an epic white troll knight. Straight up LOTR.


...I bet he watches a lot of LOTR.

Lol, If you're into neon hair I suppose. But they're basically the same person. Alexia Clark looks exactly cut from the same cloth when it comes to instagram model fitness posts.

Looks like plenty of y'all know who they are.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Honestly, I think a lot of the post explosion was the fact that she's a woman. There was very little of what I see as sexism in it, but to a half dozen or dozen members, anything other than "great! good for her!" was sexist, so it was impossible to rationally discuss doubts as to her ability to complete (which were, as it turns out, completely and entirely correct). This is best exemplified by the people who tried to equate "attention whore" with "(sex worker) whore". In the best (worst) spirit of the internet, no one (including myself until recently) could stay away and certainly no one was going to be persuaded, so everyone refreshed and repeated the same thing they posted five minutes ago. It was not helped by the handful of people posting actual sexist comments, which was held up as evidence that all people who (correctly) doubted her ability were doing so out of sexism instead of rational analysis.

This is also why I think the whole affair was bad for triathlon: it was never about triathlon. She might as well have said she was going to be the first woman to win the full million on ANW, talk about it for weeks, and then trip on the second obstacle. No one who didn't think about triathlon before this is going to think about it two weeks from now.

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The point is, ladies and gentleman, that speed, for lack of a better word, is good. Speed is right, Speed works. Speed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.

There are a group of guys who built their self identity and esteem around calling themselves ironmen and pumping themselves up by boring family, coworkers, neighbors, and anyone else they can put in a corner without a polite escape. Along comes a crossfitter with barely any experience swimming and cycling. She hops on a Huffy and knocks out the distance then does it again. To make it worse, it's a woman. The last thing these guys want is someone they've bragged to to point out this affront to the myth of the sport.

Pure horseshit. Many of the people you gleefully malign here are the very ones who would reduce the available finishing time in an IM to 13-14 hours if they were in charge. So Ashley Horner's ~16 hr IMs in a short pool are not interfering with anyone's self worth. And while her Huffy ride was initially impressive, the later evidence - at least from what I've read - suggests moto-pacing. She is fit, no doubt, but her one and only official IM70.3 finish in 2013 didn't rock anyone's boat; and her completion of just 2 (as in TWO) consecutive IMs is no earth shattering feat...but hey, she reached 4% of her goal. While most people do not want to do a double anvil in 48 hrs, I don't think I'm going to go out on a limb and argue that it is well within the physical capacity of many IM finishers. You find nothing but admiration here on ST for the likes of Chrissie Wellington, Danielle Ryf and other top women, for whom Ashley Horner with all her muscle is nothing more than BOP fodder.

I'm the one that equated "attention whore" with being a sexist remark and how it implies untoward things at the person it was directed to. I stand by that assertion because it's a flat out sexist remark directed at women. And it clearly draws equivalency to being a whore. I'll tell you what...Go home and call your female spouse a whore, but you can put whatever word you want in front of it or before the word whore. I don't care what word you use as a prefix or suffix...You pick. Afterwards, ask your spouse if she feels that it was insulting.

Our culture has a long history of objectifying women based on sex. Those stereotypes are played out by attempting to demean women for having sex and even more so for by being paid for sex. The use of the word whore only serves to perpetuate that stereotype.

The first 20 pages or so of the AH thread were clearly sexist. After several people called out this bias then the conversation turned to just her athletic prowess for this event. There is nothing wrong with discussing her ability/inability to complete an Ironman. But no man has EVER been called out on the forum for being ugly or looking like a person of the opposite sex. Because it has no bearing on our sport.

Ladies and gentlemen, Exhibit A. This is how that thread spiraled out of control. I will not get sucked into it again.

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The point is, ladies and gentleman, that speed, for lack of a better word, is good. Speed is right, Speed works. Speed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.

That thread was way out of control well before that.

She really has nothing in common with the IC, except for the fact she stole his race for her own self promotion. That dude was a super gifted and hard working endurance athlete, and nearly did this impossible task. She on the other had did not know one iota of what it would take to do it. She really is in the Julie Miller mold, cutting corners at will, as long as it appears to further her self promotion. She is not very bright, you can see that immediately in her writings, unless English is not her primary language. And not just how she says things, but what she says, points to a not so deep thought process.

I would hope that she goes away now, but it is quite possible that like some pathological liars, she actually believes her line of bullshit, and she doest see the end to this thing yet.(although we all do, mostly) And I think you also hit on something with the Trump comparison, if you have a core group of followers that believe you can do no wrong, then you will keep playing to that base no matter what happens in the real world.

Lol another white knight enters the ring to challenge strobro!

As for women being objectified-they do a pretty good job of that themselves. Was just having a look at the VMAS, I don’t even know why half of them bothered wearing an clothes at all.

Men are called attention whores also. You need to get a life son.

My view.. some of this is fear. The fear of somebody untrained (in the aerobic/endurance sense) undermining the image some of us like to portray of our sport being some kind of near-impossible heroic superhuman endeavour. Hey, if that Instagram model can just waltz in and finish one of these things, it can't be that hard, right? Wait, what if my friends find out and are less-impressed by me? "Oh, I thought it was meant to be difficult" we can hear people thinking.

Those in the know are less worried. We understand the difference between a 16 hr Ironman and going sub 10, or whatever your goal is. But if your sense of worth comes from the opinion of other people, and some of those other people don't know the difference, then this could harm that.

For some people. If this isn't you then don't take offense, there are other reasons why this Ashley thing might stir an emotional response in you. But I reckon this is one of the reasons.

I can testify that I experienced this a number of years ago when a local woman that has a program to help troubled high school kids announced that she was going to do a ride from the pacific northwest to Atlanta to raise money. My very first unspoken thought was extremely harsh and then I realized my character flaw. I realized that I was offended to think that all the long training hours spent training for some epic level cycling events and to think some woman that has barely ever been on a bike was going to casually ride across America. My being a skeptic had an underlying fear and a terrible emotional response.

However, I read her blog posts at the end of each day and quickly I started wanted to see her succeed. She accomplished something I probably will never try. Even if she had failed I ended up gaining a lot of respect for her early on. She experienced a lot of fear of cars coming close to her continually and the pains of saddle sores and fatigue. It was hard not to end up rooting for her to finish and that was a big change for me starting out as a harsh critic.

Skip ahead to last year when I saw people continually criticizing Amanda Coker while she was attempting to break the women's record for most miles cycled in a year. After the first experience with my attitude I now had a better perspective. Immediately I was impressed that she was logging about 230 to 240 miles per day at a 20 mph + average. People were being critical that she was on a flat 6 mile loop and would often switch to a recumbent bike. Still I had to respect to her because I know full well I wouldn't have lasted a day or two and she went a full year doing this almost everyday. Even on a day when a hurricane came close to Tampa she did 100 miles in the storm if I remember correctly. People were posting jabs at her left and right all over social media and many were encouraging her. I just wonder how many of those critics could have done a week at that distance and speed?

If anything this was a lesson about myself that I have already confronted and hope to refrain this time with Ashley. On the other hand I have been reading these threads and it has been interesting to see the various views.

AH looks in no way masculine.... she's a woman. She's hot AF. If you have a problem with how she looks, it says more about how you feel about yourself than it does about AH.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

I think those comparisons are not quite apples to apples. AH’s stunt came with a huge level of self promotion and arrogance such as stating she would do strength training 3-4 days a week. Amanda Coker and I suspect your local woman did no such thing. Coker just posted her stuff to Strava.

I am disappointed that a new thread was started and is taking total comments away from the original.

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"If it costs you 30 minutes at Maryland so what" -dwreal

Simple... the nail that sticks out gets hammered. If you make a living if trying to draw attention to yourself, expect some of that attention to be negative attention.

Ok Mr Sensitive New Age Guy, attention whore is deeply offensive and I will try to refrain from using it. Can I simply say that she is a person who exploits her body by posting provocative images of herself online for attention and money?