After watching the posted video, I’ve changed my opinion and it appears it was extremely important for him that he ran this race. (If he was on the level and I have no reason to believe he wasn’t)

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Dan Mayberry
Amateur a lot of things, professional a few things.

Lol. Nope just bad spelling. I’ve used it in the past, however.

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Dan Mayberry
Amateur a lot of things, professional a few things.

He had a coach and he had a good coach. But yet he fired that coach for reasons that made absolutely no sense. And now he got wiped off the course by a guy who has flourished for years under the direction of that same exact coach.

This person is...I don't even have words. He is not smart enough to cook his own breakfast, let alone design his own nutrition plan or workouts. The only thing worse than someone this dumb is someone this dumb who does not know he is dumb at all. That he is nearly without physiological peer -- and yet still(!) manages to screw it up for himself -- but is this bereft in every other faculty must be some kind of cosmic troll.

I can't stand the guy.

10/ 10 on the Pubes scale - classic!

I don’t necessarily agree, but I love that you’re here to say it.

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team

🤔

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team

Whoa Pubes! We knew you loved Lionel /hug

Are you just getting warmed up with Tremblant for a full on ST heavy volume posting block into, during and after Kona. If so, ITS ABOUT TIME!!! We need something better than Ashley Horner threads1!!

Yup I toatally screwed that up. Too much trying to follow races while supposed to be working. I’m a dope.

No worries - I just thought I'd missed something, like maybe he raced at IM Canada.

ETA now that I look at the Ironman Canada results, it was Pedro Gomes who finished 11th OA behind 2 AG guys. Not Javier Gomez at IM Cairns. Makes more sense now.

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team

The first rule of Dunning-Kruger Club is that you don’t know you’re in Dunning-Kruger Club.

He he he

Although technically - that only applies at one end of the competency scale.

I think both ends of the scale are accounted for in the Dunning, Kreuger effect.
The less you know the more confident you are in you abilities.
The more you know your confidence in your knowledge drops.
Think AH as figure one.
Carl Sagan as the other.

You seem to have misinterpreted my comment.
If you re-read the above, I said Rachela's comment only applied to those at one end of the competency spectrum, not that Dunning-Kruger only applies to those of low competence. Their study did include subjects with both very low and very high competency. Having said that, the term "Dunning-Kruger Effect" only applies to the phenomenon whereby those with very low competence are, as a consequence, incapable of realising it and so inclined to think themselves far more competent than they actually are. So, that being the point, I probably should have said nothing!

Does anyone just find this absolutely clueless? I've started to watch his videos on YT and I am always left scratching my head. He clearly has good relationships with a food company and a sports nutrition company. Did anyone tell him that depleting yourself in the run up to an IM is counter intuitive? Did he even ask?

This is a sport that is frankly at the cutting edge in terms of the unique demands it places on you in terms of dietary requirements. Even to listen to his description of his fluid intake during a training 25km run is insane.. 2.1 litres of fluid in 90 mins. Even without exercise that is a hard ask for the body to process, never mind while running sub 4min km's.

Physiologically he is a freak, could even be the strongest in the field. He clearly has a mental toughness and a focus to beat the best....but he is just letting himself down in two important fields. Surely he should delegate. As a very very good triathlete and olympian said to me. Swim with swimmers, bike with bikers and run with runners,eat with nutritionists and most important - have a coach who recognises the value in all of these people.

I've missed you Pubes.

+1
Were you on sabbatical?

Has anyone else considered the fact that this wasn't that bad of a showing 2 months out from Kona? First of all LS went 55, 4:28, 2:55 for an 8:24. How was he able to go 6:10 pace for the first 20 miles of the run if he was in such a bad way? He had to shut it down purposely. The words out of the colonels mouth were that this was a long training day to test efficiency and other changes, add that to the fact that his buddy CB was the one who won this race (with a killer debut). I am just speculating but wouldn't it make sense for LS not to push Cody and let him have his day? After all Cody says he is not doing Kona anyway and it would make sense for LS to save his run legs. If that is the case I think this is a win for him to show restraint, get in whatever testing he wanted and come back to Kona with a clearer picture. Just my opinion, although I don't disagree that getting some coaches or mentors would pay dividends to his consistency.

I guess we shall see in a couple months.........

I completely agree with this. I watched some of the bike live and he looked down on power and strength and that flowed into the run (he still put out solid times in both legs). He has been vegetarian for the bast three months apparently, I don’t blame that but like some others have said he is pushing th extremes to win.

I predict he will be right up the front end for kona. He finished 2nd in a major race and had a “bad day”. He has to swim good to be close enough to get back to the front group then get away on the bike. Like last year if he, wurf and Keanle re together out of the water then it’s game on.

Interesting video and as a recovering addict... speaking of Lionel, it looks like he's very prone to addictions. At least he's aware and I wonder how Kona will go for him on the back side of this lesson.

On thread subject, there's a good chance ANYONE could not podium at Kona, tough conditions and the toughest field.

If Lionel was playing the ultimate poker and jogging through 55/4:28/2:55 then he just took a page out of Lance faking like he is bonking all day only to unleash the look on Ullrich on Alpe d'Huez switchback number 3. He DID seem to have way too much energy post race for a guy who is totally glycogen depleted, but maybe he recovered quickly with the potato chips! However you cut it 55/4:28/2:55 while either completely glycogen depleted or while playing poker on his Euro based rivals is a solid day.

But I don't think it was a question of "Letting" Cody have his day. Cody is a faster swimmer and he may be just as fast a 112 mile biker from what we saw yesterday and Cody ran 2:49 in his debut IM. If I recall correctly Lionel has not run faster than 2:44. So on a perfect day they come even with 3-4 miles to go on the run and then it's a head to head drag race.

I think what we (and maybe even Cody himself) found out yesterday is that his 70.3 speed degrades less over 140.6 than many of his peers. He may have a physiology like Rappstar in that vein. Flip it the other way and put Cody against Gomez in an Olympic tri and its a larger delta between them. I don't think Gomez would have beaten Cody on Sunday.

Lionel getting too light is not good for smaller athletes on long course. Just race storage tanks to store glycogen.

'I really limited my eating over the last couple of days'.

Just before a race.

Nothing more to be said.

the problem wasn't in Lionel's physiological capacity, it is seemingly in his decision making process. 700+ ml per HOUR on the bike? Weighing in at sub 160 pounds and having cut weight LEADING into an IM?? Choosing to do an IM this close to Kona and then CHOOSING to finish even when he's clearly into so many GI issues he can barely run straight.

Just a lot of questionable decisions over the course of a week.

Also, regarding the LS "letting" Cody have his day: do you seriously think an athlete of LS' caliber signs up for any race and doesn't plan on winning the damn thing? Please.

Further, LS has had MANY coaches and advisors. They end up not being able to stick it out together for whatever reason. But it's like when one athlete ALWAYS has bike issues (we all know this person); it's not the bike, it's you.

And no one that is competitive wants someone to let them win. They want to win on their own merits. Hence why in the tour they’ll generally hold up if their is a mechanical from one of the leaders because they don’t want to win that way.

700 ml per 30 min on the run

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blog

Love that he was honest about everything and hindsight is always 20/20. 10 lbs in 12 weeks is too much. Agree with others that he would benefit from a coach but I also think he really enjoys the process of learning and tweaking things so he may have to have a few more failures before he succumbs to having a coach again. As to Kona I agree the field looks really deep this year if everyone is healthy but I wouldn't bet against LS being there at the end.