Reading Gordo’s gBlog I came across one of his posting where he comments on the internet forums:
“Once you have your simple plan, you may consider pulling the plug on all the chat forums and repeat, repeat, repeat to the best of your ability. Remove the distractions from execution. Make a habit of “doing”.”
“We often think that boards are a meeting place for experts. Quite often, they turn into places were people come to reinforce their existing biases or self-image (particularly “poor me”). Watch for that – you don’t want those things in your head.”
I just found his opinion interesting, but I’m not an expert 
I like what Gordo does and I get the gist of his post, but I’m not a big fan of it. He essentialy takes the role of the religios preacher here with, “Don’t listen to those people. They’ll lead you astray. You aren’t smart enough to know who’s right and who’s wrong. Trust me. I know!”
I’m sure that’s not his intention, but do you see my point? You learn by reading books, personal experience, AND discussing these books and experiences with others. In fact, some people learn more via discussion rather than through books.
Certainly head his warnings and be aware of what people have to say AND the reasons why they say them. Take in everything and carry your BS detector at all times. Learn how to tell the differnece between good advice and bad. Not only will it help you with your training, it will help you in life.
…and trigeek, you should know better than to bring up ZATOPEK! The fact that the fastest man in the world over 50 years ago would not even qualify for the US trials today should tell you something about the advances in run training. In fact, if he would have been able to run in the trials in 2004 and run a PR, he would have placed 25th!!!..in a country that is known for lack luster running.
Zatopek makes precisely the point that you SHOULD continue to read and discuss training methods so that you too can make those same advances (the WR has improved ~1:30 since then…a 10% improvement).
Typicaly, Gordo’s advice is great for beginners and will get you 90% there, but the challenge is to get that extra 10% (20 minutes in an OLY, an hour in a Ironman).
http://www.usatf.org/events/2000/OlympicTrials-TF/results/men.asp