Some guys get ALL the genetic breaks. A bike racing buddy played O line college football (granted he was small for it), is an FBI agent & was on SWAT team and a hostage negotiator, did 10 hours at IMLP, holds a 40k ITT national record, and won a geezer ITT world championship. I’m happy to get out of bed without falling on my face.
I think the trick is to be lucky enough to be exposed to someone like that so you can gain perspective. As mentioned up thread there are “freaks” in the Army that are visible to all and you might think that’s as good as it gets but then you meet someone completely unassuming and anonymous that is competing at an elite level in some hobby or doing things way beyond what all the braggarts in your circle are doing and then you realize what’s really out there and what “talent” really is.
My favorite anecdote about this sort of thing is triennial rising from the couch my Cat 1 buddy does… he’s old and out of shape and haggard and brittle and slowly but surely knocks the rust off and posts the Velodyne workout files. He starts at 320w at 155lb, something that took me a lifetime of training to get to and makes me pretty OK on a bicycle. That’s his floor. The watts keep going up or the 320w keeps getting extended out and pretty soon he’s back to “normal”. Once he gets there he goes back to the couch for another three years.
And that’s just a single skill guy, not some athletic polymath.
I’ve met a former D1 O-line guy turned skinny endurance athlete too… those guys are just out there.
Yeah, and the issue with triathlon is that it self selects a bit…there’s a large cost associated with being fast in this sport, so the somewhat fast guys are usually pretty certain they’re great athletes. Truth is, it’s a small pond and there’s an ocean out there.
I’ve met some pretty incredible athletes in the Army - one of my best friends in college was a lightweight rower in high school (6:30s for 2k), also played hockey, went to college and packed on 40# in 4yrs, dude was built like a bodybuilder. Usually ran 11:20-11:30 for the APFT 2mi at ~200#, and his only consistent endurance work was a weekly 30-45min run, sometimes a cardio workout that alternated a stairclimber and the erg for 90min, and occasionally I’d get him out for a 7-10 miler. He did some HIIT finishers for his lifting, but largely trained like a bodybuilder. Watched him run low 18s for 5k at that size. Was able to do 10x10 deadlifts starting at 315 and progressing to 345-365 (not a ton of weight, but the hybrid nature of the guy makes it crazy to me). He’s getting into triathlon now, and I’m going to guess he’ll pick up the bike pretty handily with his rowing background.
There’s a whole world of impressive athletes out there, and a lot of folks on ST hate acknowledging the existence of true athletic talent (“I could never do that - there’s no way anyone could!”).