Scott Molina's Perspective on Sutton Age Grouper Advice

Spokane_Al

I thought this was interesting epiccamp.blogspot.com/ .  Molina cautions age groupers to listen to the advice of elite pro coaches at their own peril.

William Jenks

Or read them on ST.

Coach Rich

Very good post from Scott...but I wonder if he's changed from the days of scheduling AG'ers for 25-30hrs per week. Ask Patrick, he was coached by Scott and has tales of sleeping under his desk at work (so do I, when I was coaching myself stoopidly).

I recall a post on our FB page a few months ago where someone remarked that the rest of the trispace was trying to sell/push a pro-stye of training and lifestyle to people with real world lives and jobs. In my experience, that's the perspective that 100% of coaches begin with, because that's the tone of the books, the magazine articles and other resources they read to get started. But few are in the game long enough, or across enough people, or have to actually eat and pay the mortgage with their coaching dime, to gain some perspective and step back and apply some critical thinking to exactly what they are asking people to do. How to spend their time.

The litmus test, for me, is our don't-swim-in-the-OS guidance. I've outlined this in the blog from what I feel to be a very sane, well-thought out perspective of return on investment, the data we've actually seen over the years, etc. You'd might be suprised, but I've found that most smart, been in the game a long time, have a real job and family age groupers actually get the message. They understand it, understand our perspective and while they may not agree with it, or choose to acknowledge it and then do their own own thing, they appreciate and understand the perspective we've applied to the problems. Problems of time management, ROI, application of scarce resources, etc are what real people deal with every day.

But the people that go ape shit over this advice are other coaches and AG'ers with the lifestyle to train 20-25hrs per week. Personally, I think that to blindly follow "I am Triathlete, Ergo I Swim, Always" is not have the...professional maturity (?)...to step back and consider the investment of another human being's time from a different perspective.

Sorry, a small tangent, just something on my mind.

William Jenks

Molina also is on this week's IMTalk podcast. I suspect the blog post and that appearance are related, since the IMTalk guys are also involved in Epic Camp. Anyway, he comments directly on the TeamBB approach and real life people there. (I don't recall him commenting on total volume, but I may have missed it.)

Coach Patrick

I followed Molina until he broke me. It was very eye-opening to the innocent I-want-to-get-to-Kona age grouper to see just how much suffering and work was required. I finally found another path to equal suffering that takes me far less time (aka The Koolaid!) but regardless he helped me just as much as he hurt me (sound familiar?). I think all AGs should be wary of advice from professionals...take what works for you and drop the rest, you are at the center of your own universe and can't simply chase the rules and guidance of folks who manage the elites...