Discussion: parallel topic

Do you feel that the discipline of cycling prepared you for running? I was wondering if you felt cycling coaching helped you understand how to train for running. Did you ever have a running coach, how did you learn to self-coach, and have you ever thought that you had wasted time or made a mistake that somebody looking from the outside might have caught immediately (my own experience in retrospect) ?

If I had trained in my 20's with the discipline I apply now, I would have raced in Europe. Might have even raced well in Europe. I didn't learn what it really meant to train until it was too late.

I guess I didn't really answer your question. The short answer is that I didn't learn much about training, but I learned a great deal about managing injuries. Pro athletes are ALWAYS injured. You can't let that stop you. Some never really figure out how to manage it and their otherwise excellent prospects are squashed. Others figure out how to keep going without making things worse (hopefully even letting things get a bit better). I was in the latter group. My ability to show up ready to race day in and day out was the only thing that kept me on squads that generally set the performance standard a notch higher than I could meet. That ability is serving me very well now as age makes every little nick take that much longer to heal. I hardly ever miss training due to injury, but I am constantly modifying workouts to adjust to what my body is telling me it can and can't do. Discipline is not the same thing as being a slave to a workout schedule. Discipline is doing the workouts you simply don't feel like doing and adjusting the ones that are doing more damage than good.

well said

Ja!! Jawohl!! Too soon oldt; too late schmardt!!

In 75 years I have only met a couple high-achievers who were smart enough to be hitting it hard in their early 20's.

My nephew, who just turned 30, burned through his entire 20's doing only what was asked of him, nothing more. Despite my counsel and encouragement, he's content to be 'average.' But somehow thinks great success in life is still to come. I want to shake him by the shoulders and scream 'Wake Up!!!'

But somehow I'd rather have an amicable relationship with him, than to possibly spur him to greater accomplishments.

Youth is squandered on the young.