J. Lo - joins the club

[VeloVT]

I'm not a huge fan of Lance, but I have to say that before he was a cyclist he did Tri's. So he used to have a pretty good running background, so I wouldn't exactly compare it to lance completing a marathon. Also remember, he has amazing endurance capabilities from all of his cycling(5+ hour days regularly) so his major issue was muscle use conversion, not aerobic capacity.

So for all those people out there who get mad at him, they need to realize his background.

Fair enough, but that wasn't really what I was getting at. People who are very serious about their sport sometimes tend to develop an elitist attitude about who should be permitted to compete. Added to this, celebrities tend to have their motives scrutinized more than you or I, which magnifies the elitism. If your fat neighbor decided to run a marathon, you probably wouldn't call him arrogant. If your non-famous, but elite athlete former Olympian cross country skier neighbor decided to run a marathon, you probably wouldn't call him arrogant or what have you either.

As far as Lance is concerned, I guess my point is that I don't think his cycling background (or his triathlon background) is relevant one way or another in whether it's "OK" or "annoying" for him to run in a marathon. Nor is JLO's um, famous booty.

And this has nothing to do with my point, but I seriously doubt his tri background many years ago had much of an impact on his performance -- more likely what gave him a leg up was just conditioning and training adaptations from years of cycling. 3 hours is a good time, but a time that's perfectly achievable for ordinary, non-elite people (my dad, who didn't play any sports in college, ran a 3 hour marathon when I was little). Albeit, most of these would have to train a little harder than Lance allegedly did for the same time. But he also suffered excruciating shin splints and required a cast of pacers from the running hall of fame in order to do it... (and apparently ate Gu something like every two miles ).