Chrissie book - it's all about the engine (Page 2)

OP here - I don't doubt that Chrissie can go deep, but honestly, after reading her book I was less impressed with her HTFU ability than her raw natural talent.

Even her coach Brett Sutton was very critical of her HTFU ability (or lack thereof by his standards) even all the way up to her Kona IM win. He's a character in himself, but he has a lot of athletes in his stable, and it definitely didn't seem like she was particularly disciplined relative to the others. She was very, very competitive with the others, sometimes damagingly so, but that's different than discipline.

When she was dominating races before Kona, even at the start of her pre-pro career, she was winning without ever expecting to even be on the podium. By huge margins, sometimes. That's a clear sign of talent above all else.

I wasn't impressed by her HTFU stories, actually. Yes, she trains hard, but I've definitely done some painful sessions in weird hours that aren't that far off her situation, and outside of triathlon, I've got plenty of stories of HTFU with my work etc that are definitely comparable. Won't make me anywhere near that good any time soon.