Sage had a solid performance this weekend at the XTERRA trial World championships coming second to Joe Gray, the unofficial GOAT of non-Ultra distance trail races. He was less than a minute off of Gray, who broke the course record.
Very good performance (especially for "taking it easier") at a much shorter distance than he usually runs at, boding well for his OTQ attempt and ultra's next year. This begs the question, was this due to his new training? Change in distance? Just a good race?
How much does it influence your training to train yourself? Sage is a good coach and has had success on his site but how blinded are you to results when you are coaching yourself? After years of the same coach (himself) did Sage hit a "rut" in the last few years that a new approach has helped? Interesting questions to consider for Sage and others (like myself) that tend to coach themselves.
http://www.jtltiming.com/results/x-oahu-21k.html
And yes, I realize that one race does not mean that all of this is happening, I just thought it might be something interesting to discuss.