Webb's Wife's Blog on His Career Change

I'm looking forward to rooting for him again. Doesn't sound like he's retired and thrown in the towel at all. Exciting days ahead.

I don't ride. How realistic is it that he can begin dabbling with cycling last Sept and be ready to lay down some world-class performances in a year or two?

Never should of left Michigan. Guy can't cut it if one thing doesn't go perfectly to plan.

She mentions two runners-turned-triathletes who have suffered serious injuries on the bike: LV and Jesse Thomas (Fleshman's husband) who broke his neck.

Then she says that, for this reason, she's glad Alan got rollers, which means he can do his cycling workouts indoors in safe conditions.

So a guy with almost no high-speed bike handling experience is going to take up the sport after age 30, and he's going to train on rollers, and then he's going to hit the roads to race at an elite level? Without killing himself?

Good luck to that. I hope he gets this out of his system while staying in one piece and then finds some kind of fulfilling job related to running and track and field.

Am I the only person wondering how he will support himself? His blogger wife isn't working and now he is going to train twice as long each day? I don't care how much Nike paid him he can't afford to not work for the rest of his life. Life changes. He has a child now.

Bleu wrote:

Am I the only person wondering how he will support himself?

Yes, you are, probably because you are part of the Entitlement Generation (1986-present) and have been raised with the attitude of spend, spend, spend! while Webb should have plenty of live savings to live on, as all 30-year-olds should.

I am more worried about YOU.

Your joking right? I'll be 40 before I finish my residency and will work all out for the next 30 yrs. I don't spend any $ at all and still worry.

Maybe you are from the boomer generation, retired at 30 and then

took up running?

Do you honestly believe Webb made enough to retire on?

Bleu wrote:

Your joking right? I'll be 40 before I finish my residency and will work all out for the next 30 yrs. I don't spend any $ at all and still worry.

Maybe you are from the boomer generation, retired at 30 and then

took up running?

Do you honestly believe Webb made enough to retire on?

Young man, it's not about making more, it's about SPENDING LESS. Living frugally. If he made $100-250K a year from Nike and spent only $30-50k per year he'll be fine for a while. I know this is a foreign concept to you.

Bleu wrote:

Your joking right? I'll be 40 before I finish my residency and will work all out for the next 30 yrs. I don't spend any $ at all and still worry.

Maybe you are from the boomer generation, retired at 30 and then

took up running?

Do you honestly believe Webb made enough to retire on?

Webb's name is probably still worth something. If he has just modest success in triathlons he probably could earn some income endorsing gear, energy drinks, etc. I'm sure he will get around to writing a book about his career. If he does really bad in his first several triathlons I don't think he would let his family starve to death and he would move on to coaching, the speech circuit, or something respectable.

Bleu wrote:

Am I the only person wondering how he will support himself?

USA Triathlon is paying him a stipend. They have a lot of money and having a guy like Webb cross over is huge publicity for the triathlon.

He will be like a side show freak at the tri's , come see once great miler , he's giving it his best effort... could be sad.. hopefully he dumps his agent and becomes a little more pure , doesn't have to race for money but for the value of being competitive , maybe a life change soon enough having to figure out how to bring income back into his family...

Skeptic of it All wrote:

Not to sound critical but Webb's wife sounds like a piece of work. If I was him I'd ask her not to blog about me anymore.

I enjoyed the piece for the details but her writing is painfully bad. She's getting a lot of views, maybe time to send her content through an editor to make it a little more readable.

Skeptic of it All wrote:

Not to sound critical but Webb's wife sounds like a piece of work. If I was him I'd ask her not to blog about me anymore. There's clearly some underlying bitterness there toward all the coaches, including the one who he was under running 3:53 and 3:46! He's the one who jumped ship time and time again, which she sound bitter about as well.

Keeping it real, venting or just bitching I don't know. I like Webb, and wish him the best of luck.

I thought the piece was refreshingly honest and a view into the real life roller coaster they've been through. It's not the kind of thing I would post online about myself, but it was an enjoyable piece when compared to typical stories run through 5 layers of PR people.

2001 a spaced odyssey wrote:

So a guy with almost no high-speed bike handling experience is going to take up the sport after age 30, and he's going to train on rollers, and then he's going to hit the roads to race at an elite level? ...

Good luck to that. I hope he gets this out of his system while staying in one piece and then finds some kind of fulfilling job related to running and track and field.

the roller comment was odd. fine for winter though. rollers help immensely with handling.

rollers aren't the same as the road though. mentally very tough to train on too. they are super super boring and offer no resistance.

he needs to race some local criteriums in the spring and get lots of miles in.

I've always been one that wonders if Julia may be part of the problem as well with his performance. That's one more voice in his ear in a career full of them. Once they started dating he never had a good season again. She probably makes his life better as a whole, but may not make his running career better.

Special K wrote:

I wouldn't be surprised if he returns to focusing on running at some point.

Not if he has a chance to represent in the Olympics. Better chance to make the team in triathlon versus 1500m.

Julia Rudd fcked up Alan Webb's career. This is because once he got a steady GF/wife he lost that insane competitive drive he had.

Essentially Alan Webb got soft. He was a stallion and now he's like a btch.

This is going to make me watch triathlon

former cat3 racer wrote:

2001 a spaced odyssey wrote:

So a guy with almost no high-speed bike handling experience is going to take up the sport after age 30, and he's going to train on rollers, and then he's going to hit the roads to race at an elite level? ...

Good luck to that. I hope he gets this out of his system while staying in one piece and then finds some kind of fulfilling job related to running and track and field.

the roller comment was odd. fine for winter though. rollers help immensely with handling.

rollers aren't the same as the road though. mentally very tough to train on too. they are super super boring and offer no resistance.

he needs to race some local criteriums in the spring and get lots of miles in.

I'd assume that the rollers are more for indoor use when weather is crappy. The bigger concern is that he is going out riding without spare tubes and the ability to change a tire! Did his wife really make fun of him for needing to call for a flat tire multiple times? Actually, he probably got pretty good at changing flats if he got tons at first (or maybe someone at the bike shop didn't tell him the correct pressure for his tires).

WEBBSANITY wrote:

This is going to make me watch triathlon