Blog — Show Your Work

Never read the comments. Seriously. You’d think I’d know this by now.

But I was reading a thread about the Games earlier today, in which one commenter scornfully challenged another: “So you think if Fraser weren't a millionaire and had a day job, that he wouldn't still be winning?”

And… that hit a nerve. Not because I dislike Mat Fraser, not because I care about hypotheticals — but because that disdain felt enormously disrespectful to the (comparative) burden on the athletes who are multitasking.

One glance around my newsfeed, and I see one Games competitor who’s in grad school and another who has a toddler. I see a Sanctionals athlete who’s also a PT, and a 40yo Masters athlete (at the top of her age group!) who’s also an RN working nights in the ED. It isn’t that it can’t be done.

But those individuals do have a significantly harder logistical task than the lucky few whose lives can be more narrowly focused.

People fail to understand that, past a certain point, this becomes a recovery game. It isn't actually about how hard you train; it’s about how well you can adapt to that training. The physiological gains don't happen during the sessions; they happen afterward. How well can you provide your system with the tools to leverage the hard work you did?

Mathematically, we’ve all got the same 168 hours in a week. If we assume that 65ish are for sleeping, 25ish are for training, and at least 10 are for showering and commuting and brushing our teeth and so forth — well, then the person who has a whole 68 (potential) hours for meal prep and bodywork and rest and recovery already has an advantage over someone whose 40-hour-a-week job nets them only 28 available hours.

And it’s a compound effect. Because, to the body, “stress is stress is stress.” The person who does not spend any of their ‘flexible’ 68 hours adding more strain onto their system effectively has a double advantage over the person who is on their feet, answering phone calls, managing complaints, and putting out fires of various sorts.

Additionally — that commenter’s lack of insight bothered me as much as their lack of respect. It’s such a fixed mindset to assume that someone is winning simply because he is inherently the best, because “he’s just gifted,” because he happens to be lucky or special. There are always logistical factors at play, both past and present.

It is a huge, massive, enormous, multilayered privilege to be able to spend time this way in the first place — to have a healthy body that can handle the work, to have enough disposable income to belong to a gym, to have a gender identity and skin color that allow you to feel comfortable in this space.

It is an even larger privilege to earn all or part of your living off your athleticism, whether directly or indirectly. (There's a reason so many prominent athletes are gym owners, not teachers or lawyers or accountants.)

And we could also get into the nitty-gritty of sport payment structure, and how it easily becomes a vicious cycle. (If only the very best can earn enough money via their sport to afford to train full-time, then they are more likely to keep winning, due to the better recovery and better resources that their financial privilege allows.)

I’m not knocking Mat Fraser whatsoever. He’s an absolutely incredible athlete who has proven, time and again, that he deserves every accolade he’s received. But yes, actually, I do think that having to work a day job would probably make his top spot on the podium more difficult to achieve.

And — because he is a hardworking, focused athlete who understands firsthand the logistics of these endeavors — I actually think Mat would probably agree.