Those with long memories know that one of the reasons that those USET 3-day squads that won so many medals under the direction of Jack Le Goff was because of his insistence that the riders be fit tough athletes.

Take a look at Mary Anne Tauskey here in a training gallop on Marcus Aurelius, and think what it gave her both physically and in terms of confidence to be so powerful.

Jack was demanding, and I suspect that some of the riders that tried out back during his time and fell by the wayside simply couldn’t deal with Jack’s brand of pressure. (more about that in a following post)

If you watch the first Rocky movie, there’s a scene where Rocky’s alarm goes off in the dark. He gets up and goes running in “the mean streets”, and if you have ever been in a fitness program, you can feel his struggle.

Then I see photos and hear stories about young riders living lives of at least semi-luxury, partying, whatever, and I compare them to what it was like riding for Le Goff, and my reaction is they need more Rocky and less play time. Because Jack’s teams won.

But it comes back to the age old question—-“How much do you want it?”