It was mentioned that it takes lots of hours and hard training to be mediocre, or dropped, or whatever. But that doesn't make sense to me. I actually settled on cycling over running, tri, spartan race, because it's easier to do well, at least at the lower levels (well also it turned out to be super fun). Even in cat 3 I have a shot at the win. With running I know ahead of time where I stack up, and I aint gonna be top 10. Ever. It's all fitness, genetics. Cycling is at least a bit more balanced. At least there are multiple energy systems and skills involved.