Triathlon Lessons Learned
It’s that time of year again. Time for all of the “best of” lists for 2005, and great news stories of 2005 and biggest tragedies of 2005 shows to come out. While all of this reflection on the past year can grow tiresome when watching or reading it on TV or in the news, it is time well spent when the reflection is applied to the past year of training and racing. With this in mind, I thought I would share some of my lesson’s learned from the past season of racing
My biggest lesson learned is that you shouldn’t do speedwork unless you have a sufficient base. I think my late season performance was hampered by doing to much speedwork and not enough base work, especially on the bike. I also think it led to the current injury that I am now nursing (I see a surgeon on Thursday to try and figure out what it is. My guess is it is some type of hernia)
Sprint races are often won or lost in transition. Analyzing many of the races I was in, plus a few that I watched, the difference in placing is often in transition. I noticed this to be especially true at this year’s Green Lakes Triathlon, where 1st and 2nd place came in to the T2 within 10 seconds of each other. The eventual winner exited T2 far ahead of T2. I think at one point, the second place guy even sat down to take his bike shoes off and put on his running shoes. At this year’s Cayuga Lake Tri, the difference between me in first place for our age group and the guy behind me was about 1 minute, almost all of which was in transition. Our bike, swim and run were virtually even, but I beat him in both transitions. See my Transition Tips entry for some tips on faster transitions
Speed in the water is something to be developed. You must stay efficient even while going fast. I believe the best approach (as learned from Total Immersion) is to learn to be efficient first, at slower speeds, such that it efficiency is intuitive, then add speed as you become more and more comfortable.
To swim straight, you need to sight often. To sight often, you need to make it a routine you practice, even when doing laps. Just try not to lift your head out any further than you have to.
No matter how intense you are, enjoy your time on the course. Smile for the camera. It’s fun, remember?
