Hagg Lake, Fitness and Skill components

I revisited Hagg Lake Triathlon (sprint distance) after a many year absence from racing out there. My first ever Tri was out there, oh, about 8-9 years ago. Lots has changed since then with my racing to be sure.

One thing that hasn't changed in all of my years racing, road running, track, XC, Tri, etc. is a skill component. I could go on and on, share examples but I'm sure you know what I mean: racing smarts.

I'll give my performance at Hagg this past weekend a very generous "B-" because even though the bike and run stood out; as well as a solid overall placing I really did everything wrong along the way.

First, I got very little sleep, it was hot here in town and I should have took an extra fan out, it was restless sleep; I'm fairly certain we're talking a couple of hours at best. In spite of this I actually felt fine in the morning and kept wondering when the fatigue would sink in before the start, it didn't but I was not in the best frame of mind; I was already subconsciously preparing for a sub-par performance even though I kept telling myself I'd be "o.k."

The swim was in my favor, mostly in that it was short-ish. :) It was tight one loop course (three turns counter clockwise) that we would share with Olympic distance athletes who were on their second loop since they started about 15min before we did. I needed to swim hard to the first buoy to get some breathing room between myself and other athletes in my wave (39 and under) and Olympic distance athletes.

I did not and got a little boxed right at turn 1 to turn 2, I did make up gobs as things thinned but still.

On the run I let someone sneak in front of me just before we crested the last hill, my plan was that I would simply kick past him in the final stretch.

Wait. What final stretch?

The run finishes in a confusing set of S curves with no finishing straight to battle it out.. Annoying because I did run this guy down off a great bike and run. But still my fault, I didn't even know he'd hung around, so kudos to him for being a smart racer.

Net, at this point in the summer fitness is not an issue, it's execution and heads up racing. Given how much I spend to race these events I ought to be a little more attentive.