Watching the professional triathletes race in the PTO Championship was so much fun.  It was also very educational.

As a triathlete, that has always aspired to be towards the top of my age group, I love opportunities to learn.  The men’s race yesterday was so dynamic, and it was very interesting to look at the top three finishers.  What did they do to get on the podium and what can we learn from that?  Here are my takeaways:

1.  You can’t win the race on the swim leg, but you can certainly lose it.  When racing against the best athletes (including the best athletes in your age group), you cannot afford to drop too far behind on the swim.  It takes too much energy on the bike and the run, to overcome a large deficit.  The three guys on the podium yesterday, were not in the group of the fastest swimmers, but they exited the water within two minutes of the fastest swimmer (eventual winner, Gustav Iden was 17th on the swim).

2.  If you over-bike, you will blow up on the run.  There were so many examples of athletes going all out on the bike.  They were either smashing themselves into the ground to be at the front, or pushing too hard, to make up for a poor swim.  The classic example, was Magnus Ditlev who had one of the fastest bike legs and pushed really hard to get to into the lead.  Less than two miles into the run, he pulled up with severe leg cramps.  Meanwhile, Gustav Iden, who said in his post race interview, that he felt himself pushing too hard on the bike so eased off a little. He left T2 in 15th place, only two places ahead of where he finished on the swim.

3.  If you can run your race, at your best pace, you can run yourself to the win.  The positions of the the first three across the finishline, when leaving T2 were as follows … Iden was in 17th,  Hanson was in 22nd and Goodwin was in 13th.    None of them were even in the top 10 when leaving T2!!

There were plenty more lessens out there to be learned, but those three are huge.  They are also very motivational… I need to improve my swim, so this evening I eagerly went to the pool and did my optional swim.