It’s a tough lesson to learn, but if you learn it early, you will finish well ahead of many of those who blow past you in the early miles of the bike. You can ruin your entire race by swimming to hard. You can ruin your race by biking too hard over the first half of the ride.

You have to throw your ego out the window in order to be successful at triathlon. It’s hard to maintain your composure and ride at your pace/heart rate/wattage when your are being passed by seemingly everyone over the first half of the bike.

However, if you ride within your capabilities, not above, and save your energy for the run, you will be in for a big surprise. Usually over the last miles of the bike leg, you will start passing all of those people back who went by you earlier.

Also, if you are prepared and have ridden within yourself, your run is going to be much more enjoyable, and sometimes even fun. You will find that the race that had seemingly passed you by starts coming back to you.

Being strong on the run also gives you a psychological boost because you start passing a massive amount of racers who are physically and mentally spent. You get a big boost of confidence when you are running right by so many folks, and you often will get cheered on by both athletes and spectators for being so strong so late in the race.

So, if you want to be successful, especially in your first few races, make sure you save a lot of energy for the run. You will be happy you did. I guarantee that if you wait until the run to let it all hang out, you will have a good race relative to your capability. You also might even beat many more experienced triathletes who have simply gone way too hard too early in the race.

Give it a shot and let me know how it turns out. Remember, as in all things, be strong at the end!