I use to put my head down and just jam when the gun went off. After I took my almost 3 year break, when I came back I decided to try and race and train smarter not harder. The hard training was working, but I seemed to be plateauing and I think I was working out too hard too much. Now I pick and choose my hard and do my easy, easier. With that said, same goes for my open water swim start; rather than putting my head down and going till I die, I strategically place myself and use my head up technique to find the holes and jump around until I find the right spot, then put my head down and go; it prevents me from going into oxygen debt. I have learned that there is no need for me to try and be the lead swimmer, but to just swim with the lead group, so if that means letting someone else (lots of people) do the work; so be it. You still have to do the sprint workouts and such to get the fitness, but you may want to think about other ways to swim to your potential then just sprinting till you die. I confirmed my theory at WF this past weekend as I somehow forgot my own advice and decided to just sprint from the start, which did put me in oxygen debt, which had the whole field pass me; and then once I worked through the tightness in my chest and arms, I managed to work my way back up through the field coming out 7th or so. The biggest confirmation though; was I was at least a minute off of where I thought I would be with my current fitness. Sometimes even us “pros” need to learn the hard way.

For your next race, try something different. If what you are doing is not working and you know you have the fitness, the other option can be strategy.

Let it go.