It's Going Great, But...Podiums

 Look, everything is going great. I've now podiumed every triathlon I've done since Pontevedra (5 straight races). I've podiumed 8 of my last 11 races. 8 of my career 13 triathlon podiums have come in the last 5 months. But there's something going on with me. I need to get in a better headspace over podiums.

When I look back at podiums for running, I didn't win/place/show anything FOREVER. It was only really in the last 2 years I ran (prior to knee injury) that I started winning races. And for a short time, I was winning and kind of often. I didn't really think about it at the time, but I got 10 podiums in about 3 years. Of the 10 podiums, I won 6 times, got 2nd one time, 3rd three times. That's pretty high for a winning percentage. Of the 6 wins in running, there were 5 unchallenged wins. In one (the second Vac and Dash) there was contention between miles 7-10 of the half (nothing at the end).

Now I know I've commented on podiums already. It's just a function of who shows up, etc. I tend to focus on scores that look beyond that (USAT does a good job, NCTS/SCTS a bit less so). But my goals are season long and sustained over timespans much longer than one race. But...

I had a look at my podiums for triathlon. 17 podiums all starting in 2022. 3 wins, 2nd place 8 times, 3rd 4 times. Whereas I was winning 60% of my podiums in running, I'm only winning 20% in triathlon. The three I won, they were all more or less uncontested. The second place finishes though... I can count at least 3 occasions where I fail to run down the winner including 2 times in the last 2 months.

In Orlando as well as in Sarasota, I was beat by the archetypical "Good Swimmer", "Decent Biker", "Poor Runner" triathlete (in the other occasion, the individual was a very strong runner and technically caught up to me although he started ahead of me so I see it as my inability to outpace him). These other two races got me thinking though... what can I do differently. 

And what kills is that I didn't lose to them by much. 10-20 seconds. In both situations I'm just unable to close the last little bit. And with running, you always have more to give so I want to blame my running. I think on both occasions I didn't have career days but I did have good running efforts. Maybe I could blame imperfect swims (which did occur in both of these races). But I really want to blame running since it was the last leg and probably my best leg. 

I think about Pontevdra and thinking about Emily and Sofia being in the stands and not caring about anything but finishing as strong as my body would allow. If I had that level of effort, I could have had 2 (maybe 3) more wins here. Just something for me to remember. 

EDIT: Had a thought. I remember in running only races, I would stress "running my race" and trying hard to block out the noise. I think that may help here too. There's a lot of weight and even stress if a podium is on the line. Maybe being focused on pace and work will help and then seeing where things are in key moments (towards end or at key spots where opportunities arise). More to do here for sure.