Kitzbuhel WCS

Kitzbuhel was the most beautiful place I had ever been. I have to admit, despite all nature’s beauty around me, I was feeling sluggish and wasn’t feeling especially inspired to race. The toughest aspect of draft legal racing, especially at the WCS level, is that you psychologically have to be so engaged while racing. It’s not like a non draft where you can race in your own world, put your head down and disengage every now in then. That time doesn’t exist, if it does, you just got dropped.
I sensed this leading into the race and made a special race strategy to help me stay engaged and excited to race. Race day weather started out super rainy and then it dried up, and it was almost hot for the race start. I wasn’t super excited about my start spot- it was obvious from watching the men’s race that the right was faster and the closest I could get was spot 31. At the gun, I hit the water and started hammering immediately. My goal was to get clean of the congestion, but I just couldn’t get away, and I could feel my energy fading quickly. I got pulled back once and before I knew it I was at the back. I was suddenly completely exhausted and I became complacent. Instead of reacting to things and responding to my surroundings, I just swam.
I got onto the bike and expected to feel better, but I didn’t. I wasn’t even able to help out with the pace of our group. I simply felt flat. Jarrod had raced the day before and felt the exact same way. We hadn’t discussed this until post race, but Kitzbuhel is at 800m elevation. It’s the only reason we can think of as to why we both felt so off since we do none of our training at altitude. We raced well before and after Kitzbuhel so something was going on. Anyways, people were dropping like flies in the race so I decided to stick with it.
I got onto the run and felt ok, but definitely not great. I just didn’t have that push that I needed to run fast. I ran solidly, and came 44th. Definitely not the result I was looking for. It was really frustrating to look at the results and see what place I would have come had I just had an average swim day, instead of a horrendous one like I had. Not every day can be great, and regardless of the result, there are incredible learning opportunities in every race.