Is it more important for you to get a certain place (i.e. first, podium, top 10, etc.) or are you more concerned with your time? Here are a few scenarios to consider:
- You PR (Personal Record) a race but your time is not good enough to get you on the podium.
- You finish a race, it is not your best time but your time is good enough to get you on the podium.
- You place 2nd in a race with 10 (including yourself) people in your age group (top 20%).
- You place 10th in a race with 100 (including yourself) people (top 10%).
- You place 3rd in your age group that has only 3 people.
One of the things that makes the sport of triathlon so diverse is that some people are satisfied with crossing the finish line, while for others, satisfaction only comes with winning. Some athletes would rather race with a larger and more competitive field, even if it means placing lower among their age group. Their satisfaction comes knowing that they went up against a strong field. Other people may seek out obscure or smaller races to increase their chances at placing.
One of the things that I love about what I do is that I have an opportunity to meet a lot of different athletes with different goals. For example, it is not unusually to have two athletes at the same Ironman event that are polar opposites. One athlete may have the goal to “just finish” in 16:59:59 and the other athlete may want to “qualify for Kona”. In my opinion, one of these athletes is not better or worse than the other, they simply have different goals. One thing I do notice is the language that people will use when describing their accomplishment. I recently heard a person describe their recent Iron-distance experience as “finished 3rd in age group”. While that was a true statement, they felt it necessary to follow up with “but there were only 3 people in my age group”. On the other hand, I don’t recall a finisher of a larger more competitive Ironman event ever saying “I was 10 out of 100 in my age group”.
There is not a right or wrong answer to the question I asked above. As a matter of fact, your answer may change based on a particular race or point in your season. The bottom line is to decide what you want to achieve and be proud of your accomplishment.
