I guess the obvious question, to me at least, is why are you letting other athletes dictate your race? Why does your race outcome hinge so much on finding a pair of feet to draft?

You're not hyperventilating. You're out of breath.

Why not? It's free speed. I would normally be out in the top 10, but I'd be making sure that I'm lining up next to the top swimmers in my AG on the beach and I'm going to let them do most of the work. In fact drafting in the swim is something that often gets mentioned, but a lot of people don't seem to give it much attention or recognise it as a way of saving a lot of energy. Squad swimming the other day, I ended up behind someone and it never seems to surprise me how much less energy you need to sit on someone's toes. We were sitting on 1.20 pace (metres) and it felt like 1.40 pace. There needs to be much more emphasis on drafting in the swim.

Thats not the point.

Sure it's free speed, if it's there. But if it isn't, then you've just gone and made a major pacing mistake looking for something that isn't there, or you aren't really in a position to properly take advantage of.

It seems like you are basing your entire strategy around getting the draft, when really the draft should be a nice bonus.

Why not? It's free speed. I would normally be out in the top 10, but I'd be making sure that I'm lining up next to the top swimmers in my AG on the beach and I'm going to let them do most of the work. In fact drafting in the swim is something that often gets mentioned, but a lot of people don't seem to give it much attention or recognise it as a way of saving a lot of energy. Squad swimming the other day, I ended up behind someone and it never seems to surprise me how much less energy you need to sit on someone's toes. We were sitting on 1.20 pace (metres) and it felt like 1.40 pace. There needs to be much more emphasis on drafting in the swim.

But are you going to go completely anaerobic to get those feet? If you don't get them, what then?

Top 10 OA or in your AG??? I guess this might depend on the size of the total field in the race???

NO AG not OA. And field sizes vary, last December I was 3rd out the water, but field was only 70/80, in May 70.3 field was 200 and 17th out water. Made a few mistakes in that race. I swam as a kid, but I was the slow kid in the fast lane or the fast kid in the slow lane ( I can't remember which) there are usually one or two guys in my AG who were gun swimmers back in their prime and I normally try to latch onto their toes, but as Jason pointed out trying to be careful not to go anerobic. Which is something I need to consider for my next race in 6 weeks. Start is rolling and off a jetty, plan is go in at the same time as some of the top AG swimmers and see if I can hang on. They'd be 23 - 25min swimmers I'm 26 - 28. So I need to be careful that I don't go too hard trying to stay on their feet. I suppose it's a little bit risky.

So, if your next race is in 6 weeks, that's December and there are very few triathlons in the U.S. that time of year. JOOC, are you an Aussie or a Kiwi, or???

I am 51 and swim a half in 33-34 minutes and a full in 106-107. Problem is often finding people to draft in current environment of multiple waves of swimmers. I usually start in one of the later waves and end up working my way through a fair number of earlier swimmers but I can't draft them because they are too slow. If I try to book it for the first 100 m I end up hyperventilating and have to slow down. I actually really enjoyed my last mass start iron distance swim this year because there were lots more swimmers to draft. What to do?

Strayan

Let me try to give you my 2c. I am not much better than you, 29min HIM/58min IM. These times occurred in different years.
There is never a reason for any AG athlete to go anaerobic in the swim. Not at the start, not ever. Some will justify it to get some clear water. The cost of that is immense and affects your race downstream.
But if you are smart, you will line up properly where you belong by pace, you will start your race very controlled and aerobic, never gasping for air and you can line up on a random pair of feet and let that person clear your way for the first 300-400m, go easy.
After that, come around the feet if the pace proves too slow and work it yourself for a bit.
Shortly you will start to see the same cap and pair of arms next to you swim stroke for stroke your pace. That is the person you want to slip down and line up on the feet. That is your pace with 20% less effort. Conserve. You want to sight as often as you need even on the feet as you want to assure that the person can hold direction and is taking you to the right place. Don't just put your head down and be dragged zig- zagging.......
Bridging and sprinting is reserved for PROs. They train that way, they can take it. Far too many AGers have a great swim, sprint, bridge, draft, bridge......have a great bike, way overbike than roll into the run for actual walking. The error actually started with the swim, once you go high aerobic and anaerobic, you burn your matches and you never come down. Those are the race reports where peeps wondered why their HR was so high on the bike and they just held their intended FTP percent power calculated for the race......wrong on many levels.
If you cannot draft, swim your own race. Control the effort that you never gasp for air. Gasping for air at any point is a direct sign you are cooking your swim up. Swim in IM is long enough to ruin your race on a typical AG swim fitness.
Just my 2c. Many will poke holes in what I just wrote here. That is how I race and I am 46, self taught AOS.

Outstanding, it's great that we have people from all over the world on this forum, to avoid a totally U.S.-centric perspective. :)