I guess I must have hit a plateau. I did a sprint tri in which I was only a few secs faster than last year. I know a sprint is not a good estimator but I feel I trained way more and harder than last year. And should have been faster. Is it just a matter of adding more intensity, more recovery, and other tips?
Do you have a power meter? This is where you can know what % you’ve improved on the bike compared to last year vs using a comparison race where outside factors can come into play
Comparing one race to another last year is not really an indication of hitting a plateau. There are a dozen things that could skew the results. Was it windier? Hotter? Colder? You trained more/harder but maybe you trained too hard or didn’t recover enough leading up to the race.
Are you logging data? What do the numbers say? What does your body say?
Yes, there could be many variables that can affect performance on a given day. My heart rate and RPE can vary by as much as 15BPM when running the same route in the same weather. I have found that inadequate sleep and calorie restriction has a signifigant negative affect on my performance. Sometimes I have done everything right and I still perform poorly. A good training log could help by being able to quantify the effects of different training and physiological variables that can be consistently linked to a good or bad performance. Good luck
How old are you? Especially as we age, it can be tough to get faster from year to year, especially in the short stuff. Also, did you taper for the race? if you’re training more, you might need to rest more to let your full speed show. The fact that you were a little bit faster is good.
Do a search for an article called “the next level” by Hunter Allen. It has some very good ideas about this. The fundamental idea is that you need to change the training stimulus either through volume or intensity to break through.