Forgot to post closer to the race, but there seemed to be quite a bit of ego-wounded long course Pro’s after Hyvee. For example:
“Man these short races are no joke.”
“Played catch up all day after a bad swim, happy with 19” Not exact placing here.
“Should have brought my A game, Olympic athletes are no joke”
Almost as if they are down playing the fact that the race was dominated by short course athletes. No excuse for these professional athletes to not know what it takes as far as speed to win or place well. How are you happy as mid-pack fodder?
That is interesting. I think in a lot of ways sc is harder than lc. There is so room did error. You have to go hard the whole time, spot on transitions, and the swim is far more critical. Call behind on the swim and you not coming back when the leaders are running sub 33… Or even sub 30.
A lot of it isn’t that they don’t know it’s that they don’t train for it because it will take away from long course. Just look at Lisa Norden’s race in Sweden’s ITU race. It’s hard to run that fast when you aren’t training to.