At that distance? Go till you blow, if you blow, oh no. However, there may be better strategies.

Depends on the race. One would need to read the race reports at my blog to know my strategery (intentionally Bushism). No need to leave a comment since most people are just being nice and not genuine on comments anyway.

My general strategy: Kick ass in the swim, hold on for the bike, try to let as few people pass me as possible in the run. But that's just me.

Unless it's Ironman distance, then it's chill on the swim, chill on the bike, try not to puke on the run ;-)

My strategy is to make it through the swim, keep a good steady pace through the bike, and smash the run. Last year i won my age group (17th overall) in a sprint and had the fastest split in the 5k out of the whole race. I pulled four minutes back on this kid on the run alone, who had insanely fast transitions and a much nicer bike than me (at the time). The race is won in the run, thats the final event and by the time most people get there they are shot. If you can blast the run you demoralize people as well its a great feeling.

My general strategy is to try and limit my losses on the swim while conserving as much energy as possible. Then for sprints/olys I'll go all out on the bike unless I've pulled myself back to the front of the race, where I'll settle in and wait for the run. I run relatively strong for my regional competition, so I can usually improve my position further in the run.

HIM involves a more dosed effort on the bike, so I'll usually have a goal pace/RPE and focus on that and nutrition. Then on the run I really have to focus on not going out to fast and settling into my natural 1/2 mary pace as quickly as possible...in which case I usually end up alright.

Only done 1 IM and my strategy was Swim: stay comfortable, Bike: nurition, Run: survive...it was marginally successful.

This year since I've been in contention for overall placings, I've tried to focus more on racing my competition directly in the races rather than racing times and paces (if that makes sense)

I have only done one Tri (with several marathons and 1/2 marathons prior to that) so take my advice with a grain of salt. I really only had one thing in my - do not finish last in my age group - so I did look what I others did last year to get a feel for the others time but beyond that I quite frankly don't really care what others are doing when formulating a strategy. Unless you are looking at placing and have an actual competition I think looking and focusing on others is going to limit your own race. I wouldn't even worry about any timing during the race. My general strength is running, my weakness is swimming so basically this is what I did. I tried to just to survive the swim, just finish it and put it behind me I knew I would be last, or close to last, in my age group for swimming. I just wanted to get into the flow of things while staying out of others way. For the bike I wanted to get into a nice smooth pedal pace that is challenging but that but that wouldnt kill my legs as well as getting some nutrition in. For the run go hells out for 10k and dont stop until you hit the beer tent.

Run your race to challenge yourself and the time usually will be a nice surprise (it was for me).

[quote=TimPaz]My strategy is to make it through the swim, keep a good steady pace through the bike, and smash the run. [/quote]

It worked again. I did the Lincoln Park sprint tri... I was in 4th out of the water, went to 3rd on the bike with 2nd place not even in sight. I smashed the run again and ran the 5k 3 minutes faster than the other guy and ended up in 2nd overall at the end of the day! The run is what really kills the other people, especially when you can fly by your competitor without a second glance its really demoralizing to them.