Race your strength, train your weakness

No, that is not really quite accurate.

Racing your strength means doing as well as you can in the other events to the limit of your abilities while taking advantage of your strength in one or more events.

For a strong swimmer, that does not mean hammering the swim and then being dead on the bike hoping to survive to the run.  It means that you can push a solid pace on the swim and come out of the water toward the front end, allowing you to be more relaxed on the bike and near the pointier end of the field.  Yes, some or many may pass you back, but you have given yourself the opportunity to be in a position where you come out of the water comfortably fresh and in good position.  Get what I'm saying?

The other part of it is "train your weakness."  If you have no trouble easily averaging say 1:30 pace on the swim then it will only take a relatively light maintenance schedule to keep that going through the year.  This then allows you to focus your training on your weakness (say the bike) and less on your strength.

The biggest problem with newer single sport athletes coming over to triathlons  is that they still focus a lot of their effort in training on the primary sport.  Come race day they have a really hard time on the other two and don't get why.

 You're right, the swim (in time) is disproportionately shorter. In your case, is your bike the better leg, or the run? (Pick which one you would be better at as a standalone event.)

If your bike is better, then I would just maintain that top 15% swim, and not worry too much about pounding it for that extra minute. Race the bike, and then try to maintain the run. If the run is better, then maintain a good pace for the bike, then race the run.

John 

I took it a little more simply.

"race your strengths" means take advantage of what you are good at during a race (but not at the cost of the other legs). 

"train you weaknesses" is sort of obvious.  I need most work in the areas that I'm weak in.

For me, I'm a good swimmer, so at races and training, I know I don't have to worry about that portion.  Minimal training will keep me in shape.

Biking is my weakness, so I make sure all my bike workouts are quality.  If I miss a workout for a rest, it's usually a swim.

In swimming "racing your strength" isn't about swimming harder, but rather smarter or with a clear strategy.

Last year I started swimming smarter by paying attention to where I was in the swim relative to others in my wave, paid more attention to drafting opportunities, and was willing to change pace for short periods to catch up to someone I could draft off of.

This year in larger races I'm going to try starting out faster so I don't lose those really fast swimmers at the start.  I've always just let them go since I felt more comfortable starting at a slower pace and increasing pace later. 

Brian