You could try to race with an engine the size of a moped, or you can build up your engine up so that you are racing with a gigantic super-charged racecar engine.
There are tons of factors that will influence your racing performance. Nutrition, strength training, speed work, rest, and psychology are just a few of them. However, the most important physical factor is the base that you build in the beginning of the racing season. A good, strong base period, which is your body's ability to burn stored fat for fuel, is what determines the efficiency of your engine.
A well-built base period allows you to take good nutrition, strength training, speed work, rest, and a positive attitude and transform them into your best possible race. So, you could either try to race with an engine the size of a moped or you can build your engine up with a quality base so you race with a racecar engine.
In the beginning of the triathlon season almost everyone will have lost much of their aerobic base, especially if in the season prior they did very little aerobic, but instead mostly anaerobic training.
Your workouts will have very little ability to burn fat as a source of fuel for exercise. Your heart rate will shoot up very high, at a relatively slow exercise pace, in an attempt to kickstart your metabolism into burning carbohydrate. Unfortunately, in order to keep from going over your aerobic limit, you will have to slow your pace down, often a lot.
Most beginner or novice athletes do not have the patience to stick with their aerobic base training. This may mean that you will have to slow down significantly from your normal training pace, just to keep your heart rate from shooting above your aerobic maximum. Your perceived effort can be very, very low while you are developing your aerobic engine. It takes patience, but it will pay off.
The workouts will feel the opposite of the standard belief that says training should be painful and muscles need to burn to get benefit. This is likely true later on during the speed phase of the season. But for now, this is absolutely not correct. You must go slow and easy. You will see a huge benefit that will show up weeks or months down the road.
But slowly, over those next 12 to 16 weeks, your body will develop the necessary enzymes to break down stored fat for energy and your exercise pace would speed up.
