I think a lot of that has to do with the branding & the sponsors. The trail run series has XTERRA as the primary sponsor & they're only known as XTERRA runs. But the tris seem to have other names and/or other sponsors as well.

Link below is just googled "off road tri" but if you google "xterra tri" you get an entire long list of off-road tris with xterra in the name....

http://www.google.com/...;oq=off-road+tri+tri

Good luck. They sound like a blast to me, I've just never gotten into them because I don't have a mountain bike. I have friends that do them & absolutely LOVE it, to the point where they don't do many road races at all.

---

AW

When you go to the xterra site it helps if you filter on Us point series only. That will get rid of all the trail races. Depending on where you live there still may not be many races out there.

You can also search on trifind for offload events. There are a lot of trail runs mixed in with the off road multisport events, but it's another place to search.

Maija gave you the best advice on how to search the Xterra site as well as another site to search.

And they are definitely not as popular as road triathlons but I would think you should be able to find a couple close to you. From where I am in Chicago, I have 9 races that are within a 5 hour drive and one more if I want to make the trip to Marquette in October. I would highly recommend giving one a shot. They are a blast.

What region are you in? I just started Xterras last year and they are a blast. You should definitely get in on that action.

---

-----

"Alice laughed. `There's no use trying,' she said 'one can't believe impossible things.' `I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. `When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!'"

I just went to the website. It looks like they haven't posted the tris for 2013 yet. To get an idea of that races are in your area click "view other seasons" and pick 2012. Then use their search feature and unclick everything except US Point Series and, if you want, put in your state. Most races will be on generally the same weekend year to year.

Also, the XTerra website is good for finding a race near you, but you have to go to the race's actual site to really find out more about it. Generally they are races put on by local race companies or groups that must be certified in some way by XTerra to be part of the points series (rather than XTerra being a race company putting on lots of races all over the world themselves) so the races can really vary in how organized they are and how they are set up.

But XTerras are lots of fun. You should do some!

I just checked the xterra site and they have the 2013 races posted.

My mistake - I was on the results tab.

XTERRA is a nice break from "traditional" road tris/dus. I did XTERRA Portland last year as my first duathlon and it was amazing! Got passed by pro Shonny Vanlandingham twice, met some really nice people, and had a great time. I think it's a different environment than "regular" tris, but that's me.

If you can find one nearby, I'd highly recommend giving it a shot! :)

---

- John
"Have courage, and be kind."