2011 as been a pretty good year in terms of my triathlon goals. i’ve hit or exceeded all of them.
my first IM in 8/2010 also accidentally turned into 3 in the last 14 months (you know how the “i’m just doing one” goes).
so, i’m feeling a.) pretty content with the year and b.) exhausted.
i don’t see myself wanting to do my next IM until at least 2013 or 2014 (most likely, though, 2015). I was thinking about moving in an entirely new direction and trying xterra.
I have no mountain bike experience, but i may have the opportunity to get one at a pretty amazing discount. I know I would be starting from the ground up. my questions are:
what has your experience been in trying to balance road and xterra in the same season?if you’ve taken a few years off to do xterra, how has it impacted your road tri results when you come back to the fold?any other experiences you want to share?i’m also intrigued by the xterra idea because in the years i want to decrease my training hours (10-15/week vs 15-25/week), i feel like it would be easier to be competitive in xterra with that time commitment than it would be to be competitive in 70.3s or fulls. this assumption is based off of the fact that most xterras are so much shorter (as measured by time) than a 70.3 or longer road tri. this, off course, is assuming i have put in the time to learn the ropes and skills sets required by xterra. am i deluding myself here?
i’m thinking that an intense IM year, followed by 1-2 xterra years (lather, rinse, repeat) would make for a pretty nice cycle to get into to keep things fresh, but i’m not sure how it would actually work in real life. i know there are several pros who do both, but i have a job and i’m not that genetically gifted.
I have been racing both road and xterra in the same years for the past 6 years (except last year when I did neither due to injury). This year I PR’ed in oly and half IM (at age 45) and had good xterra results too (in my local races - I didn’t not go to regional/nats/worlds this year), my mtb is decent, if I raced mtb only races, I would be sport/cat2 for women, my tech skills are decent, not expert by any means. I love the variety of racing both road and off road. Have only had one bad mtb injury (separated shoulder), lots of crashes resulting in bumps and bruising, but nothing other than the shoulder, that kept me out of action. One road crash that put me out for a while too, so I don’t see more risk in mtb than in road.
I’d say go for it. But not one to the exclusion of the other, have fun. Get a mtb, get some lessons from someone who knows how to ride, ride with others who are better than you, learn from them, learn basic technical skills, learn how to pick good lines, and start conservatively and slowly push yourself to take little more risk as you get more comfortable on the trails.
I have not done any 70.3 or 140.6 races, but do mix in sprint races with Xterra. I have a friend who has done a ton of full and half Ironman events (Been to Kona 5 times) and tried his first Xterra this year (first time on a mtn bike in 12 years for him). His take was that it is totally different then long course racing. There are lots of power spikes in offroad racing instead of the constant power output of the road. Also having technical skills on the mountain bike is huge as well as knowing that trail running can be very different than running on the road. I think you can do it and enjoy it, but realize the training will be different. I would suggest getting that mtn bike sooner then later and spend as much time as you can over the winter riding it. Come spring/summer you will want to cut back on the mtn bike and do some easy rides on the road bike.
One way to put it is that halfs and fulls are a slow death and Xterra is a quick death. My opinion is that in the long run it will only make you a stronger athlete overall. You will get better bike handling skills, you will suffer, in a good way, on the trail runs, and you can look down on all your tri friends that only stick to road events because they are weak.
I went the Xterra route for 2011 and came from HIM training
I am a strong rider on the road, in local races I’m normally in the top 5%. On the Mountain bike I’m normally 6 to 8 min down (sometimes more) from the top guys on a hour long course, that is a huge difference to me.
I did a few tri’s on the road this year and did very well in them so I didn’t lose any power, in fact I gained some short interval power as suggested by others. Trying to focus on both would be difficult unless you are doing short course.
Don’t think you are going to be able to reduce your time training and still be the best that you can be. It doesn’t matter if you are long course or short course you still have to put in the maximal time to get the best results you are capable of. If you choose to train less that’s cool, don’t expect as much from yourself.
I consider myself a fairly strong mountain biker and an OK trail runner. Scoring-wise, I did a lot poorer in Xterra than on the road.
If you have the technical skills to ride a Mountain bike then besides a few rides a week on the trail to keep them sharp you still need to focus on power output, that is what will get you to the front of the race.
If you decide to go to Xterra USA Champs, this year is was really all about climbing and not technical at all so it’s really about power to weight on the bike portion.
great info from all of you. thanks so much for the feedback.
i’m definitely intrigued and think i need to give it a shot just because i’ve got the bug in my ear now.
it sounds like it would be a nice break to focus on something different. my mind, especially, needs a little recharging right now. a new and completely different goal could be just what i need.
…also a little humbling on the trails could be a good thing too
I stared with Road tri’s 70.3 and olympic and raced that for a few years with Xterra.
Eventually I phased out all road triathlon and went purely Xterra.
The training is similar however, I still run in the morning in my neighborhood and still do a lot of road miles. If you are just beginning that will be different.
work on the mtn bike skills, see if you have a local mtn bike series and get up on that action,
Age Groups are much smaller in Xterra so your chances of podium depending on skill may be higher.
This year I hit the road with a lot more volume and it has helped my bike leg a bit, keeping the mtn bike skills in check is a must however.
Next year will be my seventh year racing.
I do not feel doing purely Xterra has hurt my road strengths at all other then 140.6 length I am just not training like that any more no more century training rides
Good Luck in Xterra
Find a good shop and test some bikes out before you buy, I am most anal about my brakes and my tires, buy a few pairs of tires or borrow some and go tubeless.
The world off road is a wild fun one, everyone should give it a try.
