How important is this early season race to you?
That’s key.
I am not sure why people in northern climes, who have to deal with a real winter do this, but I respect them for it. If I was them I would wait and schedule any bigger more important races towards the middle to end of the summer.
The other way to look at it is to just treat the early season race as a long training day.
Hope that it goes well for you.
Ed, I can’t give you any advice on training indoors…I live in SoCal:) But I hope to see you in Oside.
Good luck!
1.5 hours at HIM pace. Do that a couple times a week and one time of intervals. I bet you surprise yourself with your bike split. Do a lot of running and swimming. I have read a lot of race reports of people doing arizona with pbs from training indoors. We really don’t realize how much goofing around we do outside.
Either way you’ll do fine. It will feel so nice to be in CA and out doing tri that you won’t be worried about a pb.
hi… i’m from southern ontario and have just recently moved to tucson to avoid the cold/snow (i’m in triathlon heaven!!).
but, up until 2 weeks ago i was doing all my rides on the trainer as well - training for the spring IM AZ.
my coach had me split the sessions into 2 (sometimes 3), so that i could push myself harder in each, and just plan old get through them…
it’s much easier mentally to do two 1.5 hours rides (or even 3 on sat.) than it is to sit through 3 + hours in a single go. this way, you should also be able to do hard tempo efforts each time.
good luck at cali!
How important is this early season race to you?
That’s key.
I am not sure why people in northern climes, who have to deal with a real winter do this, but I respect them for it. If I was them I would wait and schedule any bigger more important races towards the middle to end of the summer.
The other way to look at it is to just treat the early season race as a long training day.
Hope that it goes well for you.
Its a “D” race or long training day. My A race is in July. I just hope survive. Ive learned that I shouldnt do a long A race in the spring, training in the winter is tough. I did get outide this weekend, I ran 2.5hrs yesterday and rode 4hrs today. It was cold!
I moved to New Zealand.
You don’t have a wife or kids or a house, do you? 
I got all of that, its all good!
As the Norwegians would say, "There's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing". Been out riding and running for 2 weeks now. I'm at Milwaukee, WI. I've been out as cold as 10 degrees out-just gotta layer properly and it isn't half bad. Nothing beats riding outside. Helps when your running partner is a siberian husky. ;p
Hey Ed,
Yeah I’m in Rochester, MN, dealing with the same issues. Like everyone else has been saying, I’ve been riding the trainer and running on the treadmill. The best workouts though are bundling up, and running either on the paved roads (relatively easy), gravel roads (getting better) or even trail running through the snow (best). As for cycling, I got a cyclocross bike and I try to get out on the gravel roads as much as I can. The downside is buying all the gear to make this happen, but it is so worth it.
Good luck in CA…I’ll be there as well. I’m looking at it as a nice spring vacation, plus a race on the side.
Peter