I might be moving to Santa Fe and I am ALARMED at the lack of triathlons and tri clubs here. There doesn’t seem to be a race longer than a sprint, and there’s not many of those. Anybody know how bad it really is here?
It was good - until Paulo moved there …
Having about 18 triathlons in a state of 2 million people sounds like a pretty healthy number, what were you expecting? I guess you’d have to drive somewhere to do a half IM or longer.
I don’t live in N.M. but from some triathlete/cycling friends who used to live in Santa Fe, there is a tri scene there. Mary Uhl had a swim group at the (nice) rec center, group get-togethers, etc.
It is kind of a small town, so I’d be ready to deal with that, both from the tri-scene perspective and life in general.
utah is right next door and has a pretty big tri scene for its size. i lived there for a few years and there are a good number of races. it’s a bit of a drive, depending on where in N.M. you’re going to live, but i did races near four corners, in cedar city, in st george, etc., all in southern utah. and central utah’s got quite a bit.
Considering that:
- There isn’t a lot of water around.
- There isnt’ a lot of people around.
- There isn’t a lot of white people.
- There isn’t a lot of rich white people.
I would say the triathlon scene is not so bad.
and some people around here have the audacity to say you are sometimes vague and cryptic and provide no helpful insight they can understand 
.
I can understand the water and people, but what about, the white and rich
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There is a tri club based in Los Alamos, the Tri-Atomics. They are pretty active and put on some races, including a fun cross-country race on New Year’s Day or thereabouts. But basically Paulo hit it on the head. Santa Fe is routinely listed among the best mountain communities to live in, but the scene is much better for kayakers, hikers, mountain bikers, etc. than for triathlon. If you want to become an all-around multisport stud, you could also look at the Mt. Taylor Quadrathon. Brutal!
An issue we have is that all of the open water is far away from the cities - there are quite a few races around the state that are sprint races with pool swims.
I don’t know much about the Santa Fe scene, but we have a pretty strong community of triathletes in and around Albuquerque. If you look at just clubs I can see where you are concerned, but even if there is not much of a club based environment there are plenty of triathletes.
Now that I think about it, I am surprised that we don’t have much in the way of duathlons to make up for the lack of water for swimming. There are a few, and one up in Los Alamos (Atomic Man) is known to be hard, but I guess we don’t get much turnout to support multiple races.
There is a good sized series that shares races with west Texas for points. It is called the Southwest Challenge Series and some people around here spend their summer chasing points.
The fact that our 2 million population is spread out over an entire pretty big state, compared to other states that fit 2 million in a suburb of a big city, we seem to be OK. What makes you ‘ALARMED’ that New Mexico is low (i.e. what made you expect that there would be more tri action?)
there will be an Oly at Elephant Butte in Sept. that’s an OW swim. Races Like Cochiti used to happen as well-that was a good one- most are short but there are an abundance of them- I wish there were more Du’s too
It isnt too bad, There are great opportunities to train, plus we are in a fairly good location to some good races, IMAZ, BSLT for example. You can PM me if you have specific questions, I live in ALbuquerque but spent some time working in santa fe, so im familiar with abq and SF. Paulo sort of hit the nail on the head though. as far as rich people go though, SF is right there. Sf lacks lots of good road biking unfortunately, but they do have TONS of excellent mountain biking and trail running.
Already signed up for Elephant Man. The Elephant Butte/Truth or Consequences folks seem to making a good push for another form of tourism that uses the lake and the region other ways than just drunk college students with ski boats. I get the impression that this comes from the Chamber of Commerce and is evident by how businesses there recognize that tourism is their business, not matter what they are selling.
Compare this to what I have heard about the Las Vegas oly distance race at Storey Lake, where if you weren’t fishin’, you weren’t welcome there. I heard there were a few “thumb tack” incidents at that race in the past and the town didn’t have a very welcoming feel for racers. That race didn’t happen this year.
Wow. You really need to get out more (http://trifind.com/nm.html). NM has the Mt. Taylor Quad & the long running Milkman. NM has more events than most of the Great Northern Plains states combined. That’s the fun part about the sport is using races to explore one’s new surroundings.
The southern utah thing is no good, besides check your map, way out of the way. check out arizona for a couple 1/2 and full dist or silverman in NV
I dont know about SF, but in ABQ, there are several clubs. One problem with New Mexico as far a a tri scene goes, there are a few people here who think that they run the show and really detract from the sport as a whole. Im guessing there are people like this everywhere.
Definitely not many long races.
The oly in Las Vegas was recently cancelled and sounds like it’s not coming back. The oly in Farmington sounds like it’s not well organized.
There’s a lot more to Santa Fe and New Mexico than the tri scene, however.
there is no water there!! No seriously the training is great were I was at in Las Cruces, you cant race every weekend though, so its probably good to start doing IM and race at Arizona…you can also do Buffalo Springs 70.3…im sure though there are more races you can find there, just gotta drive a little more than most places.
Wow, good timing. I may have a chance to move to Albq., but am clueless about the area. Hope to be able to visit the area and scope it, esp from a riding/running view.
I’ve zero knowledge re what the weather really is season to season, the riding, running, quality of life, cost of living, availability of rental housing…
I don’t mind traveling in order to race. But I’ve gotta be able to get my training thing on.
Albq folks - share what you know, here in this thread or via pm.
and some people around here have the audacity to say you are sometimes vague and cryptic and provide no helpful insight they can understand
His post made perfect sense. There was nothing vague nor cryptic about it.
Training?
A growing number of professional athletes are moving to Abq to train. There’s a contingent of Kenyans here, a couple of pro cycling teams did a training camp in the early season.
You would have had to go indoors for a few days last winter when there was two feet of snow on the ground, but that was an anomaly…