Well, it’s winter here, finally. The snow has come. So outside biking or running is impossible. The trainer and the treadmill get old pretty quickly. My favorite winter activity, besides hot buttered rum by the fire, is cross country ski skating. The question is, do I count this as running or biking? I know that classic style skiing would be running, but skating?
TIA, RG
do a search for ski posts
you can always run outside 
or ice bike
dirt.
Well, let me just say that you can’t count it as biking nor running cause it is neither. It is skate skiing and just count the hours of training as training hours. Overall, it is a perfect compliment to swim-bike-run as you use all major muscle groups from your tri sports, but if anything it works the bike and swim muscles the most. Most winters, I would totally stop biking and swimming. Swimming would be zero from Oct-April1, Biking would be zero from Dec 15th to Mar 01, and within a few weeks I am back into the groove as if nothing happened. Running on the other hand is a different story. I need to keep running 2-4 times a week from 30-60 min to ensure that I can get back into a full blown Ironman run program (60-100K per week) shortly after the snow is gone. Anyway, now, I am not so crazy about XC skiing when it is minus 20, and I’d rather actually ride the rollers, the trainer or swim…so I do more tri sports indoors on really bad days…but if it is reasonable outside (minus 15 or warmer), I prefer to be on skis.
Dev
Dev,
Do you classic at all, or only skate?
I’m with Dev, in that I can’t count on xc skiing to replace running, whereas the swimming and biking seem to be benefited. And, if seeing a certain German 2x IM Hawaii champion blow by you on the local skate ski track (as happened to me a week ago last Saturday), is any indication, at least some really top triathletes think it’s fun, if not beneficial.
That would be Norman eh? Was this in Bavaria or further North?
I read where Reinhold Humbold (2 time M55-59 winner and course record holder at Kona) is an avid XC skiier.