A much as possible, I now run on trails & soft surface (age catches up with all of us at some point). Any recommendations for triathlons with trail runs? With the miles I now run weekly, I’d be interested in races with runs of 10 miles or less. I bought a gravel bike last year, but I haven’t done a gravel bike race or triathlon. Any recommendations for a first gravel tri?
Xterra New Jersey allows both gravel and mountain bikes.
Sea to Summit in New Hampshire has a hike to the top of Mt. Washington instead of a traditional “run”.
Ugly Dog in Michigan.
There is a whole series of USAT gravel triathlons, I’m not familiar with all the races but I’m sure the info is easy to find.
The run @ Harvest in MA (mid-June) is a trail (sand) run.
Delta Lake in upstate NY has a run with most of it on trails. (at least it did last time I raced)
If the American Zofingen duathlon is still around - it was 100% trails.
It may be helpful for us to know what part of the earth you plan to race in.
1 Like
USAT has a gravel series, so check that out. If in the midwest, Tri4 Health puts on a number in Michigan. My favorite race has been the Dirty Mitten, which this year is the National Championship race.
1 Like
I live in NC, but retired & enjoy traveling in our RV, so I’m up for a road trip to races almost anywhere in the US.
If you wanted an international race, Challenge WÄnaka’s run leg is on trails. Beautiful race too.
I’m excited to be racing the dirty mitten this weekend. What’s the run course like? Is it a trail shoe course or did you wear normal racing shoes course (endorphin pro in my case)?
1 Like
i don’t know where you are but wildflower is coming back (central coast of calif) and that’s always been largely (but not solely) a trail run.
1 Like
Thanks. It didn’t occur to me to look for a FB group for the race.
1 Like
I also attempted to map the run course in Strava, just to get an idea of elevation profile. Apparently it’s all private land and no pre-race course recon can be done. yay - adventure!
1 Like
Alpha Win Ocala 70.3, the run is sand and pine needles. Two loops with only about 1 mile each loop, on pavement. The bike is pavement though.
I don’t use much social media all that much so if someone would be nice enough to post when registration is open for this I’d appreciate it.
I was just going to reply with that option. Glad you bea me to it!!!
I just did The Dirty Mitten Long Duathlon on Sunday (5K trail run/30mi gravel bike/10K trail run). The Long (Olympic distance) courses were the gravel national championships for duathlon and triathlon.
I had a great time and everyone else I saw had smiles on their faces at the end.
The races were well run, athletes looked happy, and the courses were challenging without being ridiculous.
The trails and fields were runnable with regular shoes, although I used my racing trail shoes. I think the short course bike leg could have easily be raced with a road bike and 32mm tires with a bit of tread as the gravel was pretty tame when compared to the rough roads and single track I am used to in New England. The longer races featured Sager Road which was more sand trap than road. Pretty amusing stuff. All races were draft legal so those of us in a paceline had others to share the fun during the race.
They also have a gravel bike race the day before for those who wanted to skip running and or swimming.
It was my first year doing this race and I am already excited to return next year.
Thanks for racing with us this past weekend!
It’s been interesting reading the reactions to Sager road in our athlete surveys. It’s pretty obvious who came from out of town without researching the race at all considering the entire race is built around that section of the road. With that said, we will most likely be shortening it a bit next year and eliminating some of the major sand sections. I designed it to use Sager for my entertainment but I’m not THAT mean!
We will also be eliminating the Half Crazy as there isn’t enough interest to cover the additional costs related to keeping the distance. Instead we will be going to the other end of the spectrum and adding a super sprint to appeal to those who might be gravel curious but a sprint was too intimidating.
We have another gravel tri in July, The Ugly Dog Gravel Tri that’s a blast as well. No Sager Rd and a very different race.
Hope to see you next year and if you have any questions about the event please feel free to contact me.
2 Likes
I really didn’t think Sager was that bad (I was in the black/white/multicolored striped kit who said something like I expected something harder). It wasn’t technical and it really wasn’t that hard of an effort. Just some intermittent deep moon dust that required a few minutes of walking for ~3-4 sections.
Also: everyone racing those distances HAD to do those sections. It was well published and if you weren’t emotionally prepared, then that’s on the racer.
Part of the “magic” of gravel, for me, is the adventure. You never exactly know what road conditions or weather will bring. Even roads I ride regularly change from month to month.
1 Like
Totally agree. This was far from Class 4 roads Vermont Overland stuff. The appeal of gravel racing is never knowing what will show up, even on roads you have ridden a ton of times! Sager Rd needs to stay!