When the climate changes, triathletes can be an unhappy bunch. While many will run outdoors all year long, certain seasons where biking outdoors and open water swimming if not possible. Even in the spring months, it can be difficult to find an outdoor triathlon in your area. The weather can be too unpredictable and most open water venues aren’t really warm enough to put on a race. This is where you should consider doing an indoor triathlon or two.
Here are a few reasons you should consider adding an indoor triathlon to your schedule:
- Keep You Motivated – when the dark and cold winter months are upon us and your next race is 6 or more months away, it can be hard to be motivated to get up and do anything. By putting a race on the calendar in a sooner time frame, it gives you something you can set your sights on and keep that training going.
- Gives You Comparable Statistics – racing indoors is quite a bit different than being outside. You are in a climate controlled environment – there is no wind, there are no hills. The swim is generally done with one or two swimmers in each lane with lane lines dividing the pool. This means no groups of swimmers to fight through. There are no waves and no currents. You can compare your performances and set goals and you are comparing apples to apples. Unfortunately, when you try to compare outdoor races, there are several factors involved that make comparing those times apples to oranges
- You Can Work Your Weakness – the “off season” is the perfect time to work on improving your technique and speed. You can obviously do this in training, but there is something about being in a competition with other athletes around you that will more likely help you to push harder that if you were alone. You can set yourself some goals in those controlled environment races and see how well you do.
- Meet New Friends – one of the greatest things about this sport is how supportive the athletes are of one another. Sure, you can make new friends at an outdoor triathlon, but indoor triathlons are much smaller and you have more time to get to know other people.
Indoor triathlons are not exactly indicative of how you will perform in an outdoor triathlon, however the above are some benefits of doing one (or more). They give you something to shoot for, a way to keep motivated and you just might have some fun instead of sitting on your bike trainer for an hour or two all alone. You just might to give it a try!
Looking for some coaching help or a way to keep motivated over the colder months? Contact me and we can talk through what a good plan might look like for you!
Train Right, Tri Right!
Coach MJ
