OFF- ROAD MASTERCLASS

he days are shortening, nights lengthening and Covid confusion heightening. It all makes for an atmosphere of doom and gloom. Happily, for the triathlete, there’s a ray of sunshine lightening the mood – off-road training.

A winter’s mountain biking and trail running will stimulate your multisport synapses, delivering an invigorating shot in the arm as well as multiple physical and performance benefits. As a snapshot, we’re talking greater power, strong core stability and, if the mountain-bike hills are steep enough, repeated hopping on-and off that’ll supercharge your T2 come the 2021 race season.

For many of you manacled to the road, mountain biking will be a brave new world. The terrain is gnarly, muddy, technical and often peppered with short, sharp pitches that send blood-lactate levels soaring. That’s why even triathletes acclimatised to the weekly four hour road ride will happily start off with an hour off-road. It’s a wonderful strength workout, raising your anaerobic threshold and forging tougher mental resilience. It might seem nerve-wracking but any anxiety will soon clear, to be replaced by wave after wave of adrenaline. Trail running’s closer to its running cousin, yet the uneven terrain naturally raises intensity.

Both genres of training will benefit your road performance. They’re also clearly essential if you’re looking to race off-road multisport events. Xterra is synonymous with off-road triathlon with the American brand celebrating their 25th anniversary in 2021. They host events (Championship format: 1.5km swim, 30km mountain bike, 11km trail run; Sport format: 500m swim, 15km mountain bike, 5km trail run) all around the globe, culminating in the Hawaiibased world championships in October. There are also upcoming off-road duathlons closer to home – flick to p100 find out more. Right, time to get dirty…

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