When exotic is what you need
One in eight triathletes living in the U.S. has traveled to a triathlon outside their home country.
With an approximate 575,000 racing athletes in the U.S., that means about 70,000 athletes boarded a plane (or drove across an international border) to race last year. Triathletes are super willing to put their superbikes in boxes or on planes, and travel. Where do they go most often? Where did you go?
Canada, right? Canada's close, it's got a couple of Ironmans, a half-dozen or so 70.3 races, Challenge Penticton.
No? What about the Caribbean? St. Croix? The 70.3 in San Juan, Puerto Rico? Uh uh.
Germany, with Ironman Germany and Challenge Roth? Not even close.
If you took all of Europe, added it up, all those Ironman and Challenge races, they wouldn't total the #1 destination country for those in the U.S. Which is…
Mexico. More than 1 out of every 4 triathletes who traveled to a race outside the U.S. traveled to Mexico. Why?
I have a little experience with this sort of thing. Mostly because I've been in triathlon since the Pleistocene. I've plodded through Australia, New Zealand, racing there as well as all over Europe and, yes, in Mexico. I've been to races in Bahia de Huatulco, Queretaro, Los Cabos, Ixtapa, Valle de Bravo. I've raced a bike somewhere in the central plateau, I don't remember, I just know it was hilly and I got tired.
I've ridden my bike all over Queretaro and Michoacan, as well as from Mexico City to Oaxaca, finding small hotels along the route at the day's end. Heck, I even named my company (in another life) after a state in Mexico, and when I had that company a lot of Mexico's pros (Benjamin Paredes, Bernardo Zetina, Uzziel Valderrabano) encamped at my house when stateside.
With all respect to the south of France and the Austrian Alps, I guess I just like Mexico. Last December my wife and I flew to Oaxaca to take cooking classes. I'm scouring the calendar right now, trying to find a race down there to fit into my work schedule. Mostly I'm looking for an age-group draft-legal Olympic distance race, which they have a lot of down there.
Triathlon in Mexico used to be a reasonably healthy but still somewhat marginal sport. Maybe 300 would show up, 600 to a large event. The granddaddy was Triatlón Valle de Bravo, in a place sometimes called the Lake Tahoe of Mexico. Valle's "race central" is just below.
Valle de Bravo is the forest that all North America's Monarch butterflies migrate to. It's a terrific spot, and not that hard to get to. It's not the Mexico you think of, unless you're a frequent Mex traveler.
Something happened over the last decade. Triathlon is no longer a marginal sport down there. Of course, there are Ironman races now. Five of them, if you count the two full and three half-distance races. Ironman Cozumel is ultra popular, and occurs this upcoming 29th of November. In fact, that state I named my company after, Cozumel's in it.
That Cozumel race, you might think it's the biggest triathlon in Mexico. It's bigger than Los Cabos, because that race has a tight field limit. Cozumel, with its $75,000 pro purse and 40 age-group Kona slots, cheap air fare and quick travel time to nearby Cancun, already has about 1,200 competitors entered and will hit its field limit (it's open as of this writing). Popular spot, Cozumel. Brett Sutton situates a lot of his pro enclave down there for extended camps. But it's not the biggest tri in Mexico.
That would be the Triatlón de Mérida, which fills at 2,000 registrants but over 2 days, with kids and other races, totals more like 3,300. There are triathlons in in Chiapas (image just above, the run course in downtown San Cristobal de las Casas). In Acapulco. There is a moonlight triathlon in La Paz, near the tip of Baja, maybe 50 miles north of where Ironman Los Cabos takes place.
A lot of Americans know of Ironman Cozumel. Fewer have been to the Mexican Triathlon Series events, put on by the same folks who produce the Ironman races in Mexico. Me, I would pick Cozumel over most of the North American races were I to enter a full Ironman again. But the charm is in doing the non-Ironman events like Valle de Bravo and Queretaro.
Fewer Americans take part in these races so you stand out and that's to your benefit. Mexicans honor the fact that you've traveled to their out-of-the-way races. When I was at a race in Queretaro, I was invited to the "quinta" that's been in the family of a competitor for generations. This was in the city of Tequisquiapan and a quinta is like a hacienda, just it's in the city rather than in the country. Entering this sprawling house was a step back in time. The furniture, the paintings, were 17th and 18th century, hauled in carts and wagons from Europe via the port of Veracruz, hundreds of miles away.
In Huatulco I was invited to go fishing aboard a boat owned by a different competitor. We took our catch to a cove close to Puerto Angel, where locals grilled our fish, and made ceviche, while we snorkeled.
I am a Californian and one thing I like about my state is its variability. The lowest and highest places in the continental U.S. are found here. Deserts, mountains, forests, beaches, you want ‘em, we got ‘em. Mexico's like that. For a few days before our cooking classes at 5,300' in Oaxaca City, my wife and I were down at the beach in Puerto Escondido. At the top of an extinct volcano, on the outskirts of Oaxaca City, is the ancient ruins of Monte Alban, the capital of the Zapotecs.
Mexico is a cultural Disneyland for those who like that sort of thing. I've climbed mountains in Mexico to 18,000', and still look forward to taking the train from Los Mochis through the Copper Canyon to Chihuahua, where the famous distance running Tarahumara Indians live. I've yet to see the pink stone architecture of Zacatecas, sitting at 9000' above the sea.
The races are well-produced, honestly on average better than races in the U.S. Why? It's much easier to get the roads closed (see this turnaround on the Valle bike course above?). As in Europe, the races here are honored events by the local population, rather than a distraction and an inconvenience.
Because there are very few race organizations in Mexico, those putting on these events have been doing it a long time. The folks who run the largest race organization in Mexico are high up in the ITU governance (in fact, they were the prime movers in getting AG Sprint Worlds to be draft legal). They've been producing races since the early 1990s. It's these folks who produced the triathlon in Cuba, visited by USAT's president Barry Siff. I'm noodling going to this Havana race this upcoming year, in February.
Triathlons in Mexico are exotic, inexpensive, and memorable. You can ride your bike along a road full of fallen bluish-purple jacaranda flowers, or run or swim along a tropical beach. Step a little out of your comfort zone and stick a Mexico race on your calendar. The main organization putting on these races is ASDEPORTE, you'll find most of what you need on that site.
