It sounds like you would need more to find “balance” rather than properly retire. Try to incorporate all those activities you’re missing (xc skiing, hiking etc.) into your training schedule and see how it goes. If you won’t feel like racing anymore because your lacking too much specifity (which I think it’s unlikely), than that’s it. Otherwise you can still race, possibly ditching all those events that require flying the bike
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Competitive sport is a tricky field as part of the “getting good” process involves hurting, sometimes hurting big time and being uncomfortable, so how can you tell the difference between having to push through a hard patch vs. being done with it? If there is one thing triathlon has taught me, it is that the “all or nothing” mindset is rarely helpful, and yet so common among people like us. Can’t tie your identity to racing or not racing. If you don’t feel like racing, then don’t, there is no need to use labels like retirement, the drive may come back or may not. You will know.
“retiring” is easier to type and people immediately understand what I’m saying, even my non triathlete friends
Rename this thread “front door brag”
*pink
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I actually like doing organized gravel races and may jump into some local running races next summer just to keep in decent bike and run shape.
haha…yeah I get that. Fair play!
But just adding context to my story
For those who know my competition the last decade, I have some extremely fierce competitors who literally kick my ass in the swim and bike at every Ironman/half Ironman event. There is always at least one woman who is Olympic caliber (back in her day) and highly elite level who is usually an hour faster than everyone. I’m decent and mostly a good runner so I can claw my way to the podium being far back in the swim (started swimming late in life) and just being in the top 20% in the bike. I really should have stuck to marathon running as I was good at that but got injured so much. I had a 50% chance of getting to my marathons uninjured. I’ve hardly missed any triathlons due to injury. Anyhoo, I’m digressing a bit. Just wanted to say that I could probably write a book about getting my ass kicked by some impossibly fast older ladies in my AG. Very inspiring (and sometimes frustrating too if I’m being completely honest lol ).
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TL/DR: Don’t retire, take time to reflect. It doesn’t have to be a dogmatic decision. Maybe you do end up “retiring” but giving yourself some space from the “grind” of training will allow you clarity of what it looks like without it. It’s hard to see straight when you’re in the weeds.
Long story short, I raced at a pretty high level a decade ago. I was focused on short course/draft legal. Had really awesome sponsors, worked at a shop, and lived the dream everyday. After some injuries, feeling too much pressure at races that made it not fun anymore, and getting burnt out on the social media expectations I decided I was done with it and “retired”.
I wish I would’ve just taken a breath. I was so close. Wish I would have Stepped back and saw what life was like without such a harsh stop.
I tell my athletes, Learn to rest, not to quit. The best people, not just in triathlon, learn how to adjust the dials slightly up and down. Not off and on.
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Sounds like it’s the Marbella logistics getting you down. So why not ditch that trip and find something closer to home to scratch the racing itch? It won’t be a WC but you’ve already had that experience so maybe something that doesn’t bring all the travel stress will be more fun.
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I’ve considered Xterra but I am not quite as good on a mtn bike on technical descents. I don’t do it enough to be faster, but I do like to mtn bike. I worry I would hold people up lol
BUT I am doing a gravel triathlon for the first time soon. And I have considered doing Jan Frodeno’s SGrail gravel triathlons in Europe. The one in Spain and Switzerland look wonderful. And time is irrelevant. I don’t care about winning or podiums. It just looks fun. I LOVE gravel riding but not interested in gravel racing in large packs. At least with the gravel tri, it spaces out after the swim.
Some great advice.
Also, racing (and preparing for) IMs and 70.3 races takes A LOT out of your energy supply. But shifting to shorter distance races (like olympic distance and under) can extend your triathlon ‘career’ indefinitely. Try that instead.
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If I end up booking my plane tickets to get to Marbella in Nov, I’ll rest after the race and just take it week by week and see how it goes. I live close to a well known xc ski area that churns out Olympians and promised my husband we would take skate skiing lessons this winter and really get into that. I’ve heard it could make me stronger without spening hours on Zwift all winter. So who knows what will happen next spring. But for now I am not signing up for any 2026 70.3s
I appreciate your post and story. It sounds like you could get back into it as a very strong age grouper if you chose. Maybe try some longer distances for something different. While I scrapped my 2 x70.3s this summer, I did jump into three mini-sprint local triathlons 20 mins from my house. I’m not great at red-lining it and not a short distance triathlete so this was really hard for me but also very fun and different.
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I haven’t ruled out doing just sprints. All the half and fulls I’ve done and I have never done an Olympic distance. Mostly because the swim is too long in comparison to the bike and run and I’m just so slow in the water compared to the other sports. But good advice. I did do three local mini sprints this summer. As a long distance athlete who is terrified of short fast heart-attack type distances, it was fun and very eye opening.
I think this gentleman is not suggesting Xterra’s, but rather those epic iron distance races that begin with a splash from a boat and end on a mountain top (like Norway’s Norseman, Swissman, Scotland’s Celtman etc.)
PS while I loved the marathon and trained so hard for that distance and exceled in that distance, I always found the 5K terrifying. To keep my HR up that high is a skill I never mastered
triathon has a lifestyle. training is part of it, community is part of it, race day is part of it. I am sure there are more parts of it.
Because, as you’ve already acknowledged, this is a hobby (that you truly excel at) you have the benefit of stripping away what you dont like about the lifestyle and keeping what you do like.
So I’d really spend time constructing what consititutes a year in the sport for you, and simply sheding the aspects that you do not want to do any longer. Just doing shorter races isn’t really the right answer (though it could be).
Swimming indoors zaps me emotionally more than anything else about this sport. I have access to an outdoor pool, but mostly only on the weekends because the outdoor pool has kids in it after my work day. So I just decided I wasgoing to swim way less than I used to during the week and then swim more (outdoors) on the weekend. I went from being pretty certain that I was done with the sport to being excited about my next Ironman just by that change.
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Those look awesome for sure but that ship has sailed for me. I did my last 140.6 in 2023. The time commitment is just too much for me now. If I was 10 years younger, my mindset was completely different. I had looked into doing the extreme distance triathlon in Lofeton Norway back in my late 40s but was still chasing Kona.
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Yeah I get that about swimming. Going to a pool is a big time commitment. I moved a bit too far from a lap pool when we moved off-grid. So we enhanced our solar system and put in an Endless Pool. This has been life-changing for me. I love my pool! I swim a lot. Not necessarily high volume but I’m in my pool almost every day in the winter and a bit less when I can open water swim
My big obstacle to Ironman training is the long bikes. I love to be out on my gravel bike for 2-3 hours. We have amazing gravel riding right from my house. But I really found the 5-7 hour outdoor rides on my tri-bike extremely difficult due to neck pain (had many bike fits), terribly early mornings getting up at 4am on a Saturday. And the traffic after 9am was just miserable, even in VT. The paved roads are just so busy. And I always felt like we had a close call every ride and lots of hostility from angry drivers (we rode single file and never bothered anyone). So the bike training is something I just can’t do anymore. I learned the hardway that grinding it out 5 hrs on Zwift every Saturday doesn’t really work and is quite miserable. Safe but not good for my own happiness. For Marbella I’m going to hope that all the gravel bike riding I’m doing (crazy hills where I live) will prepare me for this event.
I’ve spent the majority of my life doing some sort of athletic pursuit and it typically included a bicycle, sometimes running and swimming too…
My bottom line - Am I having fun?
In 2000 had an accident that took me out for 18 mos from all training, came back super motivated and really enjoying the process. By the end of 2011 I was physically and emotionally not enjoying it. Stopped competition, stopped structure and would swim/bike/run/lift when I wanted. Stayed active, but on a fun level.
2019 rolls around and in the spring I got the bug to race, and race I did. As we sit here at the end of the 2025 season I am looking for a reset. Next season there is a race that is a bucket list event, so I will stay the course. After that, I’m likely to revert to the “train for fun” and skip the structure.
I’m 55 and when I race/train, it is for a result, not participation. Sounds like it’s time for you to hit the “fun” button and maybe in the future you fall back in love with training and racing. If not, that’s 100% okay too…
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I sent a note to my good friend & coach yesterday saying I was considering pulling the plug on Ironman California, which would be my 16th full IM race.
I deferred my entry last year to this year because I was not as fit as I wanted to be. I’ve been somewhat injured for the run this year, but mostly uninspired to book solo housing for the race, which is an easy 8-hour drive upstate.
Normally, when I do a race, I’m in a house share with friends, but nobody organized it this year and I didn’t feel like doing it myself. I’ve done IM races solo, but prefer going as a group. But it’s more than just going solo and paying too much for a close-in hotel or finding a reasonably priced room in the less-convenient outskirts of Sacto.
I’ve come to resent the amount of time for the long training sessions and the downtime recovering from long runs and rides. And I’ve only ever tolerated swimming because it takes so much effort to get better at it. I do have friends in triathlon, and many of the workouts are in a group like Masters swim team and Tues-Thurs-Saturday rides, so it’s not all solo grinding.
But after a few podiums and two Kona races, am I done with Ironman?
Not sure, I haven’t fully decided whether to pass on the race.
There’s nothing wrong with moving on to other activities. There is life after triathlon.
I can recommend Scott Tinley’s excellent book, Racing The Sunset about what he went through when transitioning to his post professional triathlete life. It helped me a lot when I was trying to decide if/when to leave newspaper reporting. I ended up in public radio, which has been pretty good to me.
Also, my life has changed a lot since 2020 when my husband died. I’m 67, mostly retired, and looking for the next big relationship in my life. I’ve gotten into swing dancing, so that’s a 3–hour social dance Saturday nights, and a few evening classes.
I’ve been wanting to get back to my Saturday running club where I’ve been a member since 1990, and getting into the Friday and Sunday morning dragon boat team practices. I rode RAGBRAI this year and had a very fun time (406 miles over 7 days riding and camping across Iowa) and am interested in bikepacking.
These have in common that it’s more social activity, more focused on fun, less on the grind toward a race date where, let’s be honest, I’m a fairly average athlete.
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Thanks! Great post!
I’m more about results rather than participation if I’m being honest. And more of an all or nothing type person. And I think if I do Marbella coming up in Nov, I may just hit the “fun” button this winter.
After 4 intense Ironman training cycles and 4 good Ironman results from 2016 to 2019, I put a pause on everything when we moved 44 miles away to a beautiful remote off-grid log home. We sold our previous home and moved in just before evertthing shut down in March 2020 due to the pandemci. So I was kind of forced to pause and hit the “fun” button. That summer I met neighbors through the woods who open water swam (one a former college swimmer). This was pure luck having a swim group in the middle of a pandemic in rural Vermont. But this was so much fun. I also did a lot of trail running and gravel biking. Then I started back into the training grind in 2021. But now 2025, I am feeling like another pause. Who knows what will happen in the future. But maybe it’s ok to hit pause once in a while.
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