Yet while triathlon is experiencing explosive growth both in number of participants and the number of events, duathlon is suffering a decline, according to the November, 2005, issue of Inside Triathlon magazine.
Some of the factors blamed:
- Duathlon is not as "sexy" as triathlon.
- There's been minimal marketing effort by USA Triathlon. (USA Triathlon told the magazine that it adequately funds all of its disciplines.)
- Race scheduling by USA Triathlon and race directors has been poor.
- It's a more "punishing" event than the triathlon.
When triathlon became popular in the late 1990s, "duathlon became the stepsister," said Mark Aiton, co-owner of On Your Mark events, a multisport race-organizing business based in Arnold. "It became an 'I can't swim so I'm going to do a part of this' thing, and that's why it's died out."
Nevertheless, interested athletes still can find duathlons and aquathlons. The events usually are held in conjunction with triathlons or at the beginning or end of the triathlon season: April/May or October/November.
For example, Aiton's duathlon in Knights Ferry is in its ninth year. Called the Salmon Duathlon, the event raises money for the Stanislaus River State Park Foundation. The route loops through the recreation area, through the covered bridge and along Sonora Road and back through historic Knights Ferry.
"It's an off-season adventure," said Aiton, 50. Through On Your Mark Events, he and his wife, Kandee, put on dozens of multisport events throughout Northern California.
Aiton, who is a swimmer, and a friend started the Knights Ferry duathlon as an "end of the triathlon season" event that also helped fund a cause preserving the salmon spawning grounds in the Stanislaus River.
"I needed a beneficiary; we always make donations to whatever we do," Aiton said. "We knew we wanted to do a duathlon, so we thought we'll take care of something that's going on in the park ... it's an incredible viewing place for the salmon run."
Adventure races
Then there are those athletes for whom any multisport event ending in "athlon" is not challenging enough, people like Joann Grether of Modesto, who competes in multiday adventure races and last year climbed Mount Everest. "For me, it's the journey, not the destination," Grether, 48, said. "I went from running right to adventure racing partly because I've never been a swimmer, but I've been kind of forced to be a swimmer" because adventure racing almost always involves a water element.
Adventure races usually take place in remote, mountainous regions and include a combination of paddling, hiking, rock climbing, swimming, running, orienteering and mountain biking. Each race can last from 24 hours to two weeks, depending on the difficulty of the challenge.
Participants, grouped in teams of four, are given a map of the terrain and told that in order to win, they need to get from point A to point B in the fastest time.
"When racers show up, they're told, 'Here's your map, here's the beginning, here's the end, and you figure out how to get there,'" Grether said.
People like the challenge because of its emphasis on endurance and teamwork, she said.
"Oftentimes, they are people who have done triathlons and want to move on to something else," she said. "And they like the challenge of trying to do something in a team venue. It becomes not how good any one person is, but how you function as a team."
Grether, who is the principal of Bret Harte Elementary School, came to the sport of adventure racing as an ultrarunner, someone who runs very long distances, like 50 miles, at one time. After she completed the Western States 100, a 100-mile race through the Western United States, the thought of doing an adventure race wasn't so daunting, Grether said.
"I realized those kinds of things were doable," she said. "I just came to the mind-set that the only limitations are those we set for ourselves. If you had asked me 30 years ago if I would be doing this, I would have said absolutely not.
"But," she added, "they're very much within your reach, if you focus on it."