Catching Up with Jimmy Riccitello

By Scott Schumaker

Jimmy Riccitello, 39, was, as he puts it, 20 going on 16 when he started racing triathlons in 1984. His successful career includes six top-three finishes (one win) at the Xterra World Championship in Hawaii, and being crowned the 2024 co-ed Muddy Buddy World Champion. He still races, but now, as the off-road tri coach for Multisports.com, he focuses on coaching others “to avoid the mistakes and 20 years of misery I endured without a coach.”

ASM: How can people get the most from coaching?
JR: “People need to take an interest in what they’re doing. Feedback is key. I don’t want to hear, ‘I felt good,’ everyday. A lot of athletes think that’s what coaches want to hear. I want, ‘I feel like crap,’ once in awhile. Then I can tweak the program and that person will be more likely to maximize his or her potential.”

ASM: What is the biggest mistake multi-sporters make?
JR: “There are a lot of ways to skin a cat, but one of the biggest I see is people doing these long bike/long run brick workouts. It’s been my experience that people don’t need these. The day-to-day grind is, in effect, a brick. They’re leaving their race out in training. That’s not to say they don’t do well, but, in my opinion, many don’t do as well as they could.”

ASM: What do you tell people who want to do well at an Xterra race?
JR: “Practice your technical skills on the bike. That was my biggest downfall. Seems simple, and if I hadn’t been coaching myself (instead of having a coach) I would have known it long ago. There’s often a terminal velocity where the trail only allows you to go so fast, and it doesn’t correspond to your fitness and power threshold.”

ASM: What about succeeding in a Muddy Buddy?
JR: “Have a partner you get along with. For example, I was supposed to drop the bike at mile one (at the championships). There were a bunch of press cars blocking the mile marker and I missed it. After a certain time, I knew I’d gone too far. I thought, “Oh my God, Paula (Newby-Fraser) is gonna kill me.’ But she had the presence of mind to be mellow about it during the race, and we changed strategy on the fly. After the race, she was more like, ‘You idiot.’ Things like that’ll blow up in your face if you partner with just anybody, and you’ll suck.”

ASM: What have been your biggest challenges as you’ve gotten older?
JR: “I sincerely feel that I’ve gotten better every single year. My theory is that as long as the motivation and the intelligence are there — and not IQ intelligence, but how-to-train intelligence, because I have more of one than the other — you can get better.
You don’t recover at 40 like you do at 20. You have to know how to compensate, and do things you didn’t have to do when you were younger, like lift weights and not do as many hard workouts in a row. Time-wise, now I have to work or watch Matthew (Riccitello’s 2-year-old) instead of watching TV or some other stupid time-waster, and often get up at five instead of six.”

ASM: What, if anything, would you change?
JR: “I would finish college (he finished two-and-a-half years in the University of Arizona’s College of Architecture). But there was that sense of urgency then — that ‘when am I going to have this opportunity again, I’m only young once.’ All those stupid things you say to justify not doing something you should do. I’m still doing OK 20 years later though. Why didn’t I take a couple more years and finish? It’s fun, and it’s a part of growing up. I could still go back…but screw that (laughs).”

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