Off-Season Options

After basking in your post-season confidence and doing a bit of playing in the off-season, what the heck are you supposed to do next? There are a myriad of ways to organize your off-season time through recovery, playtime, and building your next season. In looking ahead, you may decide to refine your skill and speed to master shorter distance races or take your racing off-road. You can up the ante in distance, or create a combination of the above.

In the Northern Hemisphere, most endurance racing seasons run from March through October, with a few early- or late-season races sprinkled in. Most athletes in these areas will train for an early-spring start to their season and add races or events throughout the summer. Their most important, or A race, may lie near the middle or end of the season. But whichever way you slice your season, there will generally be challenging, focused periods when you are hitting your build-recovery cycles of training spot-on. These will be the most stressful times of your season and can be considered your midseason regardless of where these weeks actually fall in the year.

Recharge Your Batteries
After your final race in the fall, it is essential to physically and psychologically take a break from the rigors of prolonged, focused training. A consistent high-level workload is positive stress on your system. It gives you a training effect that can aid in top-level performances. But carrying this high level of stress year-round is a mistake and can hurt you in various ways.

Many athletes who train hard throughout the year end up injured, burned out, flat, or unmotivated for their first races of the season. Often they’re unwilling to let go of their end-of-season fitness as they are concerned they will not be able to return to the same level of fitness in the future. But in addition to giving your muscles, tendons, joints, and physiology a much-needed break from the rigors of scheduled training, you also need to take a mental break from following a routine.

Taking some downtime from training is healthy in all regards and is also a lesson in trust. If you can trust that your body needs a break, you can trust that you will soon be fired up again and ready to get back into your routine. By the end of the season, you’ve worn your batteries down a bit. You need to recharge your mental and physical capacity for work. Trust in the time needed to recharge, and you’ll come back even stronger than you were at end of last season.

So forget all the worry surrounding your off-season recovery time and go out and play! Allow yourself to let go of definitive structure in your training, and the result will be a fresh, hungry, and rested mind and body.

The length of play or recovery time needed is dependent on the races in which you participated during your season and the training time devoted to those races. The longer the events and your season, the more recovery time might be needed. In general, after a full season of racing several or more events, settle into two to four weeks of playtime. If you really desire to train during this time, do. Go for a short jog or easy spin on the bike. But if the thought of a long ride or jumping in the pool makes you cringe, then don’t.

Play, Play, Play
During off-season recovery time, allow yourself to play in activities that are not a part of your regular training regime. Take the rock climbing class you’ve been eyeing. Get back in your kayak a couple times a week, or dust off your mountain bike and hit the trails. Pull out the snowshoes or take a cross-country ski lesson. Try your first cyclocross race or yoga class.

This is also an excellent time to do some “spring cleaning” in your life—catch up on personal projects, clean out your closet or filing cabinet, read a book, or engage in other hobbies you can’t squeeze in while in full training mode.

Sleep in! Or enjoy those extra few minutes of being awake when you climb into bed to catch up on some reading or time with your spouse, as well as the blissful moments between the sheets each morning to rest your body and mind.
During the second or third week of your recovery, look for the spark to ignite. It’s the first sign to rekindle the fire. You may notice that your energy is coming back or that you have lost energy due to lack of training. You may notice that you are starting to think about racing again next year, or that you have lost interest because you are feeling fat and lazy. These are all signs to get the process flowing again and start looking forward to moving and organizing the events in which you wish to participate.

To get the fire brewing again, you may need a kick start to stir things up again. Sign up for a 10K, 100K fun ride, swim lessons, or that next season Ironman or ultra running race. If recovery doesn’t do it—the act of laying down some cash toward a goal will definitely ignite you.