Off Season Training

Last week, a blog reader asked me what I do in the off season. In past years, I’ve always swam 2x, biked 2x, and ran 3x during the off season, striving for 1 hour per day, going longer on the weekends. I do so love my long bike rides! I just did whatever type of workout struck my fancy that day. I also typically follow a 10k running program leading up to some race in order to work on my weakness of running.

I’ve spent some time this week mulling it over.

October 15th, 3 am:

I had insomnia, so I looked at my training plan book for what to do in the off season. There is a 12 week off-season schedule that looks something like this:

week 1) totally off – sit on the couch
week 2) totally off, or do some non tri sports like play basketball
weeks 3-7) strength 3x per week, swim 1x, bike 1x, and run 1x per week.
weeks 8-12) strength 3x per week, bike 2x, swim 2x, run 2x

I don’t know if I can go 2 whole weeks without much workouts. I need swim, bike, run cardio workouts because I NEED to burn calories and I NEED the endorphins.

It’s probably the best thing to do. Not sure I can get thru the winter pig-out holidays without major calorie burning workouts. I guess I will figure out what my first race next year is, then follow this plan 12 weeks prior to the start of training for that race.

Update October 15th, at 10 am:

I decided I am going to make Over the Mountain (end of may) my first ‘A’ race. I’ll follow the same 16 week plan I used for Pinehurst. I’ll start that plan at end of Jan. That means I have to start the 8 week ‘Off Season plan’ at the beginning of December. At least I can eat lots of food at Tgiving! Christmas will be tough. Until I start the off season plan, I’ll just do 2x per week of each sport. Maybe even follow a 10k plan leading up to a turkey trot race. Yeah, I like that.

Update October 17th:

I’ve decided to do the Fleet Feet 5 mile Turkey Trot in Cleveland, Ohio. My primary goal will be to BURN CALORIES. My secondary goal will be to do a sub 40 (pace of sub 8 min/mile). I did this race last year (in 42:54.70, pace of 8:35/m) and it was really fun. Cold and windy, but still fun! I am going to follow Hal Higdon’s Advanced 10k training plan (starting with week 3!). It’s an awful lot of running, so I’ll probably replace some runs with swimming and biking. I like to do all three sports at least 2x per week all the time. That really keeps my endurance up. Plus, I enjoy swimming, biking, and running. Because I am a triathlete.