My “Off-season” Plan

Off-season really isn’t the right term here, what I really mean is my Base Season.  I define off-season as the few weeks or month directly following my last race of the season.  It’s the period when I’m not training for a race and I allow myself some more “flexibility” with my diet…let's say about 10 lbs of flexibility.

What I’m getting at here is the “off-season” is well behind me, luckily!  I spent most of January trying to get back at it in regard to consistency and getting a handle on my eating habits.  My goals for February, March and April are as follows:

Swimming

I’m extremely fortunate to have swimming as a strength.  I spent 10 years of my life swimming between 5-8 times a week (10-16hrs/week in HS).  I typically try to get back in the pool about 10 week before my first triathlon of the season.  That means late Feb or early March I’m going to have to start getting wet again.

Biking

Dungeon

This is where the bulk of my base season hours are spent.  My first goal is to re-establish my FTP and the hard work begins.  Several times a week (3-4x) I spend an hour or so at various forms of FTP intervals.  3x10min or 3x12 or 2x20.  The nice things about working at FTP…it’s short and sweet.  1 hour on the bike in the evening and I call it good.  Some additional filler on the bike consists of 1 or 2 sessions at 85%FTP.  I like doing a short warm-up, 3x15 @ 85% and a quick cool down.  Again an hour and I call it's a wrap.

Running

I really enjoy running and it’s hard for me not to unintentionally focus on running instead of biking.  These next couple months are spent building frequency and consistency for all of the hard work and big miles to come.  I’ll do several easy 30min runs a week and usually save my “long” 45min – 1hr run for the weekend.

Core/Yoga

This is one area that I’ve gotten extremely lazy with in the off/base season.  I continue to be amazed how the loss of core strength and flexibility hinder my ability to be strong and stable in my biking and running.  I’m trying to get in at least one ½ hr core session and two ½ hr yoga sessions a week during the next couple of months.

Summary

Swim: 1hr/wk

Bike: 4-5 hrs/wk

Run: 2-3 hrs/wk

Core/Yoga: 1-2 hrs/ wk

So that’s my basic week during the base season, between 8-10 hrs.  If I’m ever not able to repeat this, week after week, I know my intensity is too high and I need to back off.  No fancy formulas or hard sets to remember, just a good, solid, consistent base effort to pull me into spring.

Next Up: The Kahtoola Mt Run.  The Truth Will Set You Free.  Core Fitness for Triathletes

Until then.  Stay warm.