Post Season

Unless you’re training for an iron distance triathlon in March, chances are you’re in the winter training doldrums. Your last A-race is over and you don’t have any races for at least five months. The first US 70.3 race is over eighteen weeks away and IM-AZ is twenty weeks away.

With all this spare time on your hands, what should you be doing? If your last big race was the IM Championships, IM-FL or 70.3 Championships, you should be taking it easy for a few weeks. To recover from the Chicago Marathon, I stopped swimming and biking and just kept running. You shouldn’t have a lot of structure to your exercise. I was just running for 30 – 40 minutes depending upon how I felt. No tempo runs, no intervals, just running for the joy of running.

One great benefit of unstructured workouts is the mental recovery. All season you’ve been pushing yourself. Everyone does it. During a tough workout or race we start playing the just mind game. It goes something like: just run to the next aid station, just one more hill repeat, just one more interval. Mental toughness is as critical to success in triathlons as swimming, cycling, running, transitions and nutrition. Eventually the mental well starts to run dry and like a reservoir after a drought, it takes time to fill up. Take this time to recharge.