What to do at the end of the Triathlon Season

You can get a lot of Tea in that Mother... Vielen Dank Tati fuer meine 'Hand-Crafted' Tasse

Well it's pretty much the end of the season for the Northern Hemisphere, I've been having a holiday since Challenge Copenhagen however this Monday was Day 1 of Week 1 in Month 1 of Year 2 of the 3 year plan... What did I not tell you about the 3 year plan??? Yes I'm getting all a bit German :-)

If you want to improve in triathlon from year to year and have a long career in the sport it's important to have a period of down time at the end of the season.

It's been tough but for the last few weeks I've managed to stick to the programme of sitting on various couches, hanging out in cafes and going for strolls in the park and along the river... alot of talking, reading, listening, thinking and my itunes collection has doubled :-). But now my body has started to hurt from the inactivity and I've started to think that being a librarian would be a good job... which come to think of it???

Training for the next few weeks will consist of just running and conditioning work in the form of body weight exercises: chin ups, pull ups, climbing over walls, up hills, getting on and off the couch etc. Until I get my fitness and strength back. Jeez after day one though I could barely get out of bed the next day... a few chin ups and hills and I felt like Mr Puniverse... well a mere Mortal at least but this is a good thing... we forget how fit we are compared to the majority of the population when we are doing all this triathlon stuff??

Actually he's pretty ripped compared to some of those ITU boys :-)

Other follks are still out there training and racing hard. There's still a few races going on up here in the NH... Of course we'll all be watching Dirk, Rasmus, Martin et al going for it in Hawaii. Good luck also to Remy and Ce at Challenge Barcelona and Jose and John in the Florida Ironman.

Monaco Tristar111

The picture above show's Manoria Regis running onto the Podium (3rd) in his first race as a Pro in The Monaco TriStar111. I started coaching Manoria a year ago, I knew he was a talented athlete but like many agegroupers he was racing with an under developed aerobic system, we had to make quite a few changes in his training but it is great to see him go from a 'Good age-grouper' to mixing it with the Pro's... Go well at the Ironman 70.3 World Champs Regis!

Also great work to youngster Leighton W completing his first agegroup World Champs for NZ he should go good in the coming Kiwi Season...
I haven't forgotten about all you folks in New Zealand and Ozzy who are just about to start the race season over there, I know it's been hard with all the Rain and Earthquakes but it'll be worth it as the races creep up on you very quickly... Motu, K2, Karipiro HIM, Timaru HIM, Taupo HIM... Some Kepler 60km Challenge race thingy? All coming up soon so get excited Kiwi's!

Special Mention to Harley D who is turning into a bit of a machine after less than a year of dedicated training taking out the Coast Duathlon and improving by nearly 30 minutes on last years time... Pork Scratchings I think is the secret??

So why have a training Holiday?

• Recovery... your muscles will repair themselves, your hormonal glands will stop frying themselves, your skin will stop looking like it's been sandblasted and the lack of chlorine and sun will stop your eyebrows looking like Boris Becker's... OK well it's not that bad for everyone but Triathlon can be hard on the body.
• Mentally you can have a break, recharge your batteries and think about other things.You can spend more time with the family and friends or watch that Inspector Morse Box Set you were given 5 Christmases ago.
• As Karl Pilkington puts it... after doing all that training all day you will really appreciate the down time and 'Holiday'.
• Now you will loose fitness and it's necessary... I think it was Roch Frey who said to "To get fit you have to get unfit"! I have my secret theory about this... I think by having a period of being a sedentary person again we trick the body into believing that it's an athletic newbie /couch potato again. Fitness gains are always greatest when we first start training... the body thinks "Man this guy is so fat and useless I'd better do something quickly!" so we get a spike in our physiological adaptions to training something we wouldn't get if we just carried on training all the time. But we still have all that training in the bank from previous years... Sweet man!
• You'll realise just how pants cornflakes taste if you eat them without having cycled for 6 hours before hand.
• Socially people will actually start liking you again ;-). Hopefully during your Holiday time you will have found things other then 'swim set splits' and 'km running pace off the bike' with which to stimulate yourself and people around you.
• With a break you will realise just how much you loved triathlon and be full of enthusiasm and energy when heading out the door again... Where would my life be without it!?!??!
  
  

So after your last race take 2-6 weeks complete rest / active recovery. So only doing the things a non-sporty person would do: walking, gentle cycling, surfing, watching DVD's, ironing... I'm serious I always used to ask my patients what they did at the weekend... watching DVD's (all weekend) and Ironing were standard answers. You will know when to start training again as you will be itching to get out the door and start running again... but give it at least 2 weeks.

The next 4-8 weeks are about returning to some form of fitness: Aim for only 30 - 60 minutes for most sessions, 4-5 times a week. Running, Wind trainer sessions and Conditioning work in the gym is best as apart from anything else the weather is likely to be not so good. It also means that you don't have to spend too much time training. Weekends you can do longer stuff if you want to... it's a great time to spend some time hiking, MTBing, bike touring, surfing trips etc. I wouldn't use your HRM for the first few weeks of this period as it'll be higher than normal, you will know your fitness is starting to return when you can consistently stabilise your HR at a steady / aerobic pace.

I'd like to finish with some wise words from Karl Pilkington and Ricky Gervais about why holidays are good... HIGHLY OFFENSIVE language depending on who you are of course but I can't believe how many times I have watched this clip and everytime I piss myself... :-) Laughter is good for recovery too.

Bis Spaeter, Sweet as

Westy