Thinking ahead…A race is next week(I know its early in the grand scheme of things) but has anybody recommendations on what to complete after their A race? Rest of the year in terms of racing is out but I cant even think about next year as its so far away(dates and scheduling)…I’d like to keep the fitness level somewhat good (just completed Half Distance plan - 24 weeks). The thought of jumping into Half Distance Mid vol after A race isn’t appealing right now!
Anyone dive into SSB or any build while maintaining some “Tri” fitness?
I did SSB after my tri season last year and then just sprinkled in runs and swims as I felt like it.
My season ended late October and I started my tri training back up in the new year, so I just did it to explore some different plans, maintain fitness, and keep my holiday weight gain to a minimum.
I thought it was fine but after coming off of the variety that the tri training plan had (VO2 Max day, SS day, etc) it felt a bit monotonous to me with it being pretty much all sweet spot workouts.
The nice thing is that you’re in place where you can play around and find things you enjoy most or feel like need the most improvement in the off season now. I think this year after my season I’ll pick a low volume Olympic plan for the bike just to keep it up and then focus on bringing my run up
Depends whether you want to just maintain (or not lose too much…) fitness while taking your foot off the gas for a while, or if you want to do something that will be useful for next season.
If the former then I wouldn’t line up a TR plan right away, just stay active and enjoy some unstructured training for a while. Go MTBing, or join some group rides, hit the gym, or just wake up each morning and do whatever you feel like. Maybe have some really loose goals like doing something X days/week, or logging X hours/week across all activities in Strava. Good to unwind, get that fatigue out of your system and be really chomping at the bit when you’re ready to start training seriously again.
If you feel you’re ready to jump straight back into something more serious then I’d start by looking at what your weaknesses are and focusing there. Could mean a period of a run focus where you try to run every day. Or doing some masters swimming. Or hitting the gym to try and achieve the strength goals recently laid out by TR. If bike is your weakness then SSB is certainly a great way to build a bigger base. Nice thing about end of season is you can focus on one or 2 things and put everything else on the back burner, knowing you have plenty of time to get back to where you were in the other sports. Once you’re into tri season I find you’re always juggling all 3 sports and very hard to fit it all in.