What does everyone do during the post season break? As Matt Dixon puts it “turn your back on your sport” for the post-season break. What do you do for the (~2 week) break before you start base period?
I already swim, bike, run. I will get back into the gym and start strength training (with the goal of continuing all year this time). No skiing here in Indiana.
I plan to take pretty much all of December off from any sort of structure or focused riding. Maybe get an outdoor ride in weather permitting and the occasional trainer session just to keep me sane. I’ll also begin lifting weights during this time. I to would like to carry that through the next season…something I failed to incorporate into this season.
I’m really starting to feel ill effects from being 100% cycling focused for 14 years. So, this year I am going to put a serious emphasis on strength training and general mobility type fitness during the off season. I’m still going to do some riding 4-5 times a week before formally kicking off sweet spot base Jan 1. But, between now and then the first emphasis is on full body fitness.
I had like a week off the bike where I finished my shed for the upcoming winter so not much rest but still did two hard rides at the end of the week to get TSS up to 300-ish. I think that had enough rest for the year actually. Now I’m doing base and I started playing ice hockey once a week. That was insane. Couldn’t walk for a week but riding went fine. And I thought that my strengths regime would be sufficient enough but I guess all those hundreds of hours on the bike made themselves aware once I wanted to do something else.
Three days off of no riding following my A event. Then unstructured riding for fun for three weeks before starting sweet spot base. During these three weeks I only ride outside, never touch the trainer, and if I miss a riding day I don’t worry about it. Try to get out 3 to 4 times a week. Since I have a power meter on my bike, I make sure to only look at time and distance. I need a few weeks of not obsessing about power
Had last race (C priority) of the season on Saturday. Now I will be two weeks off from any structure. I might head out for an easy spin without metrics, but the focus is on friends, family and other things in life. I am rebuilding some of my living space and travel for a few days. And bam, after that I start post-season.
What are you going to do for that?
My last race of the season this weekend. Fair to say the last part of the season’s been a bit of a disaster - injury, sickness, cancelled races. Tempted to tap straight into base after a few up and down weeks but determined to resist it.
Usually, I’ll try and take a week off the bike - typically, I manage about 5 days before I become domestically intolerable. Looking forward to a month when and how I feel before getting into base, hopefully the weather stays kind and I can get a couple of long days out in - but if there’s surf, I’ll reset my priorities there!
Also committed to 2 strength sessions a week and yoga on the days I don’t do strength. Just taking both of those really easy and building up resilience.