Turn On the Off Season

During my last few years of triathlon, I was a member of what I think might be the best triathlon club west of the Mississippi. At the end of each season, I would take a few weeks off from structured training and instead of suffering by myself through a cold, snowy, off season, I'd begin organized training with the team in mid-October. This was one of the many advantages of being a part of a collegiate triathlon club. Each fall, new students would arrive on campus and many of them were new to the sport of triathlon. This provided a great sense of motivation for the relative veterans of the club and because of this, most of us were able to keep a consistent, year-round training regimen.

Now that I'm out of school, in a new city, and without a coach, I've come to the realization that I need to figure out what I'm going to do with myself in the off-season. I initially considered using a plan from the book where I got my Ironman training plan but found that the off-season plans were lacking in detail. I then thought about buying an outseason training plan from the guys at Endurance Nation, but then thought that I would really like save some money (I'll probably never loose the poor student mentality), learn some physiology, and take control of my own training.

So this year, instead of using a pre-fab training plan or hiring a coach, I've decided to use the principles from the Triathlete's Training Bible to develop my own year-long training plan. Joe Friel, the author of the Training Bible, writes a fairly regular blog which I follow, and I really admire his scientific approach to training. I'm also a fan of how he uses his knowledge to help the everyman understand the principles of exercise science and use that knowledge for self-coaching.

Over the next couple of weeks, my hope is share some of what I learn with anyone who's willing to listen. And so begins the off-season.