Athletes and friends!
It’s a gorgeous late summer day in Maine. Highs near 80F and low humidity. Labor day is Monday and the tourist will clear out of my small town.
But….
The days are getting shorter…winter looms. Its time to USE IT UP!!
(Note, if you are racing a late season IM or a full cyclocross schedule you can skip this message!)
One of my pet peeves with northern based athletes is that it gets to Labor Day and they hang up the gear and go into hibernation mode. They basically start to DE-Train from ~9/1 and then wonder why they don’t improve from year to year.
If you want to make gains (and they are small, like 2-5%) you need to START the last year JUST slightly more fit than the previous year. But if you don’t train much (and/or drop lots of Intensity or volume too) you don’t have as large a foundation to start next years training. Let’s avoid that.
Most of you just spent 9+ months BUILDING fitness, now…lets USE IT UP!!
How? Good question.
My favorites are:
-Mountain bike rides/race. The mountain bike forces you to ride with lots of force and high variability at times. it also teaches cornering and weight transfer skills…plus its a LOT of fun.
-Cyclocross. Work on skills. Explosiveness and variable riding and the ability to suffer for short periods of time.
-Standalone run events. Err short, like half marathon or less. FAST is FAST right now.
-Cross-train. Maybe paddle or rock climb? If you like to nordic ski, get some roller skis and do some dry land intervals.
-Group ANYTHING. For many long course triathletes, we shy away from group sessions (other than the pool) as we need to hit specific targets-paces-etc. SO now is the time to get into some social events and outside your comfort zone!
So those are JUST a few examples of ways to stay fit and motivated through ~mid November. Then, a short rest period and you back into the training by early Dec and MAKING IMPROVEMENTS in 2015.
Its very simple and it will pay dividends come 2016. So USE IT UP!!
-Coach Kurt
www.pbmcoaching.com
@pbmcoaching
