Closing the season and moving into winter training

Jenny Zaremba

How do we gather our thoughts and get into winter training?

This 2021 season has been so tough! No-one has had the races that they wanted, or the travel that they wanted. Hardly anyone has had the training that they wanted – whether because they have had to battle COVID or other illness, or because so many pools/gyms/facilities were closed, or because the very fabric of life completely disrupted with home-schooling, work challenges and loss of income. This makes closing the season and reviewing it together with plans and goals for 2022 especially hard.

The late flurry in the summer means that many people have raced, but may still feel that they have a lot more racing in them – so transitioning into winter training feels a little premature. Yet the dark nights are upon us, the days are cold out on the bike, and Christmas is starting to loom large!

Normally most athletes get to the end of the season and feel mentally and physically ready to take a good week or two of rest, then have an end-of-season celebration with the team, and reflect on the year whilst moving into some less structured training sessions.

So what can we do right now?

My advice is that great seasons are built from winter training! I think that we should operate on the expectation that 2022 will see the majority of racing happening (although I would pay the few pounds extra to get the insurance option, just for peace of mind!)

This means that finding your mojo on goals and plans is well worth it – and now is the time! It allows you to settle into a good block of winter training with Christmas in the middle.

Start by reflecting back on this last year

I know that triathletes are renowned for spending a lot of time on data and comparisons – and these have an important role. I like to use some structured questions to review together. But don’t forget to also do the daydreaming and journaling as you reflect. These allow the deeper emotions and ideas to surface from your sub-conscious and are really important clues on what will motivate you through the winter months.

If you find that your mind keeps going back to aspects of this year, then you may need to allocate some more time to thinking through what the loose ends are that are keeping your mind in the past.  There are a number of techniques that can be used to close it off ‘with a bow’ and be ready to move forward.

Winter season focus

Winter season is great, because the agenda is not packed with race-specific preparation. This opens up time. This could be an opportunity for:

  1. Strength and conditioning to really come to the fore. This builds the foundations for next year. The looser schedule means that workouts can be more frequent, and heavier – because you have the time in the plan to recover properly. It is time to get really clear on what specific focus areas will make the difference to performance next season. This allows for really value from the time in the gym, or with the weights.
  2. Time with others doing unstructured rides/runs. Whilst during the season the structure makes more fun sessions with friends harder to fit in, they may be a really big part of your motivation to get out through the winter months. And frequent aerobic sessions are an important backbone of winter training.
  3. Skills work: this is true for biking and running, as well as working on your swim technique in the pool. Time spent here will pay dividends later – and the lower pressure of more time and the opportunity to build week-on-week improvement.

There are many ways that you can spend the winter for useful training. But the important parts are: do train! Do relax a bit and do start with the end in mind…

Start to build to your goals for next year

There are always so many options of sessions that you can do. Any session is better than sitting on the sofa!

But to get the maximum benefit, it will really help to have a good gap analysis from profiling where you are and where you need to get to in order to achieve your 2022 goals. This is why it is really useful to have much deeper conversations with your coach through the transition into winter training. This will build the foundation that will propel you to success next year.