Surely this is the time when you just kick back and relax? Or not as the case may be. I feel relaxed and healthy but realise that in the last few months I have done a considerable amount of work in different directions towards next season.  Recovery, reflection, nutrition, blood tests, kit, next year’s races, well-being, habits, body check, head sort and, of course, training – all these have recently been worked on. They are all important components of next year’s races and all take time and energy to accomplish. A little run through is below so you get an idea of what happens under the bonnet before proper training begins.

Recovery – I finished racing early in September with three races in two weeks at European level, winning two silver medals, so I was ready for a rest mentally and physically. I spent the next six weeks not doing a lot having learnt from last year when I did waaay too much and it took ages to recover.  I caught up with lots of friends, celebrated my sixtieth birthday in style and did some exercise for fun at a level where it would give me energy, not exhaust me.

Reflection – in the recovery phase I also reflected and wrote race reports, covering both what had gone well and what had I had learnt. All this feeds forwards into future races. For next year some of the biggest lessons are that I can have a strong run mentally, I need to be on top of timings in races and I badly need to sort my bike shoes out. There were many more learning points around mountain biking but those aren’t relevant next year. It’s a great time to notice the progress one has made with aims from previous seasons as well.

Blood tests – my lovely doctor’s surgery needs to blood test my hormone levels every year as I have no working thyroid so they also tested my iron and a few other things. Iron is down again so I am back to working out how to persuade my body to absorb iron. Everything else is ok though, so that’s good. And all done for free.

Nutracheck isn’t free but it is cheap and it’s a great way of monitoring my nutrition intake. I just ran a check for a week or two. That means I weighed and recorded my food. Results showed that my fat intake is now at a respectable level, having been too high. I need to be mindful of fruit and veg intake in the winter, it’s easy in the summer. I also need to continue the endless quest to eat enough protein. A daily 120g of protein takes some finding even as a meat eater. Using a free glucose monitor for a couple of weeks was really interesting. I was concerned that my constant diet of sweet stuff on the bike was spiking my sugar levels but no, flat as a board! As for the result with brown rice though, that’s another matter.

Next Year’s races – Choosing these is often hard as there are so many great things to do. This time I have ignored about eight age group opportunities and gone for a full Ironman in Vitoria, northern Spain with my practice race as a 70.3. They are good choices as I feel excited when I think about them. Whatever the aim is it has to generate that little butterfly in the pit of your stomach and put you on the edge of comfort. No, it’s not my first IM, it’s my sixth, so I know exactly what I’m getting into. The races are entered and accommodation and flights are booked.

Kit – Yes triathlon is expensive, there is no way round the fact you are using kit for three sports and things wear out. Black Friday is the instigator of a big shopping list in our house and most of our immediate kit replacement needs have now been covered. So have our specialist sports nutrition needs for next season, so much cheaper to do it now.

Habits – I’ve done some work around daily habits. This told me that some things I have tried to integrate are now habits ie I just do them automatically. These include taking Vitamin D3, standing on one leg while I clean my teeth, stretching in the evening and taking my HRV (Heart rate variability). Others I could be far better at such as skipping, doing neural gliding and calf stretching. A way to go, but it was great to see that progress has been made over the last couple of years. There was a time when standing on one leg for 2 seconds was a challenge, never mind two minutes, so the investment does pay off.

Head sort – there is a certain kind of anxiety present when racing with a partner who has had several years of heart issues and has struggled with his breathing in the swim. This was impacting my thoughts about racing so I found a lovely, friendly life coach who has helped sort my head out. Less catastrophizing and more claiming the race as my own.  Lots of positive visualisation. Sorted.

Body check – Aches and pains. I went to ‘the body man’ which was certainly an experience. ‘Oh, what a lovely body, I like your right side.’…’hum, I don’t like your left side so much though’. He does just clearly and plainly love bodies and the game of getting them to move smoothly. His pearly sheen nail varnish did make me feel more secure as I stood there being inspected in my underwear !  I was referred to the joys of Feldenkrais – look it up guys. I learn something every day. And now I’m trying to make my left foot move and left fibula rotate. If I can sort that it will help my left lower back and left shoulder …..

Well-being – there is only one well of energy and when you draw too much out for any reason things get a bit thin. After one particularly disastrous over-geared session, where my power was minimal, ‘well-being’ sessions arrived in my training diary. I’m sure that is good for me but it is really irritating sometimes. So I have spent a while working out what constitutes down time and having to implement that into my week. I have to do it or I will have failed on completing my training for the week so that’s not ok! Which reminds me I haven’t had any down time today…..

Training – oh yes, of course. I’ve done that too. It’s base time. Lots of variety, lots of fun, social trips out, fell walks, and the gym for building overall functional strength. Now it is more about skills and efficiency than speed. Specificity comes later. So I have had my swimming videoed and I am clearly as bad as last year! I have bought a cadence monitor for my winter bike to practice skill work in the form of high cadence on the wet roads. I attended off road uphill and downhill technical run training and am supporting my running with isometric strength work and skipping. It kind of averages 2 swims, 2 runs, 2 gyms, 2 bikes a week but all low key, many short and mostly in zone one on Stephen Seiler’s model. This is under lactate threshold one or in my aerobic zone depending what terminology you wish to employ. Occasionally I have been off piste by mistake like the club mountain bike ride which left me with 1 hr 22 mins in zone 2. Oooops. But the majority has remained easy. Time for harder stuff later.

The photo shows hours of training per week in my different heart rate zones since the end of September, not counting strength work. Where hours are high it includes fell walking/jogging. You can see the Mountain bike ride clearly circled in red. Apart from that small hiccup the proportion out of Zone One is very small. It will increase a little in the build phase.

So in the last four months have been ‘off’ in once sense but certainly not in another. What do you think – have I made good use of my ‘off season?’ Have you made good use of yours?