Endurance racing, does it come with an off season? Physically or Mentally.
The year 2014 is coming to a close and that means another season of endurance mountain bike and OCR events are completed. So now we can call this time of year the 'off season' but for us Australians, it's the time of year that greets us with ample hours of daylight to enjoy. Depending on your location you may be facing a wet season in the north or afternoon storms and humidity in Sydney or maybe the relenting dry heat of anything west of the Great Dividing Range in New South Wales.
So what seems to now look like there is even more time to train should I be having an off season you ask.?
Through my 10years in the fitness industry and years of endurance bike events such as, 24hr solo world champs and the Croc Trophy in which I completed both in the one month that equated to 52hrs of racing over 1500kms I see a trend emerging of two types of 'off season' for endurance athletes.
A physical and a mental off season.
At the end of the year you have to find what is the right fit for you, the year that you have had will mostly depict what type of off season you will need to have, this can become a learning experience in which you will gain very valuable information about your capabilities mentally and physically.
In the past like the year I raced the 24hr worlds and the Croc Trophy I needed a break physically because of the high volume of training. The body needs to repair and rebuild so you can continue in your chosen sport. After working so hard and being completely fixated by those two races I needed a break mentally as well. My solo sadistic training rides turned into group rides with friends and just enjoying trails and mostly finished at infamous beery in Terrigal. My fitness was to never drop as I was doing just enough to maintain what I had built up. As my body recovered my mind became happy which only fueled the fire to get racing. February some 2months later the RockyTrail 100mile race was on the calendar and I was ready to rip roar around with a race plate on again. It was to be one of the best days I've ever had racing.
It's now 2014 a uni degree is complete, barely any racing has taken place due to a thief stealing my race bike, I will be using the Off Season to build a big base that will be the foundation to get back to my best in 2015.
So if you have had one of those years where you have trained harder and longer than ever before than looking at an off season that's gives your body a rest and your mind a holiday could be just what your body needs.
To give you a greater understanding on how to spend your off season I got chatting to a few endurance athletes of the mountain biking and Adventure racing world to see how they use their off season.
Jason English: 5x24hr solo World Champion likes to still ride 6days a week as his next race will be early Feburary " I will just swap out the long slow kms with 2-3hrs at higher intensity and do a few local crit races for fun". Jason is a guy that really likes to train, to the point I have seen his strava read 38hrs of riding in 7days.
Andrew Lloyd: 2nd place 2013 24hr solo World Champs. Being Another 24hr solo specialist and recently completed the Croc Trophy stage race he can really clock up many hours of riding. In comparison to Jason English, Andrew is new to the sport and is finding out what an off season can do to your next season of racing. Currently feeling " broken from the bike " ( The Croc trophy makes grown men cry) he is still physically training but resting mentally by using Crossfit to challenge himself, I'd be interested to see how many wall balls he could do unbroken?
Melissa nuttal: Adventure racer/ Mountain biker found that having an off season was easy to do years ago, but now there is a race somewhere nearly every weekend. " The good thing about doing different disciplines is that you can focus on one, and give the others a rest"
Another athlete that chooses to never really rest physically for two long but always taking a mental break when one thing becomes a chore.
So begins your Off Season, shall it be to become fitter because you couldn't reach your training goals throughout the year or may it be to rest and repair physically and mentally from a tough 2014. Either way sit back and reflect on what you have achieved and learn from pushing your body to new levels, give yourself a reward for going through the tough times to get to the finish.
My Tips for 2015
* Measure your fitness from 2014 and use that as a benchmark to train for in the new year.
* Write down your goals and remember why we started all this in the first place, because it's fun.
Chops.
