I’m the opposite - seem to get stronger as the season goes

That said, I son all winter doing 90%+ z2, and then as the season progresses that ratio changes

Do you think you slow down (absolute decline)
), or others are getting faster and you aren’t (relative decline)?

In my experience I’ve seen folks plateau When they didn’t do enough base in the off season

Tell us more about you winter training and what you mean by slowimg down

Winter is usually solid and quite varied. As far as bike goes it’s a real mix of lots of z2, but key rides are vo2, threshold, sub threshold , over unders etc. similarly run is 90% z2, one day a week is speed week focus on on threshold and tempo.

As a result I come into race season fairly strong. But after 3 months is start declining. During those months sometimes key rides or runs are replaced with easier rides or runs if I’m racing. But I’ll always have atleast one key hard run a week as well as bike. Weekends standard long ride and run

As for slowing down, I’m talking starting the race even with no legs. Down 15 watts in a sprint tri for example and going from 4min kms or just above to blowing out to like 4:40. Just no energy from the get go. And the lack of results is hurting motivation also

Sounds like excessive fatigue/being too strong too early.

How do you define your z2? It's very possible you're doing endurance work too hard. You may also want to consider sticking to threshold or below in the winter, maybe with one block of vo2 intervals.

How many hard workouts do you do a week? Important to remember that central nervous system fatigue is cumulative, regardless of the sport, so hard swims and bikes both contribute, even if your legs are only targeted by one, for example.

When you start feeling that way during a season, what do you do? It's always a sign of fatigue, so if it were me, that would automatically lead to a few days no training followed by a few days very very easy; sometimes that can bring you back around for a little while at least.

It’s usually post Christmas I fall into a bit of a hole. That’s around 6 months into the season. I race well up to a point and I tend to flame out and get slower and every year my wife says it’s this time I threaten to quit the sport without fail lol.
Sounds like rest and time off needed

Xmas tends to throw a bit of a spanner in the works for me as far as the season goes. Also in WA you've got the main A races for most people being 70.3/IM in december and 70.3 or now Busso 100 in May. January and Feb tend to be a bit rough for me. So my best months will typically be nov/dec and march/april.

I also find I end up doing a few races fatigued. I don't tend to skip the Saturday long ride if I have a sprint or OD the next day, so might be tired and not getting good results.

Yeh did Rockingham sprint today. Shitshow of a race for me. Mandurah interclub the race before. Also shit.
Week after busso did a club race had a blinder. But all of Jan has sucked a big one.

Think this mostly comes down to training. You're looking at peaking for 2-3 races max/year. You have to decide what races those are at the start of the year and then make sure they're appropriately spaced out. Then you consider type of training so that you can improve as you build to those races. If you hammer a bunch of VO2 work early in the year your early races might go well but eventually that'll catch up to you. If you base build during the winter, maybe your earlier races are done more/less off of a big strength block. Then you add in the faster workouts and get sharper later into the season. Racing late into the winter is tough because you're extending your season & then theoretically changing when you should start your next season. You're going to fall into this kind of a pattern if you race in December and then start your season early spring instead of late spring/early summer. Mid season breaks, like a week off, are great to help space things out. I usually aim for 1 race in late April/May, July, and then October/November, with some shorter races where they make sense. You can definitely race every month. It's hard to race well every month.

Interesting. In September and October, I feel really strong and I wish it stays that way, but once winter comes, I don't do well. Watch out for food, rest, nutrition, workout, weather, temp...etc?? Where do you leave? Humidity or temp affects you? I love to race in hot weather and it's easy for me to train outside when its warm and hot. I get depressed in cold weather.

I've done that many times.
I would normally start my training for spring races in December/January, build good fitness and be able to execute my race plans.

After a few fails in the mid-summer I found that I can only string together 20-24 weeks of training and then need a little bit of a break. I found that taking 2 weeks off after my early spring races set me up for good late-summer/fall races. I would lack a little fitness in June but I would be much stronger in August and September.

Like you, I think it's accumulated fatigue and I just need extra recovery time.

It sounds like you’re trying to race for 6 months?

That’s similar to me where we have a big spring race season, a handful of summer races and then big A race in the fall

Running 25% slower doesn’t sound like it’s a peak vs non-peak issue, but more fatigue

The longer consecutive big weeks (or even the collective race season), the more the “intangibles” start to add up. More / longer base miles, better nutrition (lots and lots of protein, lots of water / electrolytes, clean diet really matter for me), 8+ hrs sleep and stretching. Not sure which of those individually matter most - but when I get tired like you, I really focus on the things above to get back on track

Thanks for the replies all. I’m in Aus and it’s summer here, have been going since June.

Yeh week off ahead I think. I have lost motivation as well so prob another sign. Despite my training not being as hard during race season it has still caught up to me I think. Doing lots of smaller sprints with results slower and slower, something has to give

Yeah I did Rockingham also. I think I averaged 22km/hr on the bike. SRAM battery was dead so stuck in lowest gear. Turns out the main rechargeable battery was fine, but it was the watch battery in the blipbox that was dead.

I’ve noticed this with my swim, but not the bike or run. As the season goes on my swim has fallen off the last few years. I’m trying to diagnose why this year and turn it around as I’ve just now started to see the pattern.

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Do you have a coach? Sounds like you could benefit from one.

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Dimond Bikes Superfan

I do! I’m in constant communication about it - the pattern trending downwards that is. He has given me light workouts for the week but I’m more inclined to just rest atleast till the weekend

Oh damn !!!! My mate had her di2 go in crash mode and couldn’t work out what was happening. She had 3 gears to play with.
I averaged over 36 but was just empty. Headwind / cross felt like a tornado to my legs. Run, we won’t speak of this. 😒