Interesting points.

I don't try to get slower in the offseason, because I don't train that hard.

But if you are training 20-30 hour weeks to get in peak shape, you *can't* keep that up, so yes you get slower in the offseason.

Periodization can mean many things depending on what you are trying to do, it might be more correct to say: "less specific --> more specific" than "slower->faster", and that doesn't mean you have to get slower when being less race specific.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

Some paragraph breaks might help others understand your questions :)

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Eliot
blog thing - strava thing

So you say less race specific/more race specific. Let's just say you are strictly an Olympic distance triathlete. You would say during your base training, you are significantly slower at that distance, right? That kinda takes the "specificity" out of the equation.

And for the other poster, let me know if you need a paragraph break to make that easier.

No. I sure wouldn't be.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

Ok. So getting into "peak fitness" doesn't actually mean you are getting any faster at your race distance? What does "peak" fitness mean?

I am a short course athlete and would not say that I am significantly slower in the off season. If anything, I tend to make good gains throughout the year. After a season, I do tend to switch off some of the more intensive workouts, but generally keep the hours close, this stops a huge drop-off in my experience. When race season approaches, the harder stuff comes back in and at the end of the season, I 'feel' at my fastest, but I am probably not a 'huge' amount faster than I was at the start of the season.

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On the internet, you can be anything you want. It is a pity so many people choose to be stupid.

You say you tend to make good gains. Since we are talking about racing, I assume that means "get faster". So do you continuously get a little faster and never let your fitness drop a little?

For me, I just consider my all year training base training. I just do around 15 hours a week, all year long. I never worry about any "speed" work. My first focus is to stay healthy!!!!!!!!!
I then race around 10 races a season where yep, I open it up. This is where I get my speed work.

So I do nothing fancy. I do not worry about "principles". I see many pros say all the time just look at the base they have.

Since I never train "fast", it is easy in the off season to not worry about getting "slow". It is just get out there, do it, and keep doing it. Over the years if you stay
healthy, you have a great chance of getting faster compared to your competition, unless they are one of the lucky ones with super genetics which no amount
of training will very make up for.

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Pretty much, yes. However, I am relatively new to this, this will be my third season, so YMMV.

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On the internet, you can be anything you want. It is a pity so many people choose to be stupid.

Don't think of it as slow faster fastest, think of it as less specific to more specific. Depending on your race, the base period might be long slow distance with a few hard efforts sprinkled in, and then as the season progresses the long slow stuff becomes shorter and faster while the short hard stuff becomes longer.

I'm just really trying to get a grasp on smart training. You say in the off season you cut back on the high intensity stuff. If you are at X mph at your short course distance at the end of season, then you cut back on high intensity, and you make good gains, then X increased while doing less high intensity. That doesn't really make sense to me. Am I the only one?

That's exactly what I'm trying to point out. You're saying don't think about it as faster/slower. I'm saying let's please keep this in terms of faster/slower. If you go from race specific training to less specific training(off season), do you not get slower at that distance?

I've never been in peak fitness, that is why I don't get slower if I keep training in the off season =)

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

No, not necessarily. Aerobic power is the primary driver of race performance at any triathlon distance. Thus, even if you switch to less specific training, if you are still getting more aerobically fit, you may still get faster, or at least not regress, despite losing some of the minor race specific skills.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

Then why train race specific if it doesn't make you any faster than training less specific?

A significant part of the "peak/race-ready" moment is that you have the ideal ratio of fitness to rest--you might have your highest level of fitness 2 weeks out from the race, after a crushing week of training, but you not rested enough to be race-ready.

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That depends on how you define "fitness." It'd traditionally defined as suitability to perform a particular task. In this case the task is racing, so you'd be fittest at the point where you can race the fastest.

But I think your defining fitness as chronic training load minus acute training load. Like Strava does. I'd prefer to call the original terminology of "training stress balance" to describe that relationship.

But that is a different kind of thing than what you ask here, "you have to let yourself get out of shape and slower. Then after a few months of being slow, you step it up and get faster and faster until you reach peak speed"

You do not have to let yourself get out of shape. I do it because I frequently don't do shit for a while, but I don't have to. I've gone from one season straight into base training. The goals of base training and peak training are different things. So you aren't going to be as fast at a race effort, not because you are intentionally trying to get slower, but because you have different goals in your training at that point in time.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

mchadcota2,

You are just now figuring out what I have also started to realize. There seems to be a notion that you must go through phases like prep, base, build, peak, and transition. It's an overcomplicated model for something that's quite simple.

The formula is a lot simpler. You can do long slow stuff all year long. You can train hard all year long. You can do intervals all year long. The key is to train *consistently* year round, sometimes go hard, and even more often go easy. That's it. You're 90% there by just doing that.

As your race approaches, do workouts that mimic the type of race you'll be doing.

Here's a good analogy. Lots of people who want to lose weight over analyze their diet and exercise, trying to find the "best" diet and "best" exercises for weight loss. Do they need to count calories, do the atkins diet, or maybe the paleo diet, get a personal trainer, do cardio, wait no maybe weights? It's mind boggling how difficult some people make it. To lose weight you need to:

- work out 5-6 days per week for at least 60 minutes doing whatever kind of exercise you want
- eat real food as opposed to processed junk, and eat in moderation

That's it. Yet many people struggle. Ever encounter a fat person who says "man, I've been working out for an hour a day and eating clean for the last year and I still can't lose weight!" ? Nope didn't think so.

Of course there will be the Friel worshippers who swear by complicated spreadsheets and diagrams to map out their annual training plan.

But really just be consistent and go hard every now and then. Even in the off season. When your race gets near, try to mimic race-specific paces/intensities in your training. That's all there is to it.

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my strava

While I agree with your point of you will get 90% there by following this approach - I don't think it is necessarily that simple. To have a peak you have to have a valley. The too-hard too-often approach will leave you burned out. I don't think you have a good day just because you're having a good day, it is most likely a combination of the correct process of stress & adaptation, rest, and then execution on your next workout.

But in re; to the OPs question, when you are hammering intervals, V02max efforts, threshold, etc - you are trying to raise your FTP, or lower your run time, or improve your swim times. So from switching from that approach to spending lots of time at 50-75% FTP (or whatever your base program includes), are you raising your FTP? 'going faster, or slower'? Actually I don't know the answer to this question. Increasing durability? Muscular endurance? Decreasing sanity?

If your program follows a traditional linear periodization approach wherein your program is broken down into micro-cycles with a particular focus (endurance, strength, speed... ) then yes you start at your baseline "slower" and as the season progresses get faster and faster. Another way to do this though would be to take a non-linear periodization approach where your season is broken down micro-cycles where you do your endurance, strength and speed work all during the same cycle with focus on increasing volume rather than a particular kind of workout. The rationale behind this is that you would take all the benefits of the different phases of your linear periodization in one cycle, the difficulty in this approach is spacing out your hard workouts so you're not just beating yourself into a pulp. It will also allow you to "peak" for races much more frequently.


I don't intentionally get slower during the offseason. I do take a brake from structured training for a week after every A race (1-2 a year) and a month at the end of the season and I inevitably get slower but this usually is not that significant. The loss of speed is usually from weight gain more than lost fitness :-p For me it has helped prevent burnout and will go a long way to increasing longevity in the sport.

Answering the qauestion: Do you intentionally get slower in offseason and then get faster and faster, then repeat?

I say yes... however that does not have to be the case.

Some people just maintain speed/fitness for years - never getting faster or (much)slower.

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My Blog

I race olympic distance primarily and I would say yes, I lose significant fitness at the end of the race season (late fall), and as a result I am a lot slower, with losses around 20w FTP, 10s/mile running, and ~5s/100 swimming. This year it took me about 4 months to get back to the speed I had before I took my offseason break. In the late spring I'll take another (smaller) break and every year I hope to finish my second race period (early fall) a little bit faster than I was the year before.

For me I feel like the lower intensity base-building prepares my body to be able to handle the physical stress of high-intensity training. In years when I've skimped on base building I wasn't able to absorb the hard sessions as well and became overtrained.