Do any of these sound familiar?
- “I don’t feel like waking up early to workout.”
- “I’m not recovering like I used to.”
- “I wish I was done with racing.”
- “I don’t feel like jumping in the pool today.”
- and so on….
You are not alone if you experience mid-season staleness or burnout.
Here are some suggestions to continue with training while recharging your body and your brain so that you can finish strong with your end-of-season races. If you’ve already ended your racing season this year, the suggestions below can also apply to off-season.
Change up Your Swims
- Show up to the pool with zero agenda and only swim as long as you feel like swimming. Focus on technique (drills) or do as many 25’s fast as you can before fatiguing. Simply being in the water allows you to keep the feel for the water.
- Swim with a friend(s) and set a friendly competition between the two of you. For example, each of you starts on the other end of the pool in a single lane. Try to catch each other.
- Swim in a different pool or, better yet, swim in open water. You can sometimes do drop-in fees to a pool or even do a trial membership. If you swim in a 25-yard pool change to a 25-meter or 50-meter pool!
Change up Your Bike Rides
- Swap out your triathlon time trial (TT) bike for a mountain, cross or road bike. If you don’t have another type of bike then rent one for the day! Then check out new terrain that you aren’t keen on taking the TT bike on.
- Take a spin class.
- If you typically ride from home, drive to a scenic destination and ride from there.
- Plan a ride with a family member or friend and pick a fun destination. We are big fans of stopping for coffee or ice cream!
Change up Your Run Workouts
- Mix in trail running into your workouts. While trail running, don’t worry about your pace (especially if hilly terrain) and be OK with walking the steep sections.
- Meet up with a running club or run group that leaves from a local running shop.
- Run without a Garmin or other device for a week. Simply wear a watch for time or run a set distance.
- Throw in a 5k, 10k, or even half-marathon on the weekend instead of your normal training run (typically long run on the weekend for most triathletes). If you had a big volume week of training don’t expect to PR. The goal of a race thrown into training is simply to see what you can do and mix up the training.
You are not alone if you experience mid-season staleness or burnout.
Here are some suggestions to continue with training while recharging your body and your brain so that you can finish strong with your end-of-season races.
- Take two days off. Read a book or catch up on your favorite TV series.
- Take a nap.
- Stay up late and sleep in late.
- Go for coffee instead of an early morning workout.
If you can’t keep your enjoyment and motivation for training during the last part of the season then you realistically can’t expect to race well. If you are worried that altering your schedule will negatively impact your fitness too much then choose to do any the alternate workouts during your rest week. Then when you ramp up volume you are excited to be doing so!
Also – keep in mind that there’s nothing wrong with taking the rest of the summer off from focused training and having fun while still working out. We’ve had many of our best racing results after we ended our prior year racing seasons early.
Good luck!
P.S. Need help planning your training for your next 70.3 or IRONMAN race so you don’t burn out or get injured? We offer a full range of training plans with options for Novice, Experienced, Masters, Female and Senior athletes.
