Winter Training

So winter is well and truly here which means that there are no triathlons.  With nothing to aim for it can be easy to lose focus and let things slip.
  Last winter in an effort to maintain my fitness I spent a lot of time in the gym.  Whilst this is not as exciting as getting out on your bike it seemed to work as I was setting pbs as soon as the racing season started.

As I said the idea last winter was to maintain my fitness, I normally cycle to work and was expecting this to be less common so my time in the gym was there to make up for the lack of cycling I was doing.  This also worked from a triathlon point of view as it allowed me to spend time working on my swimming which was my weakest aspect.

This year I am doing things slightly differently.  After the work I put in last year on my swimming there is now less of a gap in terms of performance between my swimming and my cycling and running.  As a result I am looking to maintain my competitive fitness by continuing to race.  Like many people I find it much easier to put the time into training if I have a race to target and so I am hoping that this will help keep me going through the winter.

Just like triathlon is very much a summer sport, duathlon is more of a winter sport and so seemed the perfect type of event to fill the winter gap for me.  I set about looking through events to see what my options were and found an off-road duathlon at Cannock Chase.  This sounded perfect as it was at a local venue which I knew well and mountain biking has been something I have done for fun for years so it would be nice to see how I would get on at it competitively.  Well that race has been and gone, you can read a race report from it here, needless to say I enjoyed it so have signed up to do another one, this time in Nottingham so be sure to keep an eye out to see how that one goes.

I am also on the lookout for a road based duathlon to enter, in theory these events should really suit me as it takes away my weakest part of a triathlon.  The other area I am looking at for winter race experience is cyclocross, which is essentially off road cycling on a road bike,.  The cycling club I am a member of has a large number of members that race in the local cyclocross league which runs throughout the winter so hopefully I will be able to join the guys in a few races.

Winter is also the perfect time to try off road cycling, both cyclocross and mountain biking are much more weather resistant than road cycling and can provide a welcome respite from miles of grey tarmac.  They also both provide more of an all over body workout than road cycling which is useful for a triathlete who actually needs some upper body strength for the swim.  Personally I prefer this kind of cycling all year round and will quite happily sit on my mountain bike all day but can’t think of anything worse than doing the same on my road bike.

Ultimately I think winter training can be very tough and it is easy to let things slide but actually it is the perfect opportunity to focus on weak areas or try something new.  If done correctly it will give you an advantage next season when you are a step ahead of those that didn’t put the effort in over the winter period.  Try and keep things fun, that way you are more likely to stick to your plan and be realistic about what you want to achieve.  You do not need to be quite as full on as you may be during the summer when you have races to constantly build up to.