Off-season is the time after I finished the last race or challenge of my season. This phase is typically between 1-3 months long. It’s the time to really let my body and mind recuperate because training and doing ultra endurance challenges takes a toll on the body and mind. So it’s crucial to have a proper reset after a strenuous season. This may sound heavenly to most people but for me it’s actually challenging. I love having a routine, knowing what workout I’m going to do the next morning and prepare everything the evening before.

In the beginning, I struggled a lot to reduce my training volume and fell into an off-season blues. So I developed my own toolbox with Do’s & Don’ts during the off-season that work for me. Perhaps there are a few ideas that will also work for you. Give it a go.

Here are my personal Do’s & Don’ts during the off-season:

Do’s

• Change watch strap to a different colour (the colour of my watch straps symbolises the phase I am in; i.e. yellow means off-season, white means I’m on a training block and turquoise means taper and race day)

• Train and move as I feel like; sometimes I just feel like dancing so I dance for an hour at home

• More cross training; i.e. bouldering, cycling, and I’ve always wanted to try kayaking (I’ll give that a go soon)

• More weight lifting sessions in the gym

• Simply having fun during training and not looking at my watch if I’m hitting my training goals

• Having only a very rough idea about my weekly training volume to maintain my fitness level

• More socialising and evening activities

• Re-arranging my vision board so it shows the new focus during off-season

• Participating in retreats to reflect, reset and connect with myself and others

• Still getting up early because I simply love it

Don’ts

• Track training progress; I only add my typical journal notes to Strava and notebooks because I love journaling but I don’t use my usual, comprehensive tracking spreadsheet

• Being on a training plan

• Thinking about the next race or challenge

• Undernourishing; I easily can fall into the trap of thinking because I’m not on a training plan, I have to eat less. Absolute non-sense. I’m still training a lot and I need to make sure to nourish by body properly so it can recuperate

• Having a specific training goal in mind

• Watching too many inspiring and motivational trail running and triathlon documentaries because I really need to let my mind recuperate too and not think about upcoming challenges

• Listening to workout specific playlists (I have different playlists for each challenge, race and workout types)