Fostering Fitness in the Triathlon Offseason

TriDot Podcast Episode 276

Fostering Fitness in the Triathlon Offseason

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Intro: This is the TriDot podcast. TriDot uses your training data and genetic profile, combined with predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to optimize your training, giving you better results in less time with fewer injuries. Our podcast is here to educate, inspire, and entertain. We’ll talk all things triathlon with expert coaches and special guests. Join the conversation and let’s improve together.

Andrew Harley: Welcome to the TriDot Podcast. This is our very first show of the calendar year 2025. So if you're listening to it fresh, welcome to the new year. An episode today about the triathlon offseason. A decent portion of TriDot audience and athletes are in the middle of their offseason right now. We obviously have a large constituency of athletes from around the world who are actively in the middle of their race season right now. So if that is you, you can listen and learn today, and we are cheering you on in your race season. And the things you learn today, you can apply to your offseason whenever that hits later in the calendar year. But while we're here, and it's just the time of year where a lot of folks are retooling from the last year and getting geared up for the next year, I wanted to grab a couple of TriDot coaches and pick their brains on what we should and should not be doing during a triathlon offseason. And the three coaches I have chatting with me about this is Coach Brady Hoover, Coach Jeff Raines, and Coach Ryan Tibball. All staff coaches, and all three of these guys help TriDot coaches learn how to coach better. They're all on our business team. So great panel today. Brady, how's it going?

Brady Hoover: Good, man. I'm happy to be here. It seems like we did this last year. I'm excited to be back.

Andrew: Last year, 3 days ago. Jeff Raines, Happy New Year.

Jeff Raines: Happy New Year. Let's do it.

Andrew: And fresh off of spending the holidays in Hawaii, Ryan Tibball, welcome back to Texas.

Ryan Tibball: Hey, thank you. I really do wish I was back in Hawaii. Nothing like a Hawaiian Christmas, but certainly really excited for the new year, nonetheless. Got some goals in mind already.

Andrew: Well, I am Andrew the Average Triathlete, Voice of the People and Captain of the Middle of the Pack. I'm going to get us into our warm up question, we’ll settle in for our main set conversation, and wind things down with our Coach Cool Down Tip of the Week. Lots of good stuff. Let’s get to it.

Warm up theme: Time to warm up! Let’s get moving.

Andrew: Whether it's your offseason or not, every triathlete listening to this podcast – if you're listening to it the week it airs – you are at the start of 2025. And what I want to know from our coaches on the episode today, and what I want to know from our audience is, what is your number one triathlon-related goal for the year 2025? Coach Jeff Raines, what is this for you?

Jeff: Oh gosh. IRONMAN California is on my radar. Well, it is – I signed up.

Andrew: You just keep going back to that one, don't you?

Jeff: Man, I got to roll the dice, and one of these times I'm going to hit the bullseye, or the snake eyes, or whatever, right? It's a team event for my team. There are 10 of us currently signed up with, maybe, four or five “maybe”s along the way. So my goal is, one, to PR myself – do well there, my own performance goals – but also have a great time with my athletes and train alongside them, practice what I preach, and we all do it together.

Andrew: Alright, sounds really fun. Coach Brady Hoover, what is your number one triathlon-related goal of 2025?

Brady: I want to PR the 70.3 distance. I got back into long-course, or semi-long-course, last year. It was a little beta test with a four- and a six-year-old to see, can I get the training volume in? And I was able to do it. I had a front derailleur issue, where somebody in transition knocked my derailleur out of alignment. It shifted just fine the day before when I racked it and shifted through all the gears. So somehow it got knocked in transition. I was going down the hill looking for that bigger gear.

Andrew: And it was not there.

Brady: And I didn't know what happened. Well, a bike mechanic couldn't leave transition because that's where they were. It took them an hour to get to me. And I ended up going, like, 5:52. So I am out for redemption, and I want to PR.  

Andrew: 5:52 was like the time of my very first 70.3, and that's what Brady Hoover does with an hour on the side of the road in there, somewhere. So nice to know where the differences in our fitness are. Coach Ryan Tibball, biggest goal, triathlon 2025?

Ryan: It is Marbella 70.3 World Championships. That is my big goal.

Andrew: You want to qualify or you have qualified already?

Ryan: I want to qualify. So I got to go back to Hawaii. Darn it, right?

Andrew: Sure.

Ryan: Now, Honu 70.3 is the goal race for that, and I've done that one twice. This will be my third go at it. And I can tell you, she has gotten the best of me those first two times, and I am determined to not let that happen again. I have a new ride sitting behind me, and I cannot wait to race.

Andrew: Your TriDot-branded Diamond bike. Let's be very clear on that. It's your TriDot-branded Diamond bike.

Ryan: She's raring to go. I'm feeling good. I got to get this right. Let's go.

Andrew: Yeah, three of the four of us on this podcast recording have that very same TriDot-branded Diamond bike. Brady Hoover does not. So just throwing that out there. Brady's got to examine himself. He's got to examine what he's got right now in his pain cave.

Brady: New PR, new bike.

Andrew: Yeah, there you go. This is real simple for me. I haven't raced in a year or two, just with job stuff going on, and family stuff going on, and starting our family, and all that jazz. So I would just like to end 2025 having done a sprint triathlon somewhere, right? So where I live in Dallas/Fort Worth, we are blessed with a lot of local sprints and olympics. So I plan on trying to find my way to the starting and finish line of one of those before the calendar year is done. There's literally a sprint triathlon – it's the Caveman Tri, for Dallas/Fort Worth-based athletes – it is like six minutes from my house. And I'm like, why am I not doing that race every single year? I'm not really sure. But it's in April. I'm not sure if I can be ready by April. So more than likely a little bit deeper into the year, I'll try to get back to a local sprint triathlon.

Ryan: I'm going to tell you right now, Andrew, I'm probably going to enter that race.

Andrew: Yeah, well, I will come cheer you on. I'm not sure if my fitness will be there yet.

Ryan: That wasn't the goal. The goal was for you to be there with me.

Andrew: Ah, I see, I see. Well, we'll have to have some serious conversations about that off the podcast. But hey, we're going to throw this question out to our podcast audience. So make sure you're a member of the I AM TriDot Facebook group. And if you're a TriDot user, make sure you're in the Community Hub. Those are the two places we like to throw this question out to find out from you, what is your number one triathlon related goal of 2025? Can't wait to see what you have to say.

Main set theme: On to the main set. Going in 3…2…1…

Andrew: So on to our main set conversation discussing a triathlon offseason. And I think when we look across the range of pro sports, we're used to seeing professional athletes – whether they're in a team sport or in triathlon – we're used to seeing them take an offseason. And so there's this idea, this concept of, “I do my athletic endeavor for a certain period of time, and then I take a break.” And there's a lot of science behind how long that break should, or could, be. There's some data behind whether or not you actually need that break. And there's some coaching principles that the three of you, I know, talk to your athletes about, when it comes to what to do during this time period where athletes may or may not be taking a break. So lots to get into today. And what I want to start with is, just as a concept, what do you guys think the purpose of an offseason is? And really, when does an offseason, quote unquote, “start and end” for an athlete? Coach Brady, what do you think?

Brady: Offseason – that would be after your last race of the big season. And I'd say that's when it would end. When it would stop? Right after you recovered and had a little too much of an offseason. We'll get into that as we dig a little deeper.

Andrew: Okay. Ryan Tibball, anything to add there on what you view the offseason to be as a coach?

Ryan: Yeah, I'm going to be the first to throw out, “It depends.” But it really does. But to Brady's point, yeah, it begins at, perhaps, at the end of your big A-race and you're like, “Hey, that's it. I'm diving back into development phase,” and we will talk more about that. But typically, what you see is right around the November-ish time, at this end of the world. And offseason begins at that point, ends around that March time, when those races kick off. So I like to call it a ‘trap season’ as well, because it happens right around the holidays. And in many senses, it's an intentional time where you can spend time with family, friends, and do those things, and kind of declutter the brain, the body, and stuff. We'll talk a lot about that. But that's my point on when it starts and ends.

Andrew: And as I alluded to a little earlier in the show, obviously, this depends on where in the world you live. So Ryan, for a lot of our North American/European athletes, they're in their offseason right now and through the bulk of the holidays. For our Oceana, New Zealand, Australian friends, they're in the middle of the race season right now, and their offseason hits during May, June, July, August. And so technically, Brady's probably right in suggesting when your last race ends, you're starting your offseason. And at some point, gearing up for your next race season, it begins again. But I think for the athlete, it's just: where you live, when are the races? Because here in Texas, we have races from March until deep into November. So that's the bulk of the race season. And when there's no more races locally to really enter, you're kind of in your offseason. So wherever in the world you are, ‘when the races are’ is traditionally your in-season versus offseason. And at some point, due to winter and whatnot, the triathlon offseason kicks in. So my second question here – and this one, man, I really see a lot of athletes throw this out on the I AM TriDot Facebook group. I see athletes really, kind of, kick this one around, especially if they're new to TriDot training. Do we actually need an offseason? Do we need a period of time where we're just, like, full-on not training or backing off of our training? Because if you sign up for TriDot, unless you opt to take off time yourself, TriDot doesn't give you time off training in a certain portion of the year. And I think if we look at the pros, we see them all kicking down Kona, kicking down Nice, kicking down all the World Championships, and then, boom, they take a break for a couple of months. Well, they're the pros. This is their livelihood. It's a little bit different for them. So Jeff Raines, answer this question for us. Really get into, just, from what the data tells us, from what you, as a coach, know, working with your athletes. Do we as triathletes need an offseason? Is it beneficial? Yes or no?

Jeff: You know, I was going to jump in earlier, and I would argue that triathletes do not need an ‘off’-season. And there's a reason why I emphasize ‘off’. Now, I like what you said earlier, breaks. You can take breaks. It doesn't necessarily – sorry, Brady – have to be – and I know you didn't necessarily say it – but at the end, “Okay, late October is the last local race in my area, so that's offseason. Right after that race, I'm taking off.” I think it's – what defines an offseason, is when you need a, quote, “break”. It could be a break from as much volume that you've been doing. It could be – and this is my answer, is when your goal setting, or that one thing that you're focused on – and there can be micro goals along the way – but when you have a new shift in a goal focus, that is when you need a break. But not an offseason. Consistency is key. There will be ebbs and flows. You will need breaks in your training, but no one needs a true offseason. But you do need a break in where you shift the focus of your goal, your goal setting. And I think that there are deadlines in those goals. And there's actually a quote I'm going to throw out here right now, “Goals are dreams with deadlines.” There has to be an end in mind. There has to be accountability. There has to be a build. There has to be a focus. It has to be measurable. It has to be aggressive. It has to be realistic. And there has to be a timestamp on it. And when that goal or that focus shifts, we need a break to find out, what is that new goal? Now, that could mean dropping your volume a little bit. It could be taking one or two days off per week. But I still think that we need to stay consistent, and we need to keep a certain level of fitness. We don't want to lose everything that we've gained. And I think the goal is to start that new goal, or that new season, at a point where we're at, or a little bit better, than where we were at that point last year. Or our best fitness point of the previous season, can we be at that point a month or two earlier in this new season? So now you're setting yourself up for success, to not only tie your best fitness of the previous season, but then maybe even surpass that.

Andrew: Coach Ryan Tibball, I'll kick this over to you. Because what Jeff's touching on here, really, is starting to get into some TriDot – not even mindset – just the way TriDot approaches training. Here at TriDot, we don't even like the term offseason in truth, right? Like we as a company don't even call it the offseason. We call it the preseason, and there's a couple of reasons for that. But Ryan, I guess get into it. Why do we consider this time of year – which again, depending on where you are in the world, different times of year – but this period where – with the changes in weather, races ebbing and flowing, whatever, you're kind of not racing versus racing – why do we call this portion of time the preseason and not the offseason?

Ryan: Really because you don't have a race on the calendar that's affecting your training at this moment. In the preseason, nothing is in there. You are in development phase. And during the development phase – we've talked about this in other podcasts – that's opportunities. And I always view these as I love this time of year, preseason, because one, perhaps your competition has decided to go ahead and take that off time, and you didn't. And you wanted to get ahead. Maybe you are that super competitive athlete that wants to hit those podiums, hit those big PRs. This is the time, that preseason, to take advantage of it. And by doing so, again, development phase allows you to start to develop that power, what you're looking for. Looking for that review, looking through your past season, where's my low-hanging fruit? And many times people are like, “I want to get stronger on the bike. I want to get stronger on the run.” Well, guess what? Don't have to worry about a race on your calendar. Now you just get that one little focus. You don't have anxiety of any races. You just get to focus on those specific goals that Jeff Raines has mentioned, that goals have deadlines. Those goals, those deadlines generally can happen, whether you say, “I want to hit those goals right at the end of the preseason,” heading into the season of your racing. So that's my point on that.

Andrew: I think just even in terms of language, right? When you think of the term offseason, it's almost suggesting to the athlete – if we're calling that the offseason, it kind of has this built-in connotation that you shouldn't be training, you should be resting, you should back off. Like, this is not a time for triathlon. And all of a sudden, you flip the language to calling it a preseason – and this is kind of also part of why we call it that. Like, you calling it preseason – it’s where you're getting ready for the next season, right? And you can finish your last race of the year and, to Brady's point, recover properly. But right after that, you can start preparing for the following year. You don't have to take a break. And in the data science behind TriDot Training, a majority of athletes don't even really need a substantial break during, quote unquote, “the offseason”. So we refer to it as the preseason, and the app has you get back to training and continue training all through, quote unquote, the “offseason”. But, Brady, can you talk just a little bit to why that is, and what's happening in the training stress management that allows TriDot to keep you training all year round, as opposed to needing weeks off, months off, what have you.

Brady: Yeah, so the training load – normalized training load, we call it – is balanced so well, that it prepares you for that race – all the races in your season. That last race, it gives you that ample recovery time, depending on the event, right? If it's a 70.3, you might see, in the athlete, you might see a week to two weeks of Zone 2 training. That's enough. That’s ample amount of time to allow your body to recover, and then you're right back into easing into – I call it “strong before long, fast before far” – that intensity training to get ready for the next season, that preseason. And like I was saying, it's so well balanced that you don't really need that time off. If you want that time off, I always recommend after the race, that's why I mentioned that, because you're doing Zone 2 training. You can do Zone 2 training walking with your dog, walking with the family, hiking, doing yoga, you name it. There's other ways.

Andrew: Christmas caroling around the neighborhood.

Brady: Christmas caroling, I love it. Did some of that, you know, and what have you.

Andrew: Very, very good. So, there are athletes out there that hear this, they totally get it. They understand, “Okay, sure. I can keep training. It's a preseason. It's not an offseason.” I'm still titling this podcast episode, and this conversation, the Triathlon Offseason because the industry at large refers to this time period as the offseason. There's no point in trying to fight that vernacular industry wide, but here at TriDot, we view it as the preseason – let's go ahead and start getting our athletes ready for the next race season. But for athletes listening who just want a true offseason – they want a few months off, a few weeks off. They want to take the holidays and just not do any active training towards a race. Let's talk about this for a little bit. How does a stop, or a pause, in training affect our body and our fitness? Coach Ryan Tibball?

Ryan: Well, I tell you, if you take that time off – I could put some numbers here, and I will. Think about your cardiovascular fitness for a moment. You can start to lose that fitness within 7, 10 days, up to 2 weeks of inactivity. There's no question about it. If you completely put a dead stop on what you're doing, your activities, and specifically, you think about what can this do to you? Your FTPs will drop, your VO2 max drops, those things. And many athletes, if you start talking about how those things drop, they say, “Oh, no, no, no, no, I don't want that to happen. I worked so hard up unto this point, and here we go into the preseason, I don't want to lose what I've gained.” And so you have to be very careful. If you want to take that time off, just know the effects that it's going to have on that cardiovascular fitness. Now thinking about your strength, you're going to lose, actually, you start to lose strength-volume within a week or two of not doing anything. And then after three weeks of not doing any strength work, you're starting to put yourself in another hole. And again, that preseason is an opportunity perhaps – and we'll talk more about that – to work on strength. And on top of that, for those that restart and have taken that time off, you're going to see your heart rates all of a sudden are higher. You're like, “Woah, woah, wait. My Zone 2. These zones are way off now.” Yeah. So there's other problems that occur. If you do take a true time off and stop training, it does affect you. So you have to ask yourself, do you want that to happen? Or are you okay with, “You know what, I'm okay with losing this fitness.” For many, we're all type A's. The answer is probably no. You're not happy with that, and you want to keep going. And to Raines’ point, too, and Brady's point, it's like, you can still be very effective, and that's what TriDot does so well for you in continuing and keeping your fitness built through the preseason and actually making you stronger.

Andrew: So if we put a pause on it – thanks so much just for quantifying it for us, right, on both the strength side and the cardio side – at what point do we start losing some fitness? And so I'll kick this over to Jeff Raines. If you have an athlete come to you, on your roster, that you're working with, and they're like, “Hey, I've been training, training, training. I really just want a little bit of a break here in this offseason/preseason. What are the best practices for doing this? Is it better to take a full stop and just know, “Okay, sure, I lose a little bit of fitness, but I do need a break.” Or is it possible to keep some light training going and maybe mitigate how much fitness you lose? Is there an optimal amount of time to take off, as in a couple of weeks is okay, but at a certain point it's too much? What do you tell your athletes, Jeff, on the best practices for actually getting in some form of an offseason, if the athlete wants that?

Jeff: Yeah, I mean, it's called reversibility. The gains that you have gained throughout your previous season, they can, and will be, reversed. It's just how much. And like Tibball said, it's 7 to 10, 7 to 14 days is when the individual can and will start to de-train, right. That reversibility will kick in about 7 to 14 days. So I would never take more than two complete weeks off, but even if inside of that, do some relatively consistent Zone 2, like Brady was saying. So keep that little bit of fitness. So a two week break, a real off season, right, is okay. But the idea is consistency – and we say it on every other podcast, but we want to be consistent throughout the year. Now that doesn't mean, “Oh, I got up to 25 hours a week training, and I got to train 25 hours a week, every week, all year round.” But we want to be consistent in keeping that relative layer of fitness so that we don't spend half of the next season just catching up to where we left off before. I'll kind of say this: arguably, there's three main ways to be fitter, stronger, better, or improve upon your previous season. One is a fitness aspect; improving upon what is your functional threshold, your fitness. Another one is to perform like you did before, but carrying less weight. So a better watt per kilogram of body weight, that can make you faster the next year. Focusing on a weight loss aspect, we'll call it. The third one is improving upon any inefficiencies, imperfections, or deviations, we’ll call it. Be more efficient in what you're doing day-to-day. And so the, quote, “offseason”, I would deem it as you're turning off the goal that you said in the previous season, and you're pondering upon what is going to be the new goal for the next season. And so turning off the old big goal – every morning when you get up, what are you thinking about? It's Hawaii, right Tibball? In May/June, I got to go to Hawaii, and I've got to get top 3 in my age group if I want to go to Spain. So every single morning you wake up, you think about Spain or you think about Hawaii. So when you shift that mindset and the new goal, that's the offseason, but you're still training consistently. But even if you need a, quote, “break”, or a day or two off per week, or 5 or 8 hours less per week of training, we can put your volumes at low and still train consistently and get that break. But what are you going to do inside of that to help those three aspects I just talked about? If you need a break from five hour rides, fine. Ride one hour, 2 – 3 times a week. Now you got two or three other hours in the week to use to do something else. Are you going to focus on nutrition? Are you going to focus on a bigger gear, a bigger training, a new component? Deviation? “Oh, I got a hip drop,” right, all these things. So if you're more efficient in that developmental preseason that Tibball was talking about, that developmental, you have time to develop these other aspects of the sport that you didn't have earlier. So that's what I would consider the preseason. Don't take full time off; be consistent. Cut the hours back if you need to, but focus on those other things that you can't when you're in mid-season.

Andrew: And Jeff, what you just did is exactly what I wanted to get into next. And so we'll just checkmark next to Jeffrey.

Jeff: Oh, sorry.

Andrew: No, I love it. I love it. It's just, your head's going exactly where my head's going because what I wanted to know from all three of you – and part of the reason why I brought three coaches on the show today instead of just two is one, we're all buddies and I like you guys, but then two, all three of you are actively coaching a deep roster of athletes. And so part of what I wanted to hear here is – right now we're in the middle of the North American, quote unquote, “offseason/preseason” so I know you guys are having a lot of these kinds of conversations with your athletes. And Jeff, you just told us a lot of the things that you're talking with your athletes about, and that's what I wanted to hear. So we'll go Brady, and then we'll go Tibball. As you're having these conversations with your athletes – and some of them might be following every single TriDot workout to a T during this time, some of them might be dabbling with backing off for a week or two, or maybe so, maybe not. I know you guys are navigating that athlete by athlete based on who wants a little bit of a break in the preseason and who doesn't – but at large, aside from that, what are the things you're having your athletes focused on during this time period where there's not active races on the calendar? What are those conversations like between you and your athletes? What are you encouraging them to really think about, focus about, try out, et cetera, et cetera, during this time? Coach Brady?

Brady: It’s a lot of strength training, mobility work, in this sport. I mean, we can get a lot of imbalances, right? We're just going point A to point B in one straight line. I want them moving laterally. I want them doing the opposite movements that they're doing in their training. So we're talking a lot about that. It's the one time a year – well, really depends on what distance they're racing. I mean, sprint/olympic distance, they're training for that, they can lift heavier weights. If you're doing long course, there becomes a certain point in time when you can't really lift those heavy loads because heavy weights and a lot of volume, they just don't mix. That's a recipe for disaster. So this is the time of year that I'm like, I want you guys to lift heavy. I want you guys to put on a pound or two of muscle. It's going to be functional muscle, right? Cause we're still training. We're not going to out weight-lift or we're not going to strength train more days than we're swimming, or more days than we're running, more days than we're cycling. So if we're strength training twice a week, we’re swimming twice a week, biking at least twice a week, if not 3, and running twice a week. We're focusing on the intensity of training. We’re maybe looking at our limiters. I know TriDot tries to get us very well balanced. I can speak from experience because my bike was my weakest length, I noticed that the intensity of my bike was a lot higher than the intensity of my swim and my run. Over time, over a couple of years, it got me up there. But, those are the things I'm looking at with my athletes. Do they have a 70 SwimDot, 70 BikeDot, and maybe they got a 55 RunDot. Okay, we gotta address that. So we'll do some strategy around that to try to increase that. Maybe we give them a little extra intensity on the run, turn them to high volume run. Just using some of the settings within the application to give them that little extra push. So those are the kinds of conversations we're having. Is there imbalances? Is there things that are haunting them? I call them phantom pains, little things that they don't typically feel, but they come into this offseason, and they start moving, and they go, “You know, the side of the left side, of the outside, of my knee is a little tight.” Oh yeah, there's probably an IT band issue going on. Let's see if we can address that with some strength training mobility work. So we're having those kinds of conversations.

Andrew: Ryan Tibball, same thing over to you. Some really great stuff there that Jeff is talking to his athletes about, Brady's talking to his athletes about. Some good things for our coached and uncoached athletes to just think and examine their own training. Ryan, what would you have to add? What are you talking about with your athletes right now?

Ryan: I could say almost ‘ditto’ to what Coach Brady just said. I mean, lots of exactly what he just said about working on addressing things. And I'll come from the perspective of Dr. BJ Leeper, who's been on the podcast multiple times. We try to make our athletes bulletproof, and that begins with evaluations. Doing an evaluation and seeing where are they struggling with mobility? Where are they struggling with range of motion? What's going on there, and taking that time, right now during preseason, to address those concerns, and then make a game plan going into and throughout preseason. And then once we can start, and once we have established, okay, we've identified those range of motions, mobility issues, we address them. And as well as adding in that strength work at the same time, and start to create new habits. Create those new habits; I like to say ‘reset’. 2024 is behind us. 2025 is now. We're creating new habits. And by doing so, we, maybe, have to adjust our lifestyle or timing of our day, just because we're adding in an extra 15 minutes, 30 minutes, because we're doing those extra things. Also, what I like right now is – being that it is preseason – I ask my athletes, find yourself a local 5k, 10k, half marathon, and we're going to progressively work through those months of November, December, January, February, March, and we're going to pick a 5k, or a 10k, and then hit, possibly, even a half marathon at the very end of preseason. So giving us an opportunity, giving that athlete an opportunity, to tackle and go into racing without having to worry about the swim and the bike. They just go hammer a run, get that experience, that mental experience, that physical experience, setting them up for success, or at least starting that process of success for their season ahead. So I love this time. There's just, I feel like it's almost even more involved than the season itself. It can be, in many senses. This is a beautiful time of year. I love it.

Andrew: I really like that mindset, Ryan, just because it's for you as a coach, right? Like you, all three of you guys are looking at a portion of the calendar where largely your athletes aren't racing as much, triathlon anyway. And triathlon racing is a lot more complicated than run racing, bike racing, swim racing alone. So, without a triathlon on the calendar – based on what your athletes' goals are, based on who they are, based on the opportunities they have for improvement – you can go after a lot of different things all three of you just mentioned to improve that athlete, strengthen that athlete, get them even more prime for the following season. So I can see, Ryan, why it's such an exciting time of year for you guys. And you brought up running, and I did want to touch on this. I have a feeling I know what all three of you guys are going to say because all three of you are passionate runners as well as triathletes. But during this time of year – wherever you live in the world, if it's your triathlon offseason – chances are that's when there's a lot more run-specific races on the calendar. 5ks, 10ks, marathons, half marathons. I know a lot of triathletes like dabbling in these races during this time of year when they're not racing triathlons. But what I'm wondering is, is it truly beneficial to enter 1, 2, 3, or more run events? Like, does it allow us to focus on our running in a positive way? Or if we do too much of that, does it detract from our ability to focus on triathlon and take a, quote unquote, “break” from racing during this time period? Lots of stuff I'm kicking around here, but what I'm really wanting to get at is, is it beneficial to do a lot of run-specific stuff this time of year? And if so, what is the best practices for that? Coach Jeff Raines?

Jeff: I think if it aligns well with your BHAG goal of the next season – BHAG being the “Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal,” or the big goal, right? And I think it's a good time to point out that – and I'm guilty of this as a coach – not all goals need to be performance-metric or performance-driven goals. There's different, many types of goals. But I think – and again, the offseason is in between goal setting. You don't know what your next goal is, right? So you're taking time off, but we're still consistently training and keeping that layer of fitness. But I think it's good to have, kind of, the BHAG goal, the big, high-end goal – maybe it's attainable or not, or close to it, or maybe – but we need stepping stone goals along the way. Some that are stretch goals, and some that are attainable. But I think that we need to first know what is that big goal. If it's a performance goal or a big goal. And some people don't have it. Some people, “I just want to do three half Ironmans throughout the year. I don't care whether I go 6:30 or 7:10 out there. I just want to have a good time.” And that's fine. That's the goal, right?

Andrew: Yeah, 100%.

Jeff: And those who have, let's call it, bigger goals or stretch goals, we need a certain number of months in that precious developmental to develop the preseason, spend time raising the long tent pole, focus on inefficiencies, weight loss, all these things. Because like Brady said, once we hit that stamina race-prep phase, a lot of those things are set. They are what they are. We're not going to improve upon, significantly, our functional thresholds when we're doing 100-mile bike rides and 20-mile runs every week. And so we need to know what the big goal is, and we need to backfill the year. “Okay, my big A-race is nine months out. So I've got six months of developmental, maybe, and three months of stamina.” Okay, now we're going to backfill. Now I know of the nine months, six months of it are developmental. Well, in that six-month developmental, maybe I'm going to have five assessments, or six. Okay, well, now I know that I need to be a certain watt per kilo, or I want to be 30 watts higher than I was last year. So now you backfill. So each month, what do you need to achieve, along the way in developmental, to hit that goal? So now you have the big goal. You have developmental versus stamina. Now you have your monthly goals, and you can do that for swim, bike, and run. And so it's kind of like, “Oh, my next race isn't all the way out until next October, nine or ten months away. That's me.” It is. But what's going to get me out of bed tomorrow? It's cold. I don't want to jump in cold water and do my swim, right? And so we got to backfill. So we know the year. We know the bigger picture, right? But then we got to set those other goals that are going to get us. I might want to lose five pounds, so now I need a nutritional aspect. And so you just keep backfilling, and you find motivational goals, stepping stone goals, some that are attainable and some that are not. And then, to answer your question, sorry, Andrew–

Andrew: No, this is great. This is great. Yeah.

Jeff: Is that when you start piecing in – maybe it's B- or C-races. Or if you want to do an A-race marathon in the off season, you just need to plan for that ahead of time, right? And make sure that it doesn't steal upon the bigger picture of the next season or the next big race, and make sure there's enough time in between. It's okay to run a half marathon, or even a marathon as a C-race, if you're smart about it so that it doesn't super-disrupt the bigger picture later on.

Andrew: And to your point, Jeff, it might – for a lot of triathletes out there – this particular year, this particular offseason, your big, hairy, audacious goal for you might be a marathon PR or seeing how strong you could go on a pure marathon without having to swim and bike first. So if your next triathlon season takes a slight hit on the swim and bike because you're focused on a marathon PR for one offseason, okay, that's your goal. That's your athletic journey. You can do that. Triathlon will be there when you're done chasing that certain marathon time. So, really like that perspective there, Jeff. Brady, I want to circle back to something that you brought up, because one thing you mentioned was with your athletes – and again, depending on the athlete, right? Depending on the athlete you're working with, you might look at what is their fitness in the swim, versus the bike, versus the run. And TriDot already, in their training, is going to look for opportunities to make them faster overall by improving them on a certain discipline. But as a coach, who's working with that athlete and giving them some extra attention, you might be able to see – okay, if we're working on their run, if we're working on their swim, if we're working on their bike, specifically – maybe during this time, you're doing some extra things to improve their form, improve their fitness in one of the three sports. And so you mentioned, Brady, that you already do that for, and with, your athletes. And Jeff and Ryan, I know you guys do, as well. But for the athlete listening to this, that is hearing that – they don't have the budget for a premium subscription to have a full-on triathlon coach, but they know, “Oh, man, my swim's a little weak. Oh, man, my bike's a little weak. Oh, man, my run's a little weak. Maybe I should take my next offseason and spend a little extra focus on that discipline.” How can they kind of make some tweaks to do that for themselves without necessarily having the guidance of one of you three beautiful gentlemen?

Brady: Great question. Let's see. So I mentioned mechanics, right? If we're not coaching them, getting eyes on them. So physical therapists. Depending on the gym, if you go to a high-level gym – like a Lifetime Fitness. Where I used to work, Cedardale, I say it was like a Lifetime, but family run – in there, any trainer there can do a comprehensive movement screening. They can look at an athlete's mobility, stability, their movement patterns, what's functional, what's not, what needs to be addressed, what's not firing properly. It's a small fee, and they can work with a trainer for a period of time or at least get some knowledge, right? They're going to get some feedback, or at least we used a system that would give that individual – in this case, it was a general population. But I loved working with athletes because it's going to give them feedback as to – they're going to get up to about three pages of information as to – what's a pass, what's a fail, kind of like BJ Leeper's ABCs that he was talking about on a previous podcast. You're going to be able to find a trainer that does that at a gym and gain some knowledge. And maybe you purchase a session, or two, and kind of pick their brain a little bit. Or, when I was working at Cedardale, I would even do consulting with folks. As long as they were paying for that hour, they could use it for training, and I could show them a couple of things, or I could educate and teach. So that's one strategy there. Within TriDot, some of the things that we can do there to tweak our training a little bit – say it is our run that's our limiter, or it's our bike that is our limiter. We have volume settings. So maybe we, depending on the athlete and the individual, maybe they go through the season on a standard volume. So they're going to generally see two swims a week, three bikes a week, and two runs per week, with one run off the bike so I'll say that's two and a half runs. And their bike’s the limiter – maybe they set their bike to high volume, and they set their swim to low volume. Now they're going to see two swims a week. They can set their run to low volume. Those are just some of the things that they can do to get a little bit more time in the saddle, or time on the pavement if that's what they need, to a certain extent. And TriDot's going to balance everything out. That's what's great about it. It's going to distribute that normalized training load throughout the week and help them achieve their goals. So those are a couple of things that they could do.

Andrew: I'll kick this one over to Ryan Tibball. I’m curious – Jeff Raines got into some goal setting stuff there, right? And kind of using “What are your goals for next season?” as kind of a barometer for how you treat this offseason, and what you focus on during this offseason. So Ryan, let's take that mindset of setting goals for the next year, thinking about opportunities to improve, like Brady's talking about, for the next year, and let's apply this to our race calendar. When you start working with an athlete on setting their race calendar – when they're going to do races, how many races they're going to do, which ones are A-, B-, and C-races, how often they're going to race, all of that jazz – what do our athletes need to be mindful of, as they're starting to think about the races they're going to do in the next race season?

Ryan: I reflect back on some of my athletes who throw a, I guess you would say, a ‘grocery list’ of races.

Andrew: Love that, love that. Have you ever gone on Amazon, and you add like 12 things to your Amazon cart, and then you go look at the cart, and then decide, “Okay, there's the total. What six things am I going to cut before I place my order?” Is that your approach with races? Let's throw 12 races on our, quote unquote, ‘cart’ and slim it down.

Ryan: It's not my approach, but I've seen that approach by athletes. And some of my athletes, I'm like, “Okay. So, let's filter this out a little bit.” And we have to define, as others have said already, what's A, what's B, what's C? And how does that B-race benefit if you do have, like, "Man, I really want to nail this race, but, man, here's this A-race that's six weeks later.” Well, that's a B-race, potentially, or potentially a C-race. We have to really, truly evaluate: what effect does that have on that A-race? And the beauty of what TriDot does with a B-race, for example – for those listeners out there like, “Wait, what does the B-race do?” It's going to get you ready for that B-race at the same time it’s getting you ready for that A-race. And it's also going to give you those proper tapers for each one, which is really, really great. And again, it benefits both. Now keep in mind, that C-race – and this is where those conversations happen when they have that grocery list of races – we have to define these things on importance of goals, and really, truly diving into – hey, listen. As a coach, these are hard conversations, sometimes, telling them, “Hey, you don't want to do this race. This is going to disrupt your big A-race goal." And we have to have those conversations, those hard conversations. Even as an athlete who doesn't have a coach, you have to really think about that. How is that going to affect you? In other words, is it going to disrupt your big A, your big goal for 2025? These conversations, they go very deep and many days. But at the same time, we always find a happy ending to it all and getting pumped and ready for their entire season. I hope that answered your question, Andrew. It seems like there's so much going on right there that happens in a 30-minute conversation with an athlete.

Andrew: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah! No, it's good stuff. Jeff or Brady, do either of you have anything to add there, when you're talking with your athletes about their race schedule?

Jeff: Yeah, and I know that you mentioned, too, what if an athlete's not working with the coach, and how do they approach it as well? Well, I'd come in and – first of all, us as coaches, it's our job to help the athletes achieve their goal. Whatever that goal is. So we have to keep them focused and steered on that goal, because that's what they hired us for. If they're straying a little bit or, “Hey, remember, this is what we're doing. This is the bigger picture.” You can do these other things along the way, or the goals can shift a little bit along the way, but remember, this is what we're doing. Now, if you don't have that, and you don't have a coach, you've got to find a way to have commitment, accountability, and communication, somehow. If it's not with the coach that you're paying for that, find a support group. Find a spouse. Somebody that's going to help keep you accountable, and somebody that you can communicate along the way, each and every day, your successes and failures. So you've got to have that aspect to any goal, or any season. Whether you have a coach helping you with that or not, those aspects have to be there.

Andrew: Yeah, no, really helpful. Brady, anything additional from you when you're discussing races with your athletes?

Brady: Gosh, when I look at a season, I want to see, especially this time of year – there's, when you're in TriDot, you pull up the calendar view, there's a purple bar and a pink bar. Pink is your stamina prep. Purple is your development phase. And depending on how many races – if they have four races evenly spread out throughout the season, I want to see some purple space in-between some of those races where they're really developing.

Andrew: Yeah, great point.

Brady: If they're getting ready for an A-race, if it's a 70.3, I only want to see one B-race on there. They could do another race or two, but it's a C-race. And we're going to have that conversation as to, what are the goals, or what are we trying to accomplish in that race? Maybe it's practicing their nutrition and executing that well. Maybe it's saving some energy, some extra energy, for the run and having a really good run off the bike. We pick an area of focus. For myself, I live in Massachusetts. It's cold up here. Having a race every other month during the winter – like, I'm looking at February right now. It's just that little carrot that makes me, you know, “Why do I want to go out when the wind chill is five today? Oh, that's right. I'm running a Super Sunday race. I cannot wait to go snatch that.” So any time off that I take is going to affect that race. But this is also going to prepare me for next season. So those of you that live in colder climates, or even warmer climates that need that little carrot, a 5k, 10k race is a great thing to kind of sprinkle in. I would suggest putting it in as a C-race to not pull away from that precious development phase of training. That's how I approach those conversations and go about it myself.

Andrew: And just like everybody else, this is the time of year that I'm always looking the most closely at, what races am I interested in doing in the upcoming season? The way I've always approached it, very much like what Ryan's talking about, let's square where your A-race is first, and then start considering, what are my B's? What are my C's? And add in B-races and C-races that can support your A-races. But there is – I view it as, not necessarily let me add my A-races first. It's, let me add the races that are important to me first. And so A-races by default are important to you. That's why they're an A-race, right? That is a race where you want to go kill that goal, crush that goal, get a PR, do really well, whatever, have a strong performance. But there's also races that I will put on the calendar as a B or a C, that are very important to me, but I'm not putting it as an A because I don't care how I perform at that race. So I'll give two examples: Escape From Alcatraz. When I got a lottery slot for Escape From Alcatraz, I did not care how I did in that race. I wanted to survive that race and have a good time. I wanted to enjoy the experience. But I was going to go do that race. It was a very important race, to me, on the calendar, even though it was on my calendar as a C-race. And then every so often, I'll fly to Florida and do a race with my dad. And so if I'm going to fly and do Tri Key West in December, with my dad in Florida, okay, that's not an A-race for me. It's the end of the season. It's a Sprinter-Olympic. I'm going to do my best, but I don't care about my time. That's a C-race on my calendar. I'm training through that race, but it's an important race for me. I'm not going to let anything else affect that – does that make sense? – on my calendar. I want to go do that race really badly. So I start with the races that are important to me, whether they're important because they're an A-race or because they have some external reason that makes them more important. And then I start filling in B- and C-races according to the important races on my calendar, making sure those important races are not affected by something else. But that's just my little two cents on scheduling races this time of year. I've got one last question for you guys before we go to the Cool Down. One thing I do in the offseason more than in-season, is this is the time of year where I'm more likely to experiment with new things. And by that, I mean running in a new location, swimming in a new pool, trying out a new pair of goggles, playing with a couple new bike saddles to see how my butt gets along with them, trying out a couple of new energy gels. Stuff like that. Anything that maybe midway through the year, toward the end of the year, started catching my eye, but I was racing so I didn't want to distract myself with new trinkets, gadgets, gear, tech, whatever. I'm more likely to experiment with new equipment, new nutrition items, new recovery items, new recovery methodologies in the offseason than during the middle of the season. That might just be a me-thing. Maybe so, maybe not, but either way, can you guys tell me what kind of conversations you're having around gear, equipment, tech, trying new things with your athletes during this offseason? Is it more of an emphasis? Is it not any more of an emphasis? What do you think, Jeff Raines?

Jeff: Yeah, I'll just throw back to last week or the week before. I was on the Coach Cool Down, and I threw out: if you're going to try a new toy, or a gadget, or a bigger chain ring, or something like that, you need to get used to, or develop, build fitness around, that new entity now. Because you don't want to gain a lot of fitness, and then halfway through the season try a new toy, gadget, or something like that, and then you have to take a step back to take a bigger step forward later on. So you want to gain fitness around some of these new things. But also, if we're in developmental now, maybe we're working – we have shorter workouts, but more quality inside, let's say – but there's more total hours in the week to start playing around with these things. And actually, I do the exact same thing for a whole other reason. It's just motivation. Kind of like I said, I may not have a race for nine months, but what’s going to get me out of bed tomorrow–

Andrew: Yeah, fair point.

Jeff: But what gets me out of bed tomorrow? Oh, I'm going to try FORM goggles. I'm going to try a new carbon shoe I’ve never had before. I'm going to get on the elliptical. I actually took a CrossFit class two days ago. I'm super sore right now.

Andrew: Hey!

Jeff: It just hurts raising this hand right now, right. And so that got me out of bed. I had a couple of my buddies – one athlete I just started coaching, I wanted to hang out. I wanted to see how he lifts, how he performs, all sorts of things. So this is the time to think outside the box. Have a little bit of fun. And if you don't do super well on the workout or get a 100 training score, that's okay, because it is that preseason, right. And it's okay for those things. But we're just being consistent, and we're staying motivated.

Andrew: Yeah, really, really great. Brady Hoover, same question to you.

Brady: Pretty much everything Jeff just said. It's experimenting a little bit. If you're thinking about a new nutritional product, I don't like to switch athletes' nutrition plans once they're like eight weeks out from a big race. We might make a little tweak here and there prior to eight weeks – especially when those race rehearsals come up, it's like, I want everything locked down. So if you're thinking about new products that caught your eye. I mean, I did this last year with Precision Fuel & Hydration. And I always wanted to try the product. I love the product. I mean, I didn’t know either–

Andrew: Heard Andrew talk about the product on the podcast so much. Yeah. Sure, sure.

Brady: So it’s like, I don't need the nutritional product for a 75-minute, 90-minute workout, but I will use it in training just to experiment with it. Does it work with, you know, I'll have it before the workout, during the workout. Does it cause any GI distress? I love it guys. So that's the time to do it. New shoes, man. Jeff knows. Ryan knows. Especially Jeff and I, we love to geek out on shoes. And Andrew, even you and I will have these conversations from time to time. I love a new pair of kicks. I can't wait to go run. I can't wait to cycle. Cause I'm always thinking, “Oh, I got this new toy. I want to make the most, get the most out of it.”

Andrew: Ryan, any last words, here, in our main set? New things for your athletes?

Ryan: I do. I tell you, if I go with a subscription of good – there's good, and there's better, and then there's best. You don't know what's better out there until you try it. So why not try it during the preseason?

Andrew: Fair. Yeah, fair.

Ryan: And also, I will take another side of this coin here, and say: what a time to save an extra 50 bucks a month or something, a hundred bucks a month. If you're a December baby, like me, you ask for money for Christmas and your birthday. And now you've got enough to save up for those special items, or perhaps even – and I'm wearing it today, I'm telling you – TriDot Pool School. We've just launched so many of those. And now, people are like – one of the biggest barriers to our sport is the swim. And why not save that money during preseason and register for a Pool School that we've got coming close to you. So I look at twofold here: buying that better item, so to speak. Trying it out, see if it works. Or saving a little money, and utilizing that money, before the season starts, for something that might be really helpful to your season.

Cool down theme: Great set everyone! Let’s cool down.

Andrew: Alright, I've got three wonderful coaches on the show who just gave us so much knowledge and insight talking about the offseason/preseason. And for our Cool Down, we like to end the show by hearing one more triathlon training, racing, nutrition, et cetera tip. And so our Coach Cool Down Tip of the Week, let's play coach roulette here. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, which coach will I have give us our Cool Down Tip of the Week? Coach Brady, let's go to you here. Can you shut us down with one more triathlon training tip? Can be anything you like. Lay on us.

Brady: Alright. Ryan Tibball had mentioned TriDot Pool School. Offseason is a great – or preseason is a great time to do it. Reason being, you are going to change your swim form, right? It's beneficial anytime you do it, but if you really want it to stick, and you really want to make those gains for the season, jumping in TriDot Pool School – I mean, when I went through it, I dropped two strokes per length, and I was already a pretty proficient swimmer. The one thing I noticed is: I would go 200 yards, and I would fatigue, and my form would just go out the window. And it took a long time to build up that stamina and endurance because I was using my muscles differently. So if you really want to maximize your potential in the season, make those changes, like Pool School, in the offseason, or preseason.

Outro: Thanks for joining us. Make sure to subscribe and share the TriDot podcast with your triathlon crew. For more great tri content and community, connect with us on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Ready to optimize your training? Head to tridot.com and start your free trial today! TriDot – the obvious and automatic choice for triathlon training.

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