Every year I come up with an off-season training plan and goals. I posted last years plan here: 2013/2014 Off-Season Training. Being in New England it’s tough to get out there and bike/run much. I like off-season training to give my body a bit of a rest and to focus on doing different exercises.

Last winter I spent a lot of time on the bike trainer as well as plenty of time on the treadmill. I was fortunate enough to do a lot of outside miles as well on the weekend’s with someone else. This winter I plan to continue my long runs on weekends as much as possible. I am hoping my long distance fitness will give me that strong endurance to help me for my early season Ironman Texas in May. I also think this long distance running will set me up to train hard next winter as I hope to be running Boston in 2016.

Last season I had the intention of lifting more. I started out okay but I was very inconsistent. My lifting didn’t become consistent until about August.

My off-season started on November 3rd this year. My last planned ‘A’ race was on October 26th with the Loco marathon. Since I didn’t qualify for Boston and I plan to run the Dallas Marathon in the Middle of December. This won’t change my off-season training except to push back any bike trainer workouts that I had planned on weekends.

My off-season focus:

• Lift
• Nutrition
• Lower Body Fat
• Trainer
• Run through the winter
• More time in the pool

My main focus this off-season is to lift, improve my nutrition, and lower my body fat. I don’t want to reveal to many of my plans around this but I am calling it ‘Rocky’ training. I may reveal more details on this sometime in either February or March.

My weight now is about 168 pounds and my body fat is hovering around 16%. I have every intention of lowering my body fat as much as I can by May. I believe I know how to do this and if/when it works I will be writing a few thousand words on it. I am expecting this to be life changing.

I want to continue to spend a few hours a week on the trainer. During the season most triathletes are training about 8-15+ hours a week. In the off-season I tend to be about 6-8 hours depending on other priorities. This breaks down to about 2-3 hours on the bike, 2-3 hours running, 1-2 hours swimming, and about 1-2 hours of lifting. This winter I will be changing this up a bit. The 2-3 hours of biking is accurate. The rest of the changes are a bit private but enough to get in all of the work I need to for May.

I do need to get in the pool a bit more this off-season. I tend to start back up after the first of the year. I am considering switching gyms where the pool schedule is a bit friendlier and is a bit closer to me as well. Ideally I would be in the pool three times a week but I would okay with two days a week until spring.

After a strong race in Ironman Chattanooga in September I fully expect 2015 to be the turning point in my triathlon racing. I do think the turning point started at Timberman in August and has continued. I am now ready to take that next step. As a triathlete I was hovering around the bottom 20% but with Timberman and Chattanooga I was able to improve to 50%. As a runner I am normally in the top 5%. So I would hope in the next 18-24 months that I can improve in triathlon to be in the top 25-30%.