[Skremmot]

Hi,

I have been using 80/20 for 2 months to get ready for my very first 1/4 triathlon and loved to training plans so far! I have been cycling/running before the triathlon.

Now that we are approaching off-season, I have some questions about what training plan I need to select to keep on improving myself during the winter:

I feel that the tri maintenance plan does not offer me enough volume to get faster on the bike & running. Therefore, I am thinking of combining the 40k TT/FTP booster plan with a “run faster” plan, while following swim lessons outside of the plan.

Would you advise on combining the different training plans I described? If not, what are some alternatives for me to keep on improving myself during the off-season?

Thanks!
Tom

[leyla@8020endurance.com]

Hi,
This is a great question.
Matt actually has written a great post about off season training in particular.
You can find it here: https://www.8020endurance.com/offseasontraining/

To summarise for your questions you can mix and match our maintenance, racing weight and FTP boost cycling plans in the off season – but you want to do this with an eye on load management. The key to a great off season is to recover from previous block(s) of training, work on limiters, improve your strengths but ensuring that you keep your overall training load pretty moderate so that you are fresh for the next race-focused block of training. So the focus of the off season is to keep the volume within your tolerance while you work on skills, strength etc.

So depending on how long you have before you plan to start a race-focused block of training again, you could do these plans one at a time, supplementing with the other 2 sports with sessions focused on form and resilience. I would only recommend overlapping them if the volume doesn’t exceed the average weekly load you held during your previous season.
Cheers
Leyla

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