Your final race is over. You recovered for a few days, put away the race gear, and suddenly your carefully structured training calendar looks surprisingly empty. So…now what? Should you keep running? Stop completely? Lift weights? Maintain your FTP? Swim more? Take a month off?
For runners and triathletes, the off-season can be one of the most valuable parts of the training year, but only if you use it intentionally. The goal isn’t to maintain peak race fitness all winter. It’s also not to stop exercising until your next training plan begins.
A productive off-season training plan for endurance athletes gives your body and mind time to recover while maintaining enough fitness, developing strength, improving technique, and rebuilding the consistency you’ll need for your next marathon, Ironman, 70.3, or running season.
Here’s what endurance athletes should actually do during the off-season.
Before you start building anything, recover from what you just finished. That means both physical and mental recovery. After months of structured training and racing, your body has accumulated stress.
Depending on your race and training season, you may be carrying:
But recovery isn’t only physical. Training for a marathon, 70.3, or Ironman requires significant mental energy. You spend months thinking about workouts, nutrition, recovery, scheduling, race strategy, and performance. It’s okay to stop thinking about all of it for a little while. Take some easy days. Sleep. Walk. Spend time with your family. Let yourself miss training a little.
The exact recovery period will vary based on the athlete, race distance, training history, and how the race affected you. A marathon requires different recovery than a sprint triathlon. A full Ironman may require considerably more recovery than a local 10K. Don’t rush this step simply because you feel uncomfortable without a training schedule.
Once you’re ready to start moving again, you don’t need to immediately return to a highly structured training plan. This is one of the best parts of off-season endurance training. Not every run needs a pace target. Not every bike ride needs a power goal. Not every workout needs to improve your Training Stress Score. Guess what, not every swim needs a massive main set. Race-specific training requires precision. The off-season allows more flexibility.
Instead of constantly asking: “Did I hit the numbers?“
Try asking: “How does my body feel today?”
You can still have a general training structure while giving yourself more freedom within it. Maybe Tuesday is an easy run, but you don’t care about pace. Maybe Saturday is a bike ride, but you choose the route based on what sounds fun. That flexibility gives your mind a break without requiring you to stop training entirely.
The off-season doesn’t have to mean losing all your endurance. In fact, maintaining a reasonable amount of easy aerobic training can make the transition into your next training cycle much smoother.
Depending on the athlete, this might include:
Keep most of this work easy. Think conversational effort rather than race-specific intensity. You don’t need to maintain your peak long-run distance or longest rides. You simply want to keep your aerobic system active while reducing the overall training demands.
Possibly some, and that’s okay. When training volume and intensity decrease, some performance-related adaptations can gradually decline. But fitness doesn’t disappear overnight. And you don’t need to maintain peak race fitness year-round. The goal is to preserve a useful aerobic foundation while allowing enough recovery to build again.
If there is one area many endurance athletes should prioritize during the off-season, it’s strength training. As an endurance coach with an Exercise Science background, I see this as one of the biggest opportunities athletes often overlook. During peak marathon or triathlon training, strength has to compete with long runs, long rides, harder workouts, and overall fatigue. The off-season gives you more room to develop actual strength.
Properly programmed resistance training can help endurance athletes improve qualities such as:
Strength training can also help athletes address weaknesses that endurance training alone may not adequately develop.
For runners and triathletes, that often means training movements such as:
The goal isn’t to turn an endurance athlete into a bodybuilder. The goal is to become a stronger endurance athlete.
This is another common mistake. If you’re always completing very light weights for extremely high repetitions with minimal rest, you’re often creating more endurance work. You already get plenty of endurance training from swimming, cycling, and running.
The off-season can provide an opportunity to progressively develop strength with appropriate resistance, good technique, and adequate recovery. The exact exercises, loads, repetitions, and frequency should reflect your experience, injury history, goals, and current training. But don’t wait until your highest-volume training weeks to suddenly decide strength matters. Build the foundation now.
The off-season is also one of the best times to improve skills that are difficult to change during race preparation. Swimming is a perfect example. When a 70.3 or Ironman is approaching, athletes often become focused on completing enough yards. But swimming is highly technical. More volume doesn’t automatically fix poor mechanics. If your body position, breathing, catch, rotation, or timing needs improvement, the off-season gives you time to slow down and work on it.
You can use:
Rather than trying to change five things at once, identify your biggest limiter and work on it consistently.
Technique work doesn’t only apply to swimming.
Depending on your needs, you might also work on:
Race season tests your skills. The off-season gives you time to develop them.
Training doesn’t always need to look like training. Go hiking. Mountain bike. Cross-country ski. Snowshoe. Trail run. Take a Pilates class. Try something completely different. If it keeps you active and makes you excited to move, it can have a place in your off-season.
This is especially valuable for athletes who have spent months following highly structured training. Your body gets a different movement stimulus. Your mind gets a break. And you remember that being an athlete can be fun. The key is remembering that different activities create different stresses. A three-hour mountain bike ride isn’t automatically a recovery workout just because it wasn’t in TrainingPeaks. Enjoy variety without turning every new activity into another competition.
Eventually, the off-season needs to transition toward the next training cycle. Don’t go from three relaxed workouts per week directly into a huge marathon or Ironman build. Rebuild gradually.
Start restoring:
The goal is to create consistency before you ask your body to handle large amounts of race-specific training. Think of it like building a runway. The stronger and longer the runway, the smoother the takeoff.
There is no universal off-season training schedule, but a recreational triathlete might eventually settle into something like:
Monday: Rest or mobility
Tuesday: Easy run + strength
Wednesday: Technique-focused swim
Thursday: Easy aerobic bike
Friday: Strength
Saturday: Easy run, trail run, hike, or another fun aerobic activity
Sunday: Easy swim or bike
That’s only an example. A runner may run more frequently and cycle or swim for cross-training. A triathlete with a major swim weakness may spend more time in the pool. An athlete who has neglected strength may temporarily make strength a larger priority. Your off-season should reflect what you need to improve.
A good off-season is flexible, but that doesn’t mean anything goes.
Watch out for these common mistakes:
Most importantly, don’t turn the off-season into another version of race season. You’re trying to prepare your body to handle future training, not prove how fit you are right now.
Your off-season shouldn’t be random. Look backward before you plan forward.
Ask: What actually limited me this year?
If your swim consistently cost you energy, work on technique. If you faded late in runs, consider what contributed to your lack of durability. If you repeatedly skipped strength, establish that routine now. If training constantly conflicted with your life, build a more realistic weekly structure. If you were mentally exhausted by race day, maybe your biggest need is simply more recovery and fun.
5 Questions Every Endurance Athlete Should Ask at the End of Their Season
That depends on:
But you don’t need to rush. Ideally, you enter your next structured build already moving consistently, feeling mentally refreshed, and physically prepared to absorb increasing training demands. That’s very different from starting your race plan exhausted from the previous season.
A successful off-season doesn’t need huge mileage. It doesn’t need impressive workouts. And it definitely doesn’t require maintaining peak race fitness.
Instead: Recover. Reduce structure. Keep moving. Build strength. Improve technique. Have some fun!
Then gradually rebuild consistency. The athletes who use this period well don’t necessarily look the fittest in December. They’re building the foundation that allows them to become fitter when it actually matters.
Train accordingly.
Carly and Tyler Guggemos built Organic Coaching in 2014 with a simple philosophy that works. The idea is to take what you have and grow it to get faster, fitter and stronger. And to do it with the time you have – not the time you wish you had.
For athletes who are ready to take their training to the next level while still thriving and succeeding in their professional and family life.
