As a precursor to what will follow in the rest of this post I'd like to say that most of us generally consider the offseason to be the time around the holidays in October/November/December when Christmas cheer and many delectable drinks and desserts are abundant. If you're the kind of athlete that trains pretty consistently year round from January until whenever your last race is in October then yes, this time of year is and NEEDS to be your offseason.
IF however, your someone that took a fairly extended break earlier in the year because of work commitments, injury, lack of motivation, or you were too busy building a backyard spaceship-
Then you've already had your offseason. It's perfectly fine to keep training through the winter if you had an extended summer of not training. The offseason doesn't have to be the same time of year for everyone but it's important that it occurs at some point. Many people have 2-4 offseasons unplanned offseasons throughout the year as they take a break between races or focus on other areas of life and that's perfectly ok. It can be intentional or completely unintentional. The important thing is that you come out of it rested, recharged and ready for more tri fever.
I thought about trying to come up with my own clever and unique definition for the word, "offseason." Unfortunately, I'm not very clever even if somewhat unique, and so I decided to stick with what's tried and true and rely on old Merriam for his (her?) explanation-
Offseason- "a time of suspended or reduced activity; especially : the time during which an athlete is not training or competing."
Pretty succinct I'd say. No racing or training is what constitutes the groundwork for a fulfilling offseason. The importance of this time of year cannot be underestimated. Bernard Lagat, (Never heard of him? 2-time Olympic medalist in the 1500, 5 time world champion, American record holder in the 1500, 3000 and 5000. Yeah, the guy is fast.)
In the era we live in where less is no longer more but more is more it can be very difficult for driven triathletes to take some down town. Will you lose fitness? More certainly you will- Article about losing fitness, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. We don't see Lagat freaking out about his VO2max dropping by a few points. No, we just see him enjoying some down time then getting back to kicking butt the next year after he gets back in shape. It's impossible to maintain a high level of fitness year round so don't try!
As triathletes we are always looking for a new goal, deciding what weaknesses to work on in this offseason, selecting races for next year (heck, a lot of us are already REGISTERED for races next year since they sell out so fast). The point is that we have a hard time really taking a step back and forgetting about triathlon for awhile. We jump from triathlon season, to marathon season, to technique focus back to tri season. It's just too much and the overall quality and focus of the regular season will suffer as a result.
I'm just as guilty. I still have one race left this year but I've already started thinking about how I'm going to do better NEXT year, and train even HARDER and go even FASTER. I have to reign myself in and stay in the moment. I used to be petrified of the offseason. I just couldn't stand the work I wasn't doing to get better. But I was always shocked at how amazing I felt when I started training again in January after an extended Christmas break. I had boundless energy while training, I wasn't dog tired (yet) and my body wasn't worn down by a long season. I had forgotten what it felt like to feel good and feeling good felt good!
Especially if your last race wasn't exactly what you hoped it would be it can be hard to let it go and still take a break. You want to get back to work immediately so that you never have a poor result like that again and can rectify the problems that caused such a terrible race. Don't do it. Resist the urge. Turn your back and run, no- walk slowly- in the other direction. Your body and mind will thank you.
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