SwimBikeRunStLouis

Recover  If you've had a long season, give your body some well earned rest.  Taking some time off isn't the end of the world.  Give any residual injuries adequate healing.

Start a weight training program. It’s not too late to strengthen up for next season. If you start now, you can get several solid months of strength building in before the 2003 race season cranks up in earnest.

Get involved in a masters swim program. The benefit here is obvious. Let’s face it; the swim leg is most often the weakest link. Now’s the time to get in the swim of things and get that stroke polished or become a complete swimmer and learn the fly.

Get your bike needs addressed now. Beat the spring rush. Thinking ahead will relieve you of one more spring burden. Whether a tune up, tires, tubes, or complete make-over, get it done now. A bike shop looking for cash flow might even give you an off season deal.

Experiment with new nutritional and supplement products. Conventional wisdom holds that you never try new products during a race. Run with the tried and true. Take it a step further and use the winter to find the optimal combination of ergogenics that works the best with your system.

Take your base-building to a new level. Forget about anaerobic training and go long, longer, longest. It requires a bit more creativity when confined to the great indoors. Invest in a good mp3 player for nearly unlimited music during those marathon stationary bike sessions.

Buy a heart rate monitor and learn to use it. If you still don’t use one, get smart about your training. This extraordinary tool will help you reap huge benefits from your training by assuring you keep your heart rate in the appropriate zone.

Set goals for the 2003 season. Put pencil to paper and chart out what you hope to achieve in the upcoming season. Make a range of minimal to pipedream. Try to place them as you would stepping stones, little intermediate steps along the way to reaching your over-all objective.

Start a training log with the New Year. If you don’t already use one, begin notating your training regimen. Take care to chart time expended as well as the over-wrought distance measurement. Perception of effort is a good subjective tool. Your morning resting pulse is a useful in determining if over-training is a problem.

Go back and analyze 2002 training and races. Whether on paper or in your head, recreating last season might provide some insight. Try and figure what you did right and embellish it. Determine what mistakes you've made and address them.

Shop for off-season sales. It might be your local store or an online resource, but buying in the off-season will only save you bucks. Triathlon isn’t for budget-challenged individuals, but saving dollars here and there might fund another entry fee.

Get your race entries in for those popular races. How many times have you determined you want to do particular event only to find that it is filled. Of course it requires a leap of faith that the injury bug won’t bite or that your boss won’t make your work that weekend, but most often it’s a safe $50 bet.  this is more true than ever with the unprecedented popularity of Ironman events.

Renew your USAT membership. Why pay the one day license fee because you couldn’t get your new card quickly enough. The early spring races have a way of sneaking up on you and especially if they’re sanctioned.

Take a winter vacation to a warm climate Jumpstart your training. If cabin fever has already reared its ugly head, get out of Dodge. Running in shorts and a singlet again instead of multiple layers will do wonders for your psyche.

Try alternative exercises. Stair steppers, cross-country skiing, rowing machines, or any of several other choices can provide a fresh approach to heart rate elevation. Benefits will accrue to both cardio-vascular system and gray matter between ears.

Email. Remember all those scraps of paper on which you jotted email addresses? How about that race where you met those cool people? Wouldn’t it be fun to see them again this year? Zap them a message and see what races they are scheduling.

Share time with the one that counts. Make a concerted effort to spend quality time with spouses and loved ones who tend to get shuffled during the time-crunched race season. Make her the number one passion in your life and triathlon a close second.

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