what if your season is done before you are?
It’s September, and your race season is done or the finish line is right around the corner … or is it? Sometimes we head into – and right through – our final planned race of the season with a ton of momentum and aren’t sure we want to be done just yet. How do you figure out when your race season is really, truly done – or whether you can extend it? Coach Alison’s recent Triathlete Magazine article outlines the factors to consider, and a practical guide for testing out the waters if you do want to tack on a “bonus race” in the fall.
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Coach Julie:
Get inspired by Frodissimo Times, a beautifully written newsletter by Jan Frodeno that blends performance, purpose, and personal insight. Whether you’re chasing ambitious goals or striving for balance in between, each essay delivers fresh perspectives on growth, resilience, and the art of living well. It’s the kind of reading that lingers — fueling both your drive and your reflection.
shoulder seasons
Coach Alison
I recently saw a post from a fellow coach discussing the Shoulder Season. Here in Colorado we have two distinct shoulder seasons: We have the season between summer and winter, which hypothetically is fall but really is just Colorado having multiple personality disorder and switching from summer to maybe fall or occasionally definitely winter day-by-day (or sometimes even within a day) for the months of September through December. And then we have the shoulder season between winter and summer, which is if anything even more crazy because mostly you just get either winter or summer and winter is never really over until it’s definitely all-the-time summer. But that’s the weather, and Colorado, and not what this coach was talking about.
The coach was referring to the months between the end of one triathlon season and the start of the next – what we tend to call the off-season or the pre-season – as the Shoulder Season. I loved that. Because Shoulder Seasons aren’t only one thing – they can be this or that or the other thing as you move from one proper season to the next. You can bring a bit of racing – like a half-marathon – from the racing season into your Shoulder Season. And you can bring a bit of prep – like skill development in the pool or an FTP bump on the bike – from your next racing season into the Shoulder Season before it.
So as your 2025 racing season winds down and you start to think about how you’ll spend your time until the 2026 season kicks off, don’t think of it as an off-season. Think of it as a Shoulder Season, with the opportunity for some targeted single-sport racing and a big block of time for focused single-sport prep to set you up for a fantastic season next year.