posted 30th September 2026
By Jon Shaw, Ironman Certified Coach, ESCI Certified Coach Your Coach page
Winter isn't the time to stop training. It's the time to train differently. At Infinite Endurance, we don't coach athletes by throwing generic rules at them. We look at the whole athlete—your life, recovery, work, family, goals, weaknesses, and long-term development.
When the race calendar empties out, many runners and triathletes feel lost without a specific target, either falling into the trap of endless, monotonous miles or dropping their routine entirely. The off-season is your greatest opportunity to step back and re-engineer how your body moves and recovers.
But there is no universal off-season.
An athlete coming off a marathon, an Ironman, a summer of shorter races or simply a long period of consistent training will all arrive at winter with different levels of fatigue and different needs. That's why the first step isn't choosing the perfect winter plan. It's understanding the athlete standing in front of you.
For one athlete, “off-season” might mean two weeks of almost complete rest.
For another, it might mean reducing training by 30%.
For someone racing a spring marathon, their “off-season” might be relatively short.
For a triathlete who has just finished an Ironman, the recovery requirements could be completely different.
Here is how to approach your winter training to ensure you arrive at the start line next spring as a fundamentally better athlete.
1. Recover Properly from the Season
Before talking about building anything, we must acknowledge that you may have spent the last 6–12 months accumulating fatigue. The first question you ask in the winter shouldn't be, "What should I train?". Instead, it should be, "What does my body actually need right now?".
This is the time to address both the physical wear-and-tear and the mental fatigue that builds up over a long racing season.
2. Reduce Volume, But Maintain Rhythm
The off-season isn't about doing nothing. It is about removing the pressure to make every single session contribute directly to your next race. You should aim to reduce your overall training volume without losing all structure. The goal is to maintain your rhythm rather than aggressively chasing fitness.
3. Escape the "Fitness Chasing" Trap
Winter is a psychological trap for data-driven athletes constantly testing themselves with questions like,
- "What's my FTP?"
- "What's my 5K pace?"
- "Why is my Garmin telling me I'm unproductive?".
Stop letting fitness metrics dictate how you feel about your training. Winter is the period where you must stop asking, "Am I fitter this week?" and start asking, "Am I becoming a better athlete?".
4. Don't Train the Same Way All Winter
Do not spend the entire winter doing the exact same thing, such as logging endless easy mileage. Winter gives you the opportunity to develop different physiological qualities:
- Aerobic endurance
- Neuromuscular power
- Mobility, technique, running economy
- Swimming technique, bike handling, and overall movement quality.
You can – and should – still retain some short, faster work to keep the engine primed without piling on high-impact stress.
5. Make Strength a Cornerstone
Make strength work a priority but understand why you are doing it. Strength training for endurance athletes isn't about becoming a bodybuilder; it's about giving you a bigger physical toolbox. By lifting, you improve force production, resilience, and economy.
For masters athletes in particular, prioritising strength is vital for maintaining muscle as you get older.
The Winter Strength Baseline: For many endurance athletes, two well-designed strength sessions per week can provide a useful foundation. Focus on movements that develop lower-body strength, single-leg control, posterior-chain strength, trunk stability and calf/foot capacity, rather than simply accumulating lots of repetitions.
6. Choose ONE Area to Develop
Rather than trying to fix everything at once, pick one weakness to work on.
Ask yourself what one thing would make the biggest difference to your performance next season.
For one athlete, it might be swimming technique or learning how to pace.
For another, it might be fuelling, strength, or desperately learning how to stop turning every easy run into a moderate one.
This pinpoint focus is where individual coaching becomes much more valuable than generic training plans.
7. Master the "Boring" Stuff
Winter is where you can actually address the boring stuff you've been happily avoiding when six weeks out from an A-race. Use this low-pressure block to work on:
- Mobility
- Foot and ankle strength
- Hip stability and core work
- Technique drills
- Bike position and swimming technique
- Fuelling practice
- Sleep routines and recovery habits
None of these things are particularly exciting when you're chasing a race PB. But give yourself three or four months without the pressure of race preparation, and small improvements in these areas can become some of the most valuable work you do all year.
8. Give Yourself Permission to Experiment
Use the winter to experiment and find what makes you excited to train again. You do not need to be a slave to your normal race-specific routine during the off-season.
Try something different — perhaps cyclocross, trail running, yoga, strength training or even a short HYROX-inspired block. Test out a new fuelling strategy, try a different swimming session, or simply try training at a different time of day.
Winter should give athletes some freedom back. During race preparation, everything becomes:
pace → power → HR → intervals → recovery → fuelling → race simulation.
Winter can be the time when someone thinks:
“You know what? I fancy going for a muddy trail run.”
And that's okay.
In fact, it can be beneficial for your long-term durability.
9. Build the Athlete, Not Just the Next Race
Your winter training shouldn't just prepare you for your next race. It should prepare you to become the athlete capable of achieving the races that currently feel beyond you.
This is the heart of long-term development. By stepping off the immediate “fitness treadmill” you lay the groundwork for athletic breakthroughs that take seasons to fully realise.
The IEUK Coach Winter Checklist
This winter, before you lace up your shoes or clip into the pedals, sit down and ask yourself:
- Do I need more fitness, or do I need to recover?
- What training can I reduce?
- What physical quality do I want to develop?
- What is my biggest weakness?
- What strength work have I been avoiding?
- What technical skill needs attention?
- What could I do simply because I enjoy it?
- What habits will make next season easier?
- What does the athlete I want to become need from me this winter?
Let’s Build Your Winter
Your winter shouldn't look like somebody else's winter. If you're a runner or triathlete trying to work out what your next season should look like — and what you should actually be doing between now and spring — I'd love to help.
Let's build a winter plan around your life, your goals, and your chassis - not around a generic training plan.
Interested in 1:1 coaching for the 2027 race season?
Let's start the conversation and build an unbreakable foundation for next spring.
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