Something to Think About: Use October and November to Become a Stronger Cyclist by Thanksgiving

Every fall, triathletes finish their season and, typically, shut down until January — and wipe out months of hard-won fitness. Research shows just eight weeks of reduced training measurably drops aerobic capacity. The alternative: use October and November to reset your baselines and build cycling power with three focused bike trainer workouts a week, a power meter, and a notebook.

Short on time? Skip ahead to "A Simple October-Through-Thanksgiving Framework." But you'll miss all the good set-up stuff…

The Cost of Going Dormant

Years ago, after the triathlon race season had wound down, I was talking with a younger athlete I'd ridden with quite a bit that year. He had the complete package as a triathlete and had just finished a fantastic season, including a World Championship. When we were catching up on our respective seasons, I mentioned being a bit tired and was taking a little time, he said, "Why don't you take a few months off like I am; then, get back after it in January?" I laughed and replied, "I'm twenty years older than you. If I take a few months off, that's likely it for me. Relentless forward motion isn't a slogan, it's a way of life."

I took my week and he did take time off. He took a lot of time off…

I ran into him a few years later and he wasn't racing anymore — training had fallen to the wayside, and he wasn't the same guy I remember. He said he started getting back into it after a few months off (January 1) and at that time found that he had lost enough fitness and capability that he became frustrated with his workouts as they all were so far off of where he was (which, a few months earlier, he was in the best shape in his life).

The few months turned to six as he hoped to get back into it in late spring to "ride with the group", but then he found he was getting dropped on rides and soon, lost interest and never got back into it.

Regardless of your age, maintaining a continuing training program is the real key to managing your fitness. Coming off your "A" race you're in peak fitness and used to big volume — but rather than dialing back to a logical, manageable program that shores up your training deficits, many folks go into a complete shut-down. We aren't computers; shutting down for an extended period isn't a good thing. Yes, you need a break — a couple of weeks of whatever, then slowly building into a consistent routine, will set you up for a great next season.

There's no argument that aging changes how you think about personal fitness, and as a coach it gives you a front-row seat to what's cutting edge, plus the hindsight of what I wish I'd known back then. I see both sides in the athletes I coach — some my age, navigating the same changes I am, and younger athletes whose ceiling is still unlimited — and I get to share lessons from my own journey with both groups.

Relentless Forward Motion

For this article, my perspective doesn't just come from what've I've read, but from what I've learned from a practical perspective as a triathlete who started out racing where I finished in the middle to the back of my age group; then, though working with some exceptional Coaches and my own perseverance to improve, I've gone on to become a very competitive age grouper at every distance and have finished over 150 triathlons, including qualifying and competing in multiple World Championship (Team USA, IronMan 70.3 IronMan (Kona)). That practical understanding of racing and training is what I bring to the triathletes I coach and this article dives into what I personally do to keep racing.

Research on master's endurance athletes has shown that aerobic capacity naturally declines with age, but continued endurance training can significantly slow that decline. In other words, while aging is inevitable, the rate at which we lose fitness is influenced by the choices we make every day. Burtscher and colleagues (2022) put numbers to it: masters athletes who maintained their training lost only about 5–6.5% of aerobic capacity per decade, while those who eased off lost up to 26% per decade. Stop training, and you can quickly wipe out the benefits of years of prior training.

Younger folks have a little more flexibility with "off-season" as they seem to be able to turn things back on more easily, but when you are at a key time in your life from a professional perspective while trying to manage somewhat of a social life, often, the first thing to get crossed off the list to do that day is the workout – "Yeah, I hit the snooze button as I am behind on sleep." – and the more workouts you skip, the harder it gets. Yeah, that was me. I missed some of my best opportunities to take advantage of my youth to improve my overall capabilities; and, when I finally turned the lights back on to start training, coming back and getting to the level I got to was VERY hard.

Regardless of your age, do you really ever stop training? Stop for long, and it's really hard to get back into it and the excuses pile up. As I've gotten older, I've come to appreciate that there comes a point where you're not seeing these marked improvements each year, but instead, you're working to maintain what you've built while still looking for slight opportunities to improve. I've always believed in Relentless Forward Motion, but I've come to embrace it even more with each passing season.

Looking back though, one thing I wouldn't have done is spend the fall waiting for January to get serious about training. I would use the time between now and the end of year to further hone my capabilities, so they are sharpened for the next season to kick in. So let's talk the run-up to Thanksgiving.

The Opportunity

Between early October and Thanksgiving, you have an opportunity. Many athletes don't take advantage of it. The race season is over, the days are shorter, and many athletes drift into light maintenance mode at best.

The season ends, the weather cools down, and the mindset becomes: let me take some time off and regroup in January. How much recovery do you really need? Isn't a couple weeks enough? Although it varies by athlete, there is a tendency to peak in early fall (which is when the World Championships all take place), so by October you're already coming off that peak — which is exactly why this window calls for resetting, not shutting down. Resetting means setting new baselines for where you are today after a short break, then building from there instead of going dormant.

Going completely dormant is understandable. But I think that's a mistake.

The research explains why that worries me. Martínez-Noguera and colleagues (2022) followed 20 well-trained cyclists through an 8-week off-season that ran from the end of September to the end of December — the exact window we're talking about here — with reduced training volume and intensity, and found VO2max and ventilatory-threshold markers trending downward and fat-burning capacity significantly reduced within those eight weeks. That is exactly why I would rather see a few focused hours each week now than a restart from scratch in January.

Looking specifically at cycling, if you simply take advantage of your smart Trainer, a power meter, and a few focused hours each week, you have enough time to become a noticeably stronger cyclist by Thanksgiving. Better yet, you'll be positioned for what I consider New Year's Day for endurance athletes: the Monday after Thanksgiving.

A Simple October-Through-Thanksgiving Framework: "I want to become a better cyclist!"

During this period of time when you would like to dial it back, think of it as executing shorter intense efforts as opposed to longer endurance efforts. As triathletes, you still have to manage the three disciplines — swimming, biking, and running — as well as taking the time to get into a consistent, daily mobility routine and engage in frequent strength training efforts.

But, for this article, let's just focus on cycling. I focus on three workouts intended to raise the ceiling, build sustainable power, and build the aerobic engine. I am also sharing my perspective. Other coaches have different philosophies on training and racing that may or may not line up to this, but this is not only my viewpoint, it's what I do personally.

Workout #1: Raise the Ceiling

You need to start somewhere so that you don't get frustrated as you likely have already seen your FTP fall after your "A" race that season. So, short intervals, specific power target ranges if you are working off an actual FTP or estimated FTP, then record the normalized power you produced during each interval. I like to do this work on the Trainer so I can actually pay attention to power numbers on my watch. I have one simple screen that shows me "LAP POWER" and "LAST LAP POWER" that lets me see what I'm doing; then, when I hit the "split" button I have easy access to my record of the effort. I can actually see what I did as opposed to guessing or seeing an ongoing wattage number popping up on the app I use with the Trainer. At the end of every interval, I write the power number down on a little notebook I keep next to my Trainer. Yeah. It's "Old School", but it works and I get the most out of my Trainer efforts. I don't like using ergometer mode (ERG) for these efforts as I often find that I and my triathletes that tried it either can't hit the power numbers and quit the workout or find it very easy and don't take advantage of what the workout could have been.

Further, regardless of your current FTP, the intention of the first workout is to give you a baseline as to where you are today to build from moving forward. I do tell my folks who make the first workout an easier effort so they are motivated to build off of it. You essentially are setting a new baseline as opposed to lamenting that it has fallen from peak season or peak years.

As a personal example, here's a simple workout I just did for my first Trainer ride in a while — I wanted something manageable and efficient to use as my starting point now that fall is upon us. The goal wasn't a massive workout; it was to see where I'm at and have a baseline to build from:

Warm-up with easy riding, a few short high-cadence efforts, and a 4 × 1-minute progression. Note: I typically track my warmup progressions over time as I find it motivating, as power numbers increase and earlier efforts that were hard are so much easier. Note, even thought I set targets based off an FTP, I didn't worrying about matching to the percentage FTP targets, but just rode to feel and the numbers were what they were.

3 × 2 minutes at 95–100% FTP, progressing each rep, with 60-second recoveries — e.g., 266 / 293 / 298 watts — followed by a 6-minute recovery

3 × 2 minutes at 100–105% FTP, progressing each rep, with 60-second recoveries — e.g., 278 / 292 / 293 watts — followed by a 6-minute recovery

3 × 90 seconds at 105–110% FTP, progressing each rep, with 60-second recoveries — e.g., 303 / 304 / 305 watts — followed by a 4:30 recovery

3 × 60 seconds at 105–110% FTP, progressing each rep, with 60-second recoveries — e.g., 310 / 349 / 373 watts — followed by a cooldown

This is what I call a Crescendo workout. The idea is simple: the last interval should outperform the first. You don't empty the tank on rep one — you build into the set, so each effort asks for a little more than the last. You can see it in the numbers above: 266, then 293, then 298. Same pattern in the blocks that follow. If the first interval is your best one, you went out too hard and if you can't hit your targets, you just reset your baseline and move forward.

Then, when I move on to my next short interval focused workout on the Trainer next week — where, for example, my intervals are a little longer — I can quickly look back at that notebook and see where I was. When I'm done, I get a sense of accomplishment. And if it was a bad day, I still write down the results and move on. So what. It either was a bad day or I just reset my baseline and started rebuilding.

The goal is progression, not perfection.

Workout #2: Build Sustainable Power

The second workout that week is straightforward: 3 × 10 minutes, 3 × 12 minutes, 2 × 15 minutes, 2 × 20 minutes, or 1 × 30 minutes. This workout can be done outdoors as these somewhat longer intervals aren't as intense and you don't have to be so locked into watching your power numbers or on the Trainer. Unlike Workout #1, the objective is not raising the ceiling necessarily. The objective is to learn to sustain strong, consistent power for an extended period of time. You can grab this information by hitting your "split" button on the watch, look at your app data recorded, or ask your coach for help providing it

Workout #3: Build the Aerobic Engine

The third workout that week is straightforward aerobic volume; one to three hours based upon the time you have. Nothing fancy — just consistent aerobic work that supports recovery and creates the durability necessary to handle the harder sessions.

It's not glamorous, but these rides create the aerobic durability that supports everything else. If you're in a group or are seeking a Segment KOM or PR on Strava, no worries in adding a little spirited fun, but, the workout is really just Zone 2 miles.

Why I Still Write Everything Down

One thing that surprises me as a coach is how many athletes own power meters and smart Trainers but have no system for measuring progress outside of their record on Strava, TrainingPeaks, or what app you have. The data is there, but a ready feedback loop is missing unless you are an extremely meticulous person (and that takes additional time) or have a coach that can review the data for you. Improvement comes from measuring whether the work is producing results over what you did previously and that little notebook is a very simple, but extremely useful tool.

The Real Value of the Power Meter

In short, a power meter will not make you faster. A smart Trainer will not make you faster.

The work does.

The power meter simply provides an objective measure of whether the work is producing results.

Sometimes the most valuable tool in the room is the piece of paper sitting next to the bike — the one that reminds you what you did last week and challenges you to do a little better today.

The question is:

What version of yourself will show up when it gets here?

References

Martínez-Noguera, F. J., Marín-Pagán, C., Chung, L. H., & Alcaraz, P. E. (2022). Biomarker changes in oxygen metabolism, acid-base status, and performance after the off-season in well-trained cyclists. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

Burtscher, J., Strasser, B., Burtscher, M., & Millet, G. P. (2022). The impact of training on the loss of cardiorespiratory fitness in aging masters endurance athletes. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(17), 11050.

About the Author

John Bye is a USA Triathlon Certified Level 2 Coach based in Golden, Colorado, and the founder of Bring Your Everyday Beast Coaching (B.Y.E.-BEAST LLC). At 200-plus pounds, he is a relative giant in the sport and understands the challenges of racing as a high-BMI athlete. He coaches highly motivated athletes of all shapes, sizes, and ages — including his 'Wolfpack,' team ranging from first-time triathletes to competitive age-groupers. John has completed well over 150 triathlons at all distances, including multiple Team USA World Championship appearances, Ironman 70.3 World Championships, and Ironman World Championships in Kona. Visit www.bye-beastcoaching.com or contact him at hijohnbye@gmail.com or 312-320-9606