Triathlon Plans: on- or off-season?

Hi @Coach.Suzie.S (or anyone else at all though Suzie always seems right on the money with any tri based questions…:slight_smile: )

Until today I had a schedule for my 2022 tris. It basically looked like this:

  • Tri test week ending 1st Jan
  • 12 week off-season plan (i.e. with strength, ending in testing) for Jan-March
  • Week off eating donuts
  • 12 week custom plan
  • A-race at the end of this plan @ the end of June

Perhaps with an occasional fun race thrown in en route, but nothing to worry the plans with.

Now I’ve found another race I’m keen to do that happens to be at the end of week 11 of the first plan (‘off-season’ above).

Do you have any opinion or thoughts on how I should possibly rearrange the above to factor this in? I’d say that the new race is perhaps an A&1/2 type race - I don’t grade it quite as highly as the event at the end of June, but it’s close, I want to be fully invested in it and take it seriously (though maybe performance-wise I’m still considering it as a pre-cursor to the main event).

Should I continue with the off-season plan w/ strength, perhaps just winding the strength down a week or two early?

Other than the strength, how do the on and off-season plans differ? Given that SUF don’t subscribe to the winter-base approach, are the differences more subtle (and perhaps I shouldn’t worry) ?

SORRY, QUICK EDIT HERE…:
I hadn’t appreciated that in the new Systm plans one can add Strength to both the off- AND on-season plans. So the question abotu the difference between the two are even more pertinent now!

Or perhaps I should break the Jan-Mar 12 weeks down in to some smaller building clocks to hit certain areas, get to the March race fresh and then knuckle down to the custom plan from there?

Any thoughts?

Thank you in advance!

L

P.S. I had seen this answer: Triathlon Plan Question - #2 by Coach.Suzie.S though it lately about the running progressions of season to on season.