Optimise Your Holiday Training

As we hurtle into the holiday period, many endurance athletes are looking forward to upping their training game with the additional available free time. Training for endurance sports like triathlon, cycling and long distance running is very demanding on our free time and most of us make do with what we have outside of family, work and social demands. The end-of-year holiday period, when most have time off work and school, presents an obvious opportunity to step up things on a training front but, there are a few things that we have to consider before we simply multiply our usual training frequency and / or volume.

The training should still stay relevant – It is one thing having more time to train but will it be beneficial for our goal events in the coming year? If what we are training for is a bit further into the new year, it may be too far away to really pile on the intensity during the holidays. In this case it may be better to do more of an old-fashioned ‘Base Phase’ where we lay the foundation for the harder work at more impactful time for our goals. Conversely, if our goal events are quite soon in 2025, doing massed of mileage in December my be counterproductive and leave us fatigued as we toe the start line of our event. In that case more intensity rather than volume would be our choice for our ‘holiday training camp’.

We should be prepared for the increase – It is simply not possible to rapidly increase training volume in a short space of time if we are not starting from a good place. So, hopefully the beginning of the holidays sees us in a good state of fitness and endurance so that we can comfortably handle a solid increase, as the holiday begins.

We still need to build steadily – No matter what shape we are in, we will always need to increase volume or intensity incrementally. Simply doubling our training time, or cranking up the intervals in the first week of the holidays may see us limping back to work in the new year, injured and fatigued. Not able to capitalise on the increased training opportunity.

These are our summer holidays – It is hot and humid. For those of us used to early morning and late evening training sessions, we may not be able to handle the heat of a later workout, in the heat of a December day. Even if we can, we will need to pay a little more attention to hydration and electrolyte replacement than we may normally do.

Nutrition – On the subject of replenishment, an increase in volume will also require increasing our calorie intake and, given that it is the festive period, we will want to make sure that we are still getting in the required nutrients in the correct amounts and not just relying on mince pies and beer for our pre and post training nutrition.

We need to know where we are training – Some of our holidays may be spent away from home. So, a bit of research and planning will be required before we set off. Knowing what facilities are available at our holiday destination is essential but we also need to plan routes and possibly make a few enquiries of locals as to which roads or trails will suit our sessions. Knowing what the weather is like there at this time of year will also be helpful and could be the difference between getting in that long ride or finishing it cowering under a service station roof while an afternoon thunderstorm rages.

It will have to be less festive – Having more time on our hands does not necessarily mean that we can do everything. If our priority these holidays is upping our training, we will have to compromise on some of the festivities. Late nights and overindulgence will not mix well with early mornings and extremely long sessions. We will need to be strategic about which invitations we accept and which training sessions we are willing to leave out, depending on our priorities.

More time on our hands may mean more recovery – Not all the extra available time we have over the holidays should be spent on training. A nice chilled afternoon after a long, hard morning session in the Summer heat, rather than heading into the office for meetings is fantastic but, we can’t squander this on an afternoon Christmas shopping at the mall, or an afternoon braai at friend’s. These will not only compromise the following days sessions but will also have consequences when it comes to how your body assimilates the work that we have done that morning and how effective that training ultimately is.

It is all a question of our priorities. Just as it is for the other eleven months of the year. In fact, it can be slightly more difficult during the holidays because now we have choice. From January to November there are things that simply have to be done, and activities that take priority over others. Taking the decision out of our hands. During the holidays we get to feel what it really is like to be a professional athlete. We have the additional time that they do in order to get in our training and recovery but we also are forced to make sacrifices in order to not squander that time. We need to decide how important getting in the additional training is and what we are willing to give up to achieve the goals we have set for 2025. These all need to be clear in our heads as we head into the holiday season or we may end falling short on both our training goals and our social ones.