Episode 115: Beating Winter Blues, Getting Robust and Ready, and Base Season FAQs
In this week’s episode, we answer common early-season FAQs, share our candid thoughts on Strava’s new AI-generated workout plans, cover what it means to become “robust and ready” for the year ahead, and offer a few strategies for navigating the winter months. We specifically hit recovery-day activity, modifying hard group workouts in base season, swim focus in January and February, FTP tests vs. virtual races, how to account for downhill skiing, how to log strength training in TrainingPeaks, and more. We also dig into the mindset and preparation behind being robust and ready on race day, along with practical ways to manage lower energy and motivation through training, nutrition, and routine adjustments. Check it out!
Katie
Some good athlete questions as we are easing into a new season:
“I like to/want to/have time to do some kind of activity on a rest day. Is this ok, and what should I do if so?”
Short answer: Yes! But it’s good to take a full day off every so often just to remind yourself that you will mentally be OK if you do a full rest day.
My favorites if you do want to do something: easy swim (lots of gear, Z0-1 HR, technique focus). For example, 1500-2000 yards of tech and PB. This is also my favorite swim set in pregnancy.
Other options: (1) A truly easy Z0-1 spin of the legs, no more than 45 minutes. Could consider hopping on a peloton bike instead of the trainer if your saddle area or positioning needs a bit of a break. (2) 20-60 mins of mobility and PT–focused movement (i.e. what you maybe should be doing on other days too but don’t prioritize).
A short walk! SHORT. Think no longer than an hour.
I almost never recommend strength (heavy lifting) or running for a recovery day.
A caveat: You need to be able to swim or spin easy in order to do that as a recovery activity; if you still only have one speed (Z3+) just take the rest day.
“I really like to go to the weekly track club workouts but they are HARD and tend to wipe me out for a few days after, which makes it hard to nail my workouts in the days following. Should I not go to these in base season, or what are the modifications you would recommend to the planned workout to make this a sustainable part of my basic week?”
Some possible principles:
Look ahead in your week and don’t do anything today that jeopardizes tomorrow!
Depending on the workout, consider doing 75% of the reps. Finish easily knowing that you have 1-2 more reps in the tank.
Run with one pace group lower than you are capable of if you want to make the stimulus more sustainable (i.e. more of a 10K pace workout than a 5K pace workout)
Example in practice: An athlete training for a March HM and June 70.3 is part of a track club and sent me an upcoming track workout: 14 x 400 @ 5K with 60s recovery. This strikes me as way too much for where we are in the broader tri season (14 x 400 is actually longer than a 5K race!) so my advice is to go for 10 reps, between 5 and 10K pace, and see how she feels at that point. Whole workout shouldn’t feel like more than a 7-8 out of 10.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/03/opinion/friendship-markets-new-friends.html
“Why is my HR higher when I’m in aero on the trainer as opposed to sitting up? Why is my HR higher when eating or drinking on the bike?”
Different biomechanics! If you spend a LOT of time in aero (or conversely, a lot of time sitting up) you will train those muscle patterns to become more efficient
How do we handle / account for downhill skiing?
We love when people get outside in the winter - do it! Downhill skiing is a lower training stimulus than e.g. XC skiing or backcountry skiing / uphill travel, but still works strength and some cardio depending on how hard you ski. A favorite of mine (and Elena’s) is to do an easy double, e.g. 4 mile run after a day of skiing, to simulate running on tired legs.
On TSS, don’t worry too much. Maybe just add 50ish TSS for a day of skiing depending how hard you ski.
How should I document/track my strength training?
No need to log it on your watch unless you want to! Resist the urge to “keep” HR high to get more TSS. Gordo Byrn’s go-to conversion is: 1 point per minute for traditional strength (heavy weights), 2 points per minute for plyometrics. This includes rest. So a 60-min strength session without plyometrics might be 60 TSS.
Most useful for me as a coach: write down a rough cut of what you did in TP and how you felt subjectively.
Jim: Yes, please document your strength this winter. We want an accurate record of what you did and how we should progress that work into the spring and summer. As we are doing a major focus on local muscular endurance this year, we want to ensure we are actually doing the work to make a difference this season.
Should I indicate whether this is a treadmill or outside run in post activity comments?
Katie: Can be useful to indicate treadmill or outside if your treadmill pace is way off from your watch or if you find major discrepancies in usual data points between treadmill and outside. For me, treadmill has inflated my paces a bit in pregnancy and I’ve made a note of it in my training log so I don’t go back and think I was running 8 minute miles at 120 HR at 37 weeks pregnant…
Jim: Yes. If you have a day(s) you regularly use the treadmill, we can use this as an opportunity to do some uphill treadmill work for aerobic foundation building and strength building. Treadmills, like bike trainers, are very efficient (and yes, brutal).
What should I be primarily focusing on while swimming in January and February?
Katie: (1) Technique, technique, technique; (2) Strength (e.g. with gear); (3) Short, fast reps.
Harder/longer reps or endurance sets will come in much later. We need to lay a great foundation first and avoid bad habits.
Jim: You could swim only technical 50s for the January and February and come into the spring with outstanding swim fitness and high technical skills. Swim fitness and skill building is not linear.
If I have time, can I add more bike volume after the workout is over?
Katie: I’m ok with this! Just keep it easy Z1-2 and make sure to fuel the work especially if you’ve put in a big workout.
Jim: Yes, please adjust your time up/down based on your life.
Can I do a Zwift / TrainingPeaks Virtual race instead of a FTP test?
Katie: YES!
Jim: HELL YES! You will also learn a ton this winter by racing.
When do I use ERG mode?
Katie: Structured workouts!
Jim: Don’t mess with your TPV or Zwift buttons / options too much or at all. Usually those platforms are set up perfectly for structured workouts / free rides, FTP tests, etc.
Jim
Strava Instant Workouts
Strava has started suggesting workouts for its users. Naturally, I was curious. So let’s review what it decided was appropriate for me this week.
First up: a 3,000-meter moderate swim. Not yards. Meters.
This is especially impressive given that I haven’t swum in a pool in over a year—and haven’t swum in a metered pool in roughly 6–7 years. Love the random unit system to keep me on my math toes.
In fact, I haven’t swum regularly in a pool in over five years. But now that you mention it Strava, I’m going to fully reevaluate my 2026 goals and start swimming again this week.
And apparently winter is no longer a technical swim rebuild phase. According to Strava, it’s “surprise, you’re an experienced triathlete again” season.
Next came a cycling hill workout. On paper, not totally unreasonable. In detail, less so.
The warm-up was eight minutes long and progressed from easy to hard tempo. Eight minutes. If the goal is to arrive at the main set already questioning your life choices, this is an excellent approach. (I need a minimum of 20’ to warmup and ideally 30’ - 40’ for a hard workout.)
Then the main set: 25 minutes at threshold, a short recovery, and 2 minutes at VO₂-max watts to finish things off. To be fair, this isn’t much different from what I’ve been doing recently—especially with TrainingPeaks Virtual racing—but as a one-size-fits-all recommendation, this is… ambitious.
The best part is Strava suggested an outdoor route for this workout. This is where things get really impressive. Since Strava is a location-based platform, it knows exactly where I live. It also knows the current weather. Which means it should know that the roads—both paved and dirt—are covered in ice and snow and won’t be safely rideable on a road bike for months. Bold choice. I guess accounting for location and weather is hard.
Even more ironic, Strava started in Hanover NH where I live and still has an office here.
Finally, the crown jewel: a trip to the track for over/under 400s.
I’m just coming back to running. If my goal were to get injured immediately, this would be a near-perfect plan. Otherwise, it’s hard to imagine a less appropriate suggestion.
There is no evidence in the past two years—none—that I’m ready for track work. And Strava has all of that data. Which makes this less of a training recommendation and more of a how-stupid-am-I experiment.
My Coaching PSA
Algorithms are very good at recognizing patterns, organizing tasks, analyzing data and doing the math.
They can be very bad at understanding context. They don’t know where you are in your season. They don’t know what you’ve been rebuilding, what you’ve been protecting, your goals, your dreams and more importantly, what you’ve intentionally not been doing.
They don’t know your injury history, your training fitness and skills in each (or any) discipline, or what is the purpose of training today or this week/month/year.
Most importantly, they don’t know who you are today—only who you used to be, averaged out over time.
Training is not a Spotify greatest-hits playlist. You don’t just pull up past fitness and press play.
My advice - talk to a person. Good coaching is humans understanding humans.
Sure AI has a time and place in sports as a tool. But, once again, Strava you’ve really missed the mark.
I’d like to keep ranting but I’m off to the pool and track!
Katie follow up: Also love how strava has used AI commentary throughout my pregnancy. Despite me mentioning many things about pregnancy on and off in captions, etc., Strava seems to have no idea that I’m pregnant, and therefore continually reminds me what it expects for my marathon time based on my recent training (as well as on my fitness decline over time). Wild.
Robust and Ready
I’ve mentioned on the podcast recently, and in many athlete conversations, that our aim is to have athletes “robust and ready” for 2026. What do I mean by that?
Robust and Ready has many layers.
You’ve consistently completed your strength work during the Base season and carried it into the Specific phase. Your overall strength—and your sport-specific strength—has improved. You can feel that added strength in both training and racing.
You are very fit—physically and mentally. Just like strength, fitness didn’t happen overnight. It’s the result of consistent effort over many months and years, arriving on race day as a truly fit athlete.
Robust & Ready…
…isn’t a macho thing.
It’s not an alpha thing.
It’s a confidence thing.
It’s the feeling that when you step onto the race course, you are strong, healthy, experienced, and skillful—more so than you’ve ever been before. This is your best athletic self. The culmination of a lot of hard, smart work.
As a robust and ready athlete on race day, you are self-aware, present, and clear.
The course does not dominate you. You control your effort and make decisions based on the terrain, environment, and competitors. You largely determine how your race unfolds, rather than being controlled by external factors.
Hills that felt daunting last year now feel manageable—even comfortable.
Speeds that once felt unattainable or unsustainable are now firmly within your control.
Race anxiety has shifted into race excitement. Your body and mind are relaxed, responsive, and adaptable as the race dynamics change.
You anticipate what’s coming. You see the race developing ahead of you. It’s as if blinders have been removed—the path through each section becomes clear. You know what to do, and you know you can do it.
This level of readiness requires superior skills in your sport.
For example, I spent years swimming open water almost blind to the race because my sighting skills were terrible. Once I finally learned to sight every seven strokes, it was as if the entire swim—and the entire triathlon—opened up in front of me. I could see the race dynamics from minute one and start making pacing and navigation decisions immediately.
I knew how many athletes were ahead of me—five, seven, maybe more. Getting out of the water, my task was clear: hunt them down on the bike. My bike plan was now partially shaped by what I saw in the swim.
Of course, that also required superior bike fitness to respond to whatever situations the race presented.
In sum, Robust & Ready is the best card you can play on race day.
Winter blues
Somewhere in January and February every year, I start to feel a little run down for a few weeks. It’s not training load related necessarily as my load is a lot lower than in the spring/summer/fall. I suspect it’s a lot of inside time, lack of sun, fresh air and maybe some combination of missing nutrients.
One practical thing I do every winter is take a look at what I’ve been taking for supplements and mix things up when I’m feeling that winter slumber. I suspect what may have been working in other seasons of the year, may not be working now for whatever reason.
Recently, I’ve switched up my multi-vitamin and continue to take Vitamin D and iron supplementation. (In past years, a healthy supplementation of B12 has helped.)
I also play around with training volume and add a bit more strength work. Feeling a little low is a great time for me to add more weighted and plyometric work and a little less time on the trainer. I know that when the weather warms, I’ll have plenty of opportunities to add more volume and I’ll want to spend less time in the weight room.
Or maybe it’s just winter dragging us down a little! If you do hit a low point this winter, you are not alone. Have a look at what you can control, make some small adjustments, take a bit more rest and know that spring isn’t too far away.
As always, reach out to your coach to help you troubleshoot and adjust for energy / training levels. Most problems can be solved or easily mitigated with slight adjustments.
Update on fastr bicarb product review:
I had sent the company an email asking them to clarify where they are located, why I had received a package from a residential address in Illinois and did they have any scientific papers to back up their product.
They responded by asking me to send a picture of the mailing address label.
I did and they have not responded back.
Safe to say this is not a real company and the product is most likely fake.
Challenge of the week:
Katie: Make a new playlist for upcoming workouts!
Jim: Don’t look at social media before noon.
Gear or resource pick of the week:
Katie: Wellness in Motion Boston
Jim: Use your massage gun for run warmup