How (and WHY) to Take a Mid-Season Break

Recognize and address burnout BEFORE it derails your season (and health!)

I knew something was off before my race even started. The energy in transition was low, which I attributed to the lack of music and the chilly Victoria morning. I brushed it off and told myself I would start the swim easy and try to find a rhythm, a strategy that has always allowed me to find a place from which I can race. I had a solid swim, got through T1, got out and my bike, and was overwhelmed by an unfamiliar and unnerving realization. Every corner of my body and brain shouted, “I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to do this.” I didn’t understand it at the time, but what I was feeling was the cumulative effect of ignoring burnout. I finished a healthy but lackluster race and started panicking about what this feeling meant for me as an athlete and as a coach.

Any endurance athlete has experienced some amount of disbelief when relaying our pastime to coworkers, family, or friends. It isn’t hard to understand why people might not see the appeal of the sport, but I loved it from the moment I started. I loved the challenge of training, the competition of racing, the camaraderie of finding people who say “yes” to 100 mile bike rides. Cheering at races is my church. I’m overwhelmed by the power of those events and the dedication of everyone taking part: the folks at the front of the pack who have put in endless hours of training in order to find every ounce of ease in their effort; the folks at the back of the pack who race hard for as long as the rules will allow, who fight against 16+ hours of fatigue for the chance at an Ironman finish line. I understand that everyone at the race has made sacrifices, missed birthdays, slept through morning meetings, and trained through tough conditions. I love these people. They wake up every morning and choose in small and large ways to save their own lives and work hard for what they want. This is why I love coaching and why I’m passionate about creating an environment that supports the overall happiness of athletes as they chase their big goals.

In retrospect, I should have seen the burnout coming. As a coach, triathlon training has been an integral part of my life for well over a decade. My commitment to training and racing has waxed and waned throughout that time as I made room for relationships, moves, degrees, and new goals. However, as the pandemic set in, I got focused in a way that I had never been before. We closed our gym and moved our workouts online, and training became one of a few modes of connection to community (as well as a way to keep our business alive). When my good friend and training buddy was diagnosed with AML, training became an expression of hope and solidarity. When we lost her in 2020, it became an insufficient container for shock and grief. I trained through the fear and ultimately the reality of Covid. I started to race again as the world opened back up. I moved off road and learned to ride on gravel. I built skills, forged fitness, made new friends, and started a new relationship. In the pursuit of my goals, I asked a lot of myself and of the people in my life. The past three years have been full to the brim of both triumph and loss, something I didn’t realize until, following my race at Victoria, I took a breath and looked back in wonder. Even with the trauma of Covid, triathlon and endurance sports have been a rich vein of joy and growth.

As I rode the ferry back from Victoria, something nagged at me, a desire to focus on aspects of my life apart from racing and training, but I also felt guilt and shame at the prospect of dialing back my training. Would I disappoint my coach, who is also my business partner? What would others in my community think? The critic in me whispered that stepping back from racing might change how others think of me, and not for the better. Luckily, I have a really good coach who knows me well and listened when I told him what I was experiencing. Chris and I have coached each other for a while, which gives us the opportunity to bring to life our company’s bigger goals (Faster, Happier, Healthier). I knew I needed a break from structure, but I also knew that left to my own devices I would allow the training pendulum to swing so far in the other direction that I would forget how to ride a bike. Having a coach right now feels critical. I want a proactive break, not a total meltdown. We worked together to come up with a plan that I feel confident about, the basics of which are:

1. Train to joy. The next several weeks of my plan don’t have intervals or targets. I will run and ride how I feel and where I want. I plan on jumping in the river with friends, running on trails, and riding my road bike (without power!). These workouts are big pieces of what I love about training and the endurance community, and I’ve been ignoring them for way too long.

2. Let yourself off the hook. Endurance athletes know the value of cumulative volume and consistency, so we’re often really bad at allowing ourselves to let missed workouts go. If we want to avoid overtraining and burnout, we have to ease up on our expectations of ourselves and rest when rest is needed.

3. Examine your identity in the sport. There is room for everyone, and if we are truly lifetime athletes we will play different roles throughout our lives. We are not only valuable at our fittest and fastest, we are all essential to this community. We are essential at the top step of the podium, and we are essential in our first 20 minute run back after injury, burnout, babies, school, work, or whatever stood in our way or required our focus. I’m shouting this directly at my coaching colleagues: we often place our worth in our athletic achievements and no one wins in that game (hopefully we’ll be in this job long enough to slow down!). You are more than your performance.

I feel like the burnout I have been feeling is somewhat epidemic right now, and I hope my experience is relevant for other folks who are surprised to find themselves here. My advice is to be honest with your coach, follow the fun, and draw your community closer. Prioritize your fitness, but also your health and your wellbeing. There is so much opportunity for fulfillment in sport participation, and we sometimes limit our focus to simple achievement. Make room and allow yourself to grow in ways your power meter can’t measure. FTP intervals can wait while you spend some time pushing the pedals with friends. You may discover, upon returning to training, that a happier athlete really is a faster athlete.