Once you have crossed that final finish line of the year, you may find that familiar tug to simply drop training and take a well-earned break. Our Baseline Plan naturally shifts to an incredibly high-value post-season programming setup in November and December.

However, not everyone's race season aligns with the exact cadence of the Baseline (looking at you, Aussie athletes!) and we know that what comes after your last race is highly critical to your next year’s success as an athlete. Your "last race" may not be in the fall. But regardless of when your postseason is, it's critical that you do not let that postseason become random. Random training leads to random results.

There is no more important season than the postseason - period. No matter when it is. If you're racing along the typical Northern Hemisphere race season with your final race around October, then simply carry forward. But if you find yourself in limbo between your last race and the official start to the Squad postseason, or racing out of phase with the typical Baseline cadence? You follow these simple steps:

1. Take a week off all structure.  Do not think about sport and enjoy some time off to cleanse the body and mind.
2. Apply the Bridge or Resilience Program. These builds enable you to continue on a ‘break’ while providing enough structure to retain specificity to set the system up for the critical postseason work.  
• You can find these in your “Plans” section on Today’s Plan, listed under "Fitness" -- simply drag and drop it to the week following your week off. [Reminder: if any Baseline Plan sessions are still on your calendar, be sure to FIRST delete those sessions to avoid overlap.]
• These plans allow for plenty of time for complete rest and very loose structure.  They allow you to rejuvenate and mix things up while maintaining just enough specificity to avoid going random. 
3. Move to the Baseline Plan once the postseason begins.  Our official start of Baseline Plan postseason is in October/November, but we don’t imagine all athletes will be following the Baseline Plan right then as some still have late-year races.  If that is you, do not worry. Follow these steps when you are finished with your race season. 

The postseason, supported by our builds, is the perfect time to: 

• Spend more time with family and friends
• Conduct a post-mortem on the year and identify areas to improve
• Habits/changes you want to make for the new year 
• Planning your races, events, and calendar
• Immerse yourself in education

This is a wonderful time to get deeper help and consider a coaching consultation with a Purple Patch coach to help you plan, reflect, and set-up next season. 

Looking ahead, why should you stay with structured training? 

As with all things Purple Patch, expect change and evolution to occur once racing is complete for the year. The postseason is not the time to let go of structure entirely and wait to train in a short period of time before a new goal race. It is time to: 

• Execute technique work across each discipline
• Allow the lower training load to open up the opportunity for fun activities and different sports
• Target the very short and high-intensity work -- with lots of rest -- that we cannot have high volumes of during race season 
• Place an emphasis on strength
• Prepare for the harder work to come in the new year 

We want you emotionally and physically fresh in January (or whenever the start of your season is).  At the same time, we don’t want you to be a sloth! There is nothing worse than to simply cut all training off.  The recipe is to give breathing room and space to ensure training isn’t a burden during the postseason, but to retain specificity to set you up for success.  Learn more into education, planning, and fun -- but with the backbone of training.

Commit to the postseason. Your future self will thank you that you put in the work, mixed with a lot of fun and variation.