What the Off Season Is Actually For
Trail Notes | Training Rhythm
the next race is won in the weeks you are not training for it
What the Off Season
Is Actually For.
Most athletes treat the off season as something to get through. A gap in the schedule. An absence. The uncomfortable space between the last race and the next plan. Something to be tolerated and kept short. This is a misunderstanding of what the off season is doing.
Trail Note · 01
What is happening in your body right now
The physiological adaptations from your training do not happen during the hard sessions. They happen in recovery. The same logic applies at a larger scale: the adaptations from a full race block, a season of consistent training, a long build toward a goal event, consolidate during the period that follows it.
Connective tissue remodels. The nervous system downregulates from sustained high load. Hormonal rhythms that are often disrupted during intense training begin to normalise. Inflammation settles. The body does significant repair work in the off season, work it cannot do efficiently while under load.
The off season is not rest from training. It is part of training. It is the phase where the previous block becomes the foundation for the next one.
Her Trails coaching cue
What you do in the off season affects how quickly you adapt when the next block begins. Active, purposeful rest is not laziness. It is periodisation.
Trail Note · 02
What active rest actually means
Active rest is not doing nothing. It is doing different things, at lower intensity, with a different intention.
In practice, this might be shorter runs at genuinely easy effort, without pace pressure. More strength and mobility work than you typically fit in during a race block. Cross-training that feels like play rather than performance. Hiking. Swimming. Cycling. Time outside without a watch.
The key difference is intention. In the off season, the goal is not performance. The goal is recovery and renewal, in that order.
What an off season week can look like
Two to three easy runs, by feel, no watch goals, no structured intensity.
Two strength sessions with a focus on movement quality, not load chasing.
One longer adventure: a hike, a bike, a swim, a play day outside.
Mobility and breathwork most days, ten to fifteen minutes at a time.
One full rest day at minimum. Two if your body asks for it.
Trail Note · 03
The mental reset matters as much as the physical one
Competitive athletes often underestimate the psychological load of sustained training. The constant monitoring of performance, the pressure of consistency, the mental attention required to execute a demanding schedule across months. The off season is where that load lifts.
Women who skip the off season or cut it short often find the next block harder to get into, not because their fitness has declined, but because their motivation has not had space to regenerate. You cannot sustain the level of investment required for serious training indefinitely without periods of genuine release.
Letting yourself enjoy the off season is not indulgence. It is what makes the next goal possible.
Her Trails coaching cue
If you find yourself anxious about losing fitness during the off season, notice that. A short, honest deload will not cost you more than a few percent of your aerobic capacity, which returns quickly when training resumes. Chronic overtraining without adequate recovery will cost you significantly more.
Trail Note · 04
How to use the off season well inside your membership
This is the time to do the things your race block does not leave room for.
Go deeper into the nutrition content. Work through a strength phase with proper progression. Join the live coaching calls and ask the questions you have been storing up. Explore the adventures content if you have been curious about it. Connect with the Off Season circle and see what other women are doing with this period.
The membership is built for year-round engagement, not just race blocks. The off season is one of the best times to use it.
Trail Note · 05
On knowing when it is time to move again
The off season is over when you feel genuinely ready to train again, not when you think you should be. The difference is felt in the body: a returning appetite for effort, a restlessness that is oriented toward something rather than away from it, a readiness to commit that is not fuelled by guilt or anxiety.
That feeling is worth waiting for. A training block that begins from a place of genuine readiness is a different animal to one that begins because the calendar says it should.
The off season is a gift. Use it like one.
The off season is not rest from training. It is part of training.
Connective tissue remodels. The nervous system downregulates. The mental load lifts. This is where the next block becomes possible.
Reflection prompt
What does my body actually need right now? What have I been too busy training to explore?
rest is part of the work
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Written by the Her Trails coaching team
Trail Notes are coaching reflections written for women who train, race and run on trails. Private. For members.
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