By way of introduction, I came by triathlon fairly late.I’d been a runner since my 30s but the whole swim/bike/run sequence 
seemed like a tangle of too many things to do in one event. Some decades later when I finally decided to do my first triathlon, I began self-training. Like most people do, I got some books, consulted the internet,and received dubious advice from my dogs.
After doing a bunch of triathlons and not quite being where I wanted to be in the overall rankings I wanted to get ‘a little faster’ so I got a coach who completely changed the way I train. Those changes have resulted in my getting first, second, or third (we call it ‘making podium’) in my last 21 races.
For triathlon, fall to early spring, is generally called the off-season. This is the time for strength and endurance building but many people just sort of drop off the training map and eat turkey and apple pie until they resume before the start of the next race period in the spring. In fact, this general time is critical for building injury resistance, power, and speed capability for the next year. A general program of progressive strength and underlying endurance building leads to faster races in the regular season.
Runners might find more 10k races and half-marathons during this time of year when it’s cooler so run training would continue throughout this period, with general strength and progressive speed, power, and endurance workouts.
Free Off-Season Training Guide
I’ve put together a free general off-season training guide for triathlon and running to help you get ready for the next spring and to give you better performance when you start back into competition (or just race for fun). If you sign up you’ll get an email with the training guide and a weekly update on techniques to keep you in the swim of things (so to speak) so that come time to run or tri, you’ll be in pretty good shape to do really well.