With fall upon us many riders are gearing down a bit and looking at a few last events or maybe some slightly more socially focused riding opportunities. Those engaged heavily in 'cross racing certainly don't fall into this group, but shift the schedule a couple months and they'll be ready for a little down time too.
Of course much has been said about there not being an "off-season" especially for Master's athletes and I'd have to concur. In fact, unless you're lucky enough to be in a position that allows for some pretty big volume over the past 3-6 months you may not want to back down your weekly hours at all. I've often found that for athletes with full time jobs and kids and a spouse and a second job and some social life or some combination of those factors we're already making the most out of pretty limited training time.
Often in these instances backing down training volume just isn't necessary. Of course, it is different for every person, but if you're at 5-8 hours of training per week and are working in recovery when necessary you might not be stressing the system so much that you can't keep putting in the same amount of volume all year round. Just because pros and even high level amateurs drop back in volume this time of year doesn't mean you should do the same. Train for you!
