Post IM Maintenance

To answer your first question, as a general rule you can't "hold on" to fitness. Fitness is a transient thing and at any given point you are either gaining fitness or losing fitness depending on where you are in your training cycle. If I remember correctly you are doing Silverman which pretty much coincides with the end of tri season for most of the US. My advice would be to take some time off from structured training (i.e. swim, bike, or run when you want for as long as you want at the intensity that you want) for 2-4 weeks to mentally and physically refresh yourself. The fitness that you have gained isn't going to magically dry up and go away in that period of time and in fact you really need to get a little out of shape (relatively speaking) to get back into shape.

For a winter maintenance plan, you should focus on your limiter(s) and work on technique and core strength. After the first of the year you can begin your periodized S/B/R plan that will prepare you for your Spring Oly or HIM. You will find that your fitness will return much quicker and you will have a solid base on which to build on for next season.

Thanks!

For sure I was planning to do a lot of yoga and some strength training for the first 2-4 weeks.  Probably minimal s/b/r.  For sure nothing planned out.  Maybe s/b/r as much as I want for fun....  a particular route or some MTN biking..

Then I can decide what I want to start up for my April race.  There is an HIM plan here on BT that starts at a pretty good clip.  That may be just the ticket.