Am I not "Type A" enough? LOL
Hey Team- This might be a long post, but i'm really hoping some of you chime in on this. Over the last 10 years, I have completed several sprint and Oly tris, half marathons, cycling events etc, so I do not really consider myself 'new' to the endurance scene. I did have an injury that left me unable to do much of anything for 8 weeks last fall but I started up in the Jan Outseason with no lingering issues. I have been sticking with Level 1 on all the prescribed workouts, using my run and bike test results as a guide. I did have to add 2 weeks to my OS because of a sickness in late Feb that knocked me down pretty hard, so I am finishing the OS up next week. My weekly running mileage is usually around 20-22mpw although I had hopes for it to be closer to 25 at this point. I'm simply having a hard time finding the time, energy, etc to get it all in. And that perplexes me. I work full time and am away from home 11 hours per day with my commute. I have to be up and ready to roll around 4:45am if I am going to be able to get in a workout in the morning but I can't seem to get into a daily habit of that. Usually 2 days a week of that early routine is all i'm good for. I seem to have better success running and riding in the evenings when I get home. The problem arises when unforeseen circumstances come up and something interferes with what I have planned. It could be any number of things, but it is usually some sort of favor or obligation from friends or family that I have a hard time saying 'no' to. I never wanted to be the type of triathlete that thought that my racing and training was the most important thing. I always simply wanted it to be 'part' of my life. With that being said, I question whether or not I make it enough of a priority, based on the goals that I have. I know that the easy solution in some respects is to just complete each workout early in the AM, before life has a chance to interfere. But even getting 7.5 hours of sleep per night does not seem to allow me to sustain those early morning efforts on a regular basis. Is this simply a matter of me just bucking up and altering my routine to make it happen? A key variable is that my husband does not really understand the value in endurance activities so I am lacking a bit of a support system at home. I feel like I have to structure my workouts in a way that not only fits my schedule, but also isn't an annoyance to him. I have listened to countless podcasts on how to balance all this and be effective. I guess I just want to hear from real people with the same struggles. Will my body simply adjust to the 445 wake up time if I force it to day after day? Or am I setting myself up for a fatigued overtraining nightmare?
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I'm sorry to hear that your husband doesn't "get it." I send my husband out on his mountain bike when I think he'll be in my hair but that won't work for you.
To address your early morning workout question. Yes, you do get used to the early alarm *but* you also need to adjust your bedtime and know how much sleep that you need. If your chronically short yourself on sleep, well, that's not a recipe for success.
If you go the early morning routine, I'd recommend adjusting bedtime as well as wake-up time and planning your post workout breakfast so that you can streamline that part of your day as well. This may also involve some sort of healthy mid-morning snack.
Warning: Early morning workouts have lead to my dog thinking that mom gets up at o'dark thirty. Even on a sleep in day, she gets me up! 😁
I'm sure that others will have more helpful advice.
@Nikki Pembrook - can't see a good pic of you, but after 4-6 months of training, your husband will not be able to keep away from you when he sees the physical changes you will go through! 😎 Give him time and he'll get on the bandwagon, I hope.
Coach Patrick noted my HRs and how i perform in the evening, so I've actually shifted a lot of workouts to the evening for that reason.
+2 on the sleep. I now am hard asleep by 10am and up at 5 or so. Coffee, & email in bed (I run my own biz) and will try to get in a early AM wko..
As for finding the time.. this is your thing.. you have to plan your days and schedule it, and I know how life takes over which is why i still try to get a lot of workouts done at o-darkthirty! Keep at it. try to plan ahead as much as you can.
@Nikki Pembrook I have found that my schedule (and family) simply does not allow me to workout in the evenings and I also have an early start to my day (and also spend ~11-12 hrs/day for my commute/work day). So many years ago, we reset our family schedule to basically go to bed at ~9PM every single night (even Friday and Saturday nights). This allows me to get ~8hrs of sleep and still get up between ~4:40-5:15AM almost every morning. And 1 day a week I get up at 4:10AM to meet an early morning run group. This allows me to also "sleep in" to say 5:30AM on the weekends and it really does feel like sleeping in. After a few months, it won't feel so weird. After a few years it will feel weird to do it any other way. That's not a Type A thing it's just a matter of organizing your family schedule. This will be a LOT more complicated if your husband is a night owl and refuses to go to bed early. I am lucky that my wife LOVES to sleep, so it took exactly zero convincing to have an early bedtime, even though she usually gets up an hour or more later than I do. My kids are also now only 10 and 12 yrs old, so a 9PM bedtime also isn't crazy for them and it's just what they're used to. We'll see how that flies when they become full on teenagers. The one thing that I do miss a little bit is watching things like Sunday Night or Monday Night Football. Or other championship games that are on late. But I learned to just go to bed at Halftime and watch the highlights the next morning and get over it...
You also mentioned your "goals", but didn't specify what they are. What are you racing this year? Ironman? 70.3? Oly's? Is your current "Training schedule" working right now in a way that is "not only fits my schedule, but also isn't an annoyance to him." You also mentioned that you are doing 20-22mpw, but you had hoped it was closer to 25mpw. I can almost guarantee you that if you were currently running 25mpw that you'd be wondering what you could do to up that to 28mpw, and then 32mpw, etc.
If it makes you feel any better, I KNOW that run frequency is important. I also KNOW that more running mpw will be better for my fitness and ability to race up to my high expectations/goals. But If I'm being completely honest with you, I am NOT injured in any way and have not been sick for months. But only 1 week in the last 8 weeks did I run more than 20mpw. I'm not encouraging you to "do less". I'm simply saying that you are in good company if you "wish" you could fit in more runs every week, but simply can't fit it in to your busy work/family/social obligations if those things are ALSO important to you.
The biggest "agitator" for me as far as family time commitments go is the long rides on the weekends. This is one more place that ALWAYS waking up early helps. I still get up at ~4:30-5:30AM on weekends (depending on which phase of training I'm in). If I start my long rides about ~10mins before official sun-up, I can still do a ~4hr ride and be home by 9:30AM give or take. And I then do my long runs on Sunday mornings and am home by 8AM so I can shower and eat and take the whole family to church for our 9AM service. When I'm doing this every weekend, my family is a little more forgiving on the handful of days in the season that I have much longer days (i.e. Race Rehearsals, Big Days, etc.)
@Janyne Kizer and @scott dinhofer - thank you both for the tips and words of encouragement. I'm sure I just need to give it more time to settle into what training the EN way is supposed to look and feel like.
@John Withrow - ok, you've officially made me feel much better. Nearly everything you said was answering lots of things that I left unsaid. Sometimes when I scour the forums, I feel a little 'different' and 'alone'. Lots of people here own their own business, make their own work schedule, work part time, have a helpful and enthusiastic spouse, have a 5 minute commute or are able to run or ride to work, run at the track while their kids are at soccer practice, etc. I was starting to feel like all the time saving tips and tricks that others had to make this all work just weren't going to apply to me and I was getting a bit discouraged. I know that lots of the EN team is in a constant state of balancing and juggling but you've been the first person to give examples that I could relate to. And your willingness to share has reassured me that I should be able to adapt and make this work. I did leave out my goals for the year- not necessarily on purpose, I just wasn't sure anyone would want the details to really provide thoughtful insight. I have a couple sprints and Olys on the schedule, but my A race is my first 70.3 in late July. I would also like to run a sub 2:00 half marathon this year, maybe in the fall? I just can't seem to put the speed together for that long of a distance and always come up short. I've actually pondered if there is something physically wrong with me. lol. I train, log miles, consider myself fairly gritty, but just cannot seem to get much faster despite years of this lifestyle. The 25mpw running goal kinda just came from coach P who said that consistently logging that amount of mileage should have me able to hop into a 13.1 anytime I wanted and make the longer training runs easier for me. Not sure what my problem is, but around 8 miles, my body usually just stops thinking this is fun and it is a huge hurdle for me to just keep pushing through regardless of pace. And I love the tidbit about you still being up at the crack of dawn on the weekends. Something in me is programmed to think i'm supposed to sleep in on the weekends as a way to recover and catch up on sleep, and by that I mean 7am. And like you, sundays are for church and other family obligations, so doing both the long run and the cruise and crush bike ride on that day left me feeling a little frazzled. I will start experimenting with the more consistent early bedtimes and see how that leaves me feeling. I have also considered a lunchtime run of 2-3 miles a couple days a week, in an attempt to bump the weekly totals but not sure if that is sustainable. I am quite pleased to hear that you have been hovering around the 20mpw. Throwing a couple swim workouts in there recently has really made it difficult to get much of a bump in the running totals. Thank you so much for taking the time to give me a glimpse into what your training world looks like.
One thing that helped me a lot is thinking of Time Slots. I have a Training Time Slot in the morning from wakeup until go-to-work and I can do an evening time slot Monday-Thursday from get-home-and-walk-the-dog until... My evening time slot is longer on Tuesday/Thursday because my husband has plans those days, etc.
If I use an evening Training Time Slot, I need to have something quick on the menu for dinner so there is that additional planning. I have negotiated Fend For Self dinner on night a week, usually Thursday. (and yes, every year during peak training I have a pity party about Men Who Train For This Don't Have to Prepare Dinner, but in all fairness, I don't do bathrooms so there is that)
A lunch run once a week is a great way to take the pressure off morning/evening workouts! I can't wait until my work schedule settles down and I can add a lunch run back!
@Nikki Pembrook - i think there are three types of people in EN, independents who run their own businesses, retirees, many of whom seem to be former military and people in "normal" life scenarios with bosses and real schedules.
I am fortunate that my fiance is also a morning person and agrees with the same sleep schedule I have. She has zero issues of me getting on a trainer, going for a run, or getting on the VASA at any time of day. She thinks that once I move in this August, the breaks I take for my ski trips, bike camps, etc, will provide us the space we'll likely need.
Find your headspace to do this the way YOU need to do it and hit your goals. Use the coaching forum well and Patrick will get you to crush that 70.3 and then convert you into a winner for a fall half mary. I'd ping him now for what the right timing would be in relation to your 70.3 to recover and do a good run build to the half mary..
lastly don't hesitate to ping any of us privately if you want to spill your guts privately. since getting separated ten years ago, I've become sort of a marriage coach to many, happy to oblige.
Might as well share several of my own methods of time management from 2000-2013, when I wad working as an MD and racing both Xterra and avg of 2 IMs/year at a high level. I biked to work 10 mi one way 2-3x a week, and biked between work locations during the day. Ran at lunch once a week. When I worked a Saturday shift 24 hrs @ hospital), I parked my car there Friday night, biked home, and ran in the next morning. Also, lifted weights and ran indoors some evenings during winter, or ran outdoors on long summer evenings.
It helpsthat my wife likes to swim, so we did that together Sun AMs and now one other day a week.
As @scott dinhofer @John Withrow and others note, it's primarily a matter of what your priorities are. For me, I just did whatever was needed to get the work (professional and athletic) done. And if I missed a workout, I did not try to make it up.
Hi @Nikki Pembrook I have faced a similar journey with my wife and kids (9 yo and 7 yo). I have always been active with marathons, half marathons, tris, etc., but until 5-6 years ago I was self-coached (if you can call it that) and had absolutely zero structure week-to-week, much less to an entire season. The downside for me was that I never really improved, but the upside for my family was that my training never got in the way of any activities. If you'd ask my wife, she'd say this was an ideal arrangement.
I got a local coach 5 years ago and suddenly learned what a structured training plan looked like -- periodization, planned workouts, target paces and zones, etc. I was very excited and wanted to bring my wife along so I talked a lot about all I was learning, taped up the upcoming four weeks of workouts on the refrigerator, etc. While I had structure to my workouts, I did not yet have any structure to when I was completing those workouts as I was doing some in the morning, some in the evening. It was very up in the air to my wife, so she'd come home and want to eat dinner, have family time (my kids were 2 and 4 at the time) and I'd say, "Sorry, no dinner yet. I've got to get in a 10-mile run." I'd come home after the kids were in bed, and eat, etc. and want to talk, but she was already winding down. She'd want to break open a bottle of wine on a Friday night and I'd say, "Sorry. I've got a long ride I want to do tomorrow." She'd then say, "What about Saturday night then?", my response, "Sorry, long run on Sunday". I also resorted to sleeping in our spare bedroom a lot as she's a night owl and would wake me up as she was coming in and out of the room. "I need my sleep" was a sentence I said a lot! Add to this, we both have 50-hr a week jobs working "for the man" and don't have the ability to adjust our daily work schedule in a meaningful way. Suffice to say, we were massively out of sync and at times leading two separate lives. This caused a lot of frustration, a lot of arguments, and a lot of resentment on her part, all of which was completely legitimate.
After that first season with a coach I had to do some soul searching because I knew the changes I introduced were the problem and what we went through was not sustainable long-term. While I loved adding structure to my fitness goals and seeing improvement, it was not worth an unhappy wife. If I could not set up way for this to work, I couldn't expect her to be supportive and as excited as I was. I had to figure out how could I continue to work with my coach with a structured plan and minimize the impact to her and the family. Below is a list of what we do now, not too different from the posts above:
The last four years have been really, really smooth with these changes. My wife has grown much more supportive, understands this is what I enjoy doing, and appreciates any adjustments I make to fit our life. She's into this now, to the point she asked if I wanted to do a race-cation down in Puerto Rico next March for the IM 70.3. I was shocked!
When I was considering joining the team (joined Sept '18) she was interested in the benefits and excited about the community aspect, but admittedly was concerned with the change since we had a good system in place. One of her questions was, "If you join this team, will you have to workout more?" I've yet to go through a HIM or IM build with the team, but with RDP and the Jan OS under my belt she hasn't mentioned anything as our system still works.
I'll also add, which I don't think was mentioned above, do you monitor your nutrition as the impact on your energy, alertness, motivation, is significant? Pre-workout, during, and post-workout as you know are important as is the quantity and type of calories during the day.
To summarize, for my family it was a journey and incumbent upon me to be more thoughtful to figure out how to work my hobby/ lifestyle into our lives. It's not rocket science and the longer you do it, the less costly it will be as you re-create what 'normal' means for your family.
@Janyne Kizer - I def know what you mean about meal planning in advance and how the supper plans are often dictated by what workout i'm trying to cram in. My husband is a grain and cattle farmer so we are getting into the time of year where he will be walking in the door about the time I am wanting to go to bed. So in some ways, my evenings will become more flexible, but at the same time, farm wife duties often include helping move machinery at a moments notice or taking meals to the field. And I chuckled about your pity party about the "men who don't prepare dinner". On very rare occasions, I can get my husband to grill something or brown some hamburger for spaghetti while I finish up a few miles. Lol. But for the most part, what we eat is my responsibility.
@scott dinhofer - I appreciate the words of confidence and am happy to hear that you have a good arrangement with your fiancé. You undoubtedly know what a difference it make to have an agreeable partner in this.
@Al Truscott - Hi. I've followed your comments in a lot of different threads and grown to appreciate the things you have to say. Before getting married and moving a couple years ago, I was able to ride my bike to work quite often. It was a manageable 15 miles one way, on safe roads with limited traffic. It was a great way to get the miles in and I found myself doing that quite often in suitable weather. Unfortunately, I now live 45 miles away from work and the bike commute just isn't feasible. Great suggestion though. And yes, endurance training does come down to a simple matter of what your priorities are. If I'm going to log the miles and put the time in, I want to do it in a way that sets me up to be the most successful. Knowing there are others out there that are starting their days much earlier than the 'normal' person will go a long way towards encouraging me that I can adapt to do the same.
@Jeff Phillips - glad to hear that you and your family have settled into more of a routine that works with your endurance training. What you described about the resentment and frustration with your wife is exactly what I want to avoid. Thanks so much for your willingness to share your reality and what you did to help things to improve.
I sincerely appreciate all of you taking the time to offer up some words. 😊
@Nikki Pembrook, I just wanted to check in and see how things are going.
@Janyne Kizer Thank you so much for checking in! I have made some changes that have proven to be a bit helpful over the last week. My normal work day begins at 7am but I have made arrangements with my supervisor to arrive at 8am on Mondays and Thursdays to allow for a swim workout. I think I mentioned that the closest pool is located 45 minutes away from my house, but only 15 minutes away from my office. So I get up at 5am, make it to the pool around 6, swim for about an hour until 7, and can be showered and to the office (with dry hair looking somewhat presentable, lol) by 8 if I hurry. I realize how fortunate I am to have that flexibility in my work schedule, simply using an hour of vacation time on those days. I earn plenty of time off to keep that up if it seems to be working. I also decided to stop chasing the 25-30mpw goal for now and only complete the optional run sessions if time allowed and I was feeling good. It might be too early to tell, but for now, it feels like a decent decision. How are things going for you, one week ahead of Chattanooga? So sweet of you to check in!
I'm so glad that you have been able to make a few changes to your schedule, @Nikki Pembrook. I'm sure that is a big stress relief!
I hope that you will check back in here in a week or two to let us know how the new schedule is working out!
This thread is exactly why this Team is incredibly strong. @Nikki Pembrook thank you for having the courage to share, and everyone else, thank you for the willingness to chime in with support!