enjoy the baby bro, they're only young once. racing will always be there

This is going to be very much a YMMV topic.

My daughter is now 19 months old. Before she was born, my wife encouraged me to train for a marathon that was 3 months after the due date. I peaked around 8-9 hrs/week, with a good chunk of that being lunch time runs that didn't interfere w/ family time. The following year, I did a 70.3 while my wife was training for a couple of 13.1s and her first sprint. The hardest part was scheduling 18+ workouts a week between myself and my wife. Particularly who's riding when, since we couldn't ride at the same time. Swimming was exclusively done during lunch. Life is much much much easier if you get a bob and come to terms with doing most of your runs w/ the baby (mom will appreciate the break if she's staying at home).

As far as sleep goes, I think a lot of depends on breastfeeding vs formula. As the father of a breastfed baby, there was very little I could do at night. My wife also took off from work for 12 weeks. As an engineer, my wife is very logical and thought that if I had to go to work in the morning and she didn't, combined with the fact that if I fed the baby at night out of a bottle, she'd still need to wake up and pump, that it didn't make sense for me to wake up at night at all. I know...I won the lottery on that front.

Finally, don't forget mother's day on Sunday!

Oh man! Daddy brain. Thanks for reminding me

First step - come to terms with the fact that you probably won't be as fast as you were pre-baby. Once you get over that, train when you can and race for fun, but make sure you enjoy time with the baby and keep your wife happy.

It's his wife. Not his mom. But yes, remember your mom.

I actually signed up for IMTX earlier this year knowing my kid would be born in February, with the wife's encouragement no less.

It honestly doesn't take too much time away from training, if you go the breastfeeding route. They eat so much right off the bat, there's huge portions of the day where there's not much you can do to help out. Now that he's eating less frequently and being more "social" I find myself training less and less. I was certainly undertrained for IMTX (especially the run), but it wasn't the kiddo's fault!

The lack of sleep ate my lunch, though, I was perpetually out of gas both at work and when training. Good stretch there where 5 hours of sleep was considered a fantastic night.

Wife isn't a triathlete, so can't comment there. It was a c-section, so regardless of her hobbies she wasn't doing much at all for about 8 weeks after.

It's her first mother's day. It's a big deal to most, if not strictly logical.

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Life is tough. But it's tougher when you're stupid. -John Wayne

I hear ya. Just don't want him to set the bar to high.

I am going through this same process myself. Its definitely been hard. My wife is not a triathlete or really much into athletics at all. At first my wife had no issues with me training after work while she was with the baby but after about a month that quickly changed. Before when I trained I always tried to train with others now I pretty much work out alone and have a very strict workout schedule that I stick to. When I can I wake up at 5am and workout for an hour to hour and a half before I have to take the baby to the sitters. Then I utilize my one hour lunch break to fit a gym workout in and then usually after work I aim for another hour of training. I have noticed that it is a lot easier to train indoors on the bike portion. Makes my wife feel better knowing I am there in the house and can always get off and help her if needed. As for sleep I usually am in bed between 11:30-12 and aim to be up at 5.

And even if not logical, then totally necessary to the ongoing health of his marriage. Does the other poster expect the newborn to thank her for being a mother??

Best thing I did was to change my expectations. Wife and I were both very active racers from 2010-2014. Both did Ironman Tahoe in 2013 and she found out she was pregnant the day after running the SF marathon in 2014.

Baby #1 was born April 2015 and the short story is that I tried to do it all and was a worse husband, father, employee, and triathlete than I wanted to be. The decision was made to do less, but to do it better. Baby #2 was born in February this year and I am a better husband, father, employee that last time. Training has been replaced by exercise.

We are planning a big comeback in 2020!!




Every situation is different, but I would recommend that you adjust your expectations and communicate. I know a lot of people advocate making training "invisible", and while that works for me for lunch runs at work, getting up at 5am and riding 3 hours to work once/week or putting down the baby and going for a run means not being able to help out if the baby wakes up at 5:30 or actually spend time with my wife for the hour or two/day we get together.

Also sleep. I never needed a ton of sleep and was ok, but lack of sleep after baby#1 really messed me up. I was dumber, short-tempered, and just a crappy version of me. If I have the chance to sleep or get up and work out, I now choose sleep.

Last thing - I love my girls and being an amazing husband and father is more important to me than making it to Kona. At this point I don't see a path to do both. That may change as they get older, but it may not. And that's ok.

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/kj

http://kjmcawesome.tumblr.com/