I share a similar circumstance, wintershade.
First, you might want to collect a little more info from your wife to fully understand what she means because I've been asked that question and could mean several things. This is what it boiled down to for me after discussing and solving in detail with my wife:
One thing we did that helped us tremendously was making my training and talk about training more under the radar/subtle. It's great to have her ask what my [workout] plan is for the day, but I also learned its a "how long will you be gone so I know when to call a rescue team" question. And if she asks how it goes, all she wants to hear is "Great! It was a fun day, even though I had 3 flats. How was your morning/afternoon honey?" [Edit: not in the sarcastic sense] If she wants to know more about my workouts and how my training and racing is going, she WILL ask, particularly if a vacation she gets to plan is coinciding with a race. Your workouts are a part of you, but behind your wife, son, and work. Hold them up high and let them know it. Your family knows training is a part of you and makes you happy, so they will support you.
Another thing that worked for me big time was getting my long ride to fit on a weekday (Thursday), even occasionally if not regularly. Not everyone can work their schedule like that, but if you get creative sometimes you can pull it off. At the very least I have either my long run or ride on a weekday and the other on the weekend, and rarely back to back. The other half of it is not always working on squeezing that extra 30 minutes in but simply sacrificing it, or getting my ass outta bed 30 minutes earlier. Is that extra 30 minutes for the whole week gonna make the difference? Probably not. Especially if it is a question on the day of our social plans, I probably didn't plan/communicate properly with my family anyway. In fact, now I look at it as R&R opportunity. Rest today so you can hammer tomorrow AND you get to be social today. Balance the give and take, and you'll find less is more.
I keep my "long" fitness by getting a 4.5-5.5 hour ride once a month really, and otherwise I do 3-3.5 hour focused intensity medium-long rides which help immensely with race pacing. The same weeks I do the "shorter" long ride I do significantly longer runs, so it also mixes up like a crash block alternating riding and running each week. I cut my swims to 2-3x a week, only one is more than an hour, the others are 30 mins or so. And, for the 30 minute swims I go to the closest pool/ocean/body of water possible, don't care what length it is, it's all about convenience and good form (just put up with sharing a narrow lane). I drive 25 minutes once a week to use a long course pool to get my long day, thats it. You can excel at IM training with a consistent 10-12 hours a week (with a rest week every couple/three weeks) with right intensity and focused long days for most of your "regular" training, with only a month or two of build before a race taking up more time.
Good luck.
Matt Leu, M.S. Kinesiology
San Pedro Fit Works, Los Angeles, CA
Endurance Athlete and Coach
Consistency/time=results
First, you might want to collect a little more info from your wife to fully understand what she means because I've been asked that question and could mean several things. This is what it boiled down to for me after discussing and solving in detail with my wife:
One thing we did that helped us tremendously was making my training and talk about training more under the radar/subtle. It's great to have her ask what my [workout] plan is for the day, but I also learned its a "how long will you be gone so I know when to call a rescue team" question. And if she asks how it goes, all she wants to hear is "Great! It was a fun day, even though I had 3 flats. How was your morning/afternoon honey?" [Edit: not in the sarcastic sense] If she wants to know more about my workouts and how my training and racing is going, she WILL ask, particularly if a vacation she gets to plan is coinciding with a race. Your workouts are a part of you, but behind your wife, son, and work. Hold them up high and let them know it. Your family knows training is a part of you and makes you happy, so they will support you.
Another thing that worked for me big time was getting my long ride to fit on a weekday (Thursday), even occasionally if not regularly. Not everyone can work their schedule like that, but if you get creative sometimes you can pull it off. At the very least I have either my long run or ride on a weekday and the other on the weekend, and rarely back to back. The other half of it is not always working on squeezing that extra 30 minutes in but simply sacrificing it, or getting my ass outta bed 30 minutes earlier. Is that extra 30 minutes for the whole week gonna make the difference? Probably not. Especially if it is a question on the day of our social plans, I probably didn't plan/communicate properly with my family anyway. In fact, now I look at it as R&R opportunity. Rest today so you can hammer tomorrow AND you get to be social today. Balance the give and take, and you'll find less is more.
I keep my "long" fitness by getting a 4.5-5.5 hour ride once a month really, and otherwise I do 3-3.5 hour focused intensity medium-long rides which help immensely with race pacing. The same weeks I do the "shorter" long ride I do significantly longer runs, so it also mixes up like a crash block alternating riding and running each week. I cut my swims to 2-3x a week, only one is more than an hour, the others are 30 mins or so. And, for the 30 minute swims I go to the closest pool/ocean/body of water possible, don't care what length it is, it's all about convenience and good form (just put up with sharing a narrow lane). I drive 25 minutes once a week to use a long course pool to get my long day, thats it. You can excel at IM training with a consistent 10-12 hours a week (with a rest week every couple/three weeks) with right intensity and focused long days for most of your "regular" training, with only a month or two of build before a race taking up more time.
Good luck.
Matt Leu, M.S. Kinesiology
San Pedro Fit Works, Los Angeles, CA
Endurance Athlete and Coach
Consistency/time=results
Last edited by:
ironmatt85: Feb 11, 19 19:07