My wife and I are both teachers, so the summer is our fun, somewhat unstructured time, when we can travel and have fun with our kids. If I do happen to KQ I'd bring the volume back up at the end of July for around ten weeks. It's also a lot harder to travel to an IM during the school year, as it would require a few days off from school for both of us as well as the kids, and taking time off at the start of the year as a teacher is hard.

---

Blog: http://262toboylstonstreet.blogspot.com/
https://twitter.com/NateThomasTri
Coaching: https://bybtricoaching.com/ - accepting athletes for 2023

This made my day - thanks! I'm not particularly Spaniel oriented but if I ever acquire one there's no doubt about the name.

---

"They know f_ck-all over at Slowtwitch"
- Lionel Sanders

right there with the both of y'all. Maybe us teachers need a strava group?

Did IMTexas in the midst of high school track season and state testing season.

It's the time of the year in this career where all teachers are feeling tired and us IM teachers even more.

FYI you’re now a case study on the latest purple patch podcast. Good advice given

The backbone of my training is Matt Dixon's Fast-Track Triathlete book - funny, huh! I'll try to have a listen to the podcast.

---

Blog: http://262toboylstonstreet.blogspot.com/
https://twitter.com/NateThomasTri
Coaching: https://bybtricoaching.com/ - accepting athletes for 2023

FWIW I do much more quality work and volume now since I got a coach but I keep a very close eye to my oura ring to see how recovered/ready it says I am and of course see how I feel.

I had a lot of sleep problems earlier on in the season and readjusted training hours to avoid swimming at 530am so that I can sleep more. I know not everybody can do this but this has been a massive game changer for me. A massive focus on recovery and how my body feels.

And much more training on RPE too.

Didn't go through every single post, but try taking BCAA.
You can take sleeping pills and get some good long sleep as well.
Also do epsom salt, beet juice, stretching and foam rolls
At least, they work for me.

Getting up at 3 on Sa is crazy. I used to do this too (well, at 5), also because of feeling guilty towards the family.

So I changed this.

I fit in my long ride now on Tuesday. After work. In winter in the dark. I do not go home first, but start straight away at work lets say at 16:00. Riding for 4 hours leaves my family only waiting for me until 20:00. And I have all if the fu***** weekend free for regeneration and the family.

I had a listen to that - guess my new name is Bill! Got a decent result today at 70.3 CT - 3rd in AG and 15th OA. Plan to take a few days super easy, then try to get in a 10-12 day block of solid training before easing up before the IM in a month's time.

I'm planning on contacting Matt Dixon to see if indeed I was the basis of the latest podcast.

---

Blog: http://262toboylstonstreet.blogspot.com/
https://twitter.com/NateThomasTri
Coaching: https://bybtricoaching.com/ - accepting athletes for 2023

I was listening to some back-issues of the PPF podcast and was going to PM you to tell you you should give it a listen. I'm pretty certain you were the basis of his podcast. I mean, every single detail about you matches up. Some good advice given indeed. Honestly, I am kind of surprised to hear you say your training methods are based off his book, as my first thought when reading your initial post was.... "man, this guy is going to bury himself and really ought to read Matt's book."

You're getting better results than me, so far be it from me to tell you how to train. But as a distance observer sounds to me like you need to make some changes (perhaps next season unless Matt agrees to work with you for a couple months when you reach out to him?) or you're eventually going to burnout which would be too bad because you sound like a very talented and dedicated athlete.

I think Nate's method will work from time to time but you keep doing this year after year then you'll "crack", "burnout", or get sick. So you have to ask yourself if this is a lifelong hobby or just gunning for the Kona slot. But I guarantee each year after 40 will get harder and harder to be able to pull this off.

It might "work" short term, but I think there are two questions we can't answer.
1) Is it optimal? Is there another way OP could be training that would actually achieve better results because it's giving his body more time to recover/adapt to the stress he's throwing at it.
2) What are the hidden costs of this approach. OP might think he's doing him family a favor by waking up at 2am to cram in long rides, but what's the point if the time he's with his family his just a zombie? Perhaps his family would prefer to let OP finish his workouts a bit later (at say, noon instead of 9am) but be his best self and more present when he's around.

I tried the whole 4am workout thing at the start of this season shortly after becoming a new dad, so I could do all my training while the family was asleep, etc. My wife was pretty honest with me and told me that it was really a false compromise and I was really deluding myself into thinking it was optimal for the people I cared about. She'd rather deal with the baby alone for a couple hours than have a zombie shuffling through the weekend.

I am 40 and the answer is sleep.

Went through an exhausting year last year -- even though i goto bed at 9pm and wake at 5am, i kept waking throughout the night, often up at 3am and not sleeping more, and averaging 6hrs for a while -- it wrecked me.

The "normal" fatigue i had that I thought was ironman training was lacking sleep.

When i got that in order, ensured i got 8 hours again, a WORLD of difference.

At the very least, i would shuffle something around to get a couple 8 hour sleeps in a row

good luck

I've had serious sleep problems since age 33 despite really good sleep habits, sleep testing, CPAP machine, etc. For me, limited QUALITY sleep is THE major limiter to my triathlon training (and thus performance.)

This doesn't seem unique to me though, it does seem that a (vast?) majority of people 40+ yrs in age suffer real sleep quality issues, whether through bad habits, overcommitments, or health reasons. You can put up a lot of hours of training even while sleepy, but you can't put up those real performance-changing hi-end hard efforts that will really take you to the next level.

OP here - the above is a phrase that Matt used in his podcast, but it isn't what I said, and I think some folks have misconstrued what I meant in my original post. I do feel tired at some points in the day, but in no way would I describe it as a zombie. I'm very engaged with my kids, take them to swimming, karate, t-ball, shopping, etc, but compared to the 'off season,' when I'm training 6-8 hours less a week, I do feel more tired. Over the course of the week, I average a bit over seven hours of sleep, and I've gotten 8+ hours the past two nights. Would I like to sleep more? Absolutely! I guess it's hard in my position to find the optimal training/sleep ratio that leads to my best performance. If I got another hour of sleep each night that would probably equal 5-6 less training hours over the course of the week. Would I perform better with more sleep and less training? Maybe, but without some data to crunch it would be hard to find the perfect combination.

With my A race of the season in just over three weeks, I am trying to prioritize sleep as much as possible. I've gotten 'permission' from my wife to finish workouts a couple hours later next Saturday to bank a bit more sleep. I had a decent result this past weekend at CT 70.3 on a very minimal taper, so I feel like the training is working. I definitely plan to take a nice break post IM to let the body feel completely recovered before starting training up again for future races.

---

Blog: http://262toboylstonstreet.blogspot.com/
https://twitter.com/NateThomasTri
Coaching: https://bybtricoaching.com/ - accepting athletes for 2023

Well that’s great to hear. Sorry to use the Zombie word — guess I heard it on the podcast and assumed you said it yourself.

Anyhow, sounds like you crushed the 70.3 and your spouse is on the same page, so clearly whatever you’re doing is working.

Good luck in the Ironman mate. Hope you bag that KQ and can celebrate with some rest. Come back and let us know how it goes.

Cheers.

I spent a good couple of years building a decent base to be able to get some decent IM times. After we had our second child I thought I could take the same approach to a marathon but being one sport, would be able to fit in the magic balance between family, work and fitness.

Fast forward to week 18 of a 24week marathon build I thought I was doing it all by cutting corners on sleep (never more than 6hrs). And why wouldn’t I, everything was humming along. I was working hard but a flexible workplace that allowed me to do the extra hours when it suited me. I was active and present for the family and made sure I got training done at hours that suited them. I was consistently hitting good run volume and I’d never run so fast so easily. I’m tired but I’m always tired when I train hard.

I woke up with a cold on the Monday and with pneumonia by the Friday. I couldn’t walk the 10 meters to the toilet without stopping for a rest. When raceday came around I was only just able to manage the 1.5 km morning walk to the train station. I think the body was fully recovered after 6 months.

This might be an extreme example of hubris and stupidity. There’s a good chance you will get to your target race in great shape but it’s a very fine line to walk. Good luck!