i need some other thoughts here. here’s the deal.
my office is going to chicago (from columbus,oh) for a conference saturday. we’re leaving today and taking a charter bus and the bus is coming back sunday morning. my wife and i have friends in chicago. originally, i asked my wife if she wanted to ride the bus with us or we could drive ourselves instead. she didn’t want to do either so she booked a flight and is only staying with her friend in the west suburbs.
i’m doing my first IM in sept at IMWI. i’ve had a couple half-irons so far this year and have went 4:33 and 4:25 so i dont know if a sub-10hr is a realistic goal but maybe. that’s my goal anyway. if i hit it great, if not, then that’s what happens.
but the problem is that my wife wants me to hang out with her and her friend sunday instead of riding. i didn’t get in a long ride last weekend b/c we moved to our first house. so i would prefer to not lose 2 straight weekends of training. the whole point of asking her to go with us was to hang out with us not seeing her friend. we’re going to see them next month anyway.
so my options are:
taking the bus and flying back saturday night and ride sunday.
driving myself, taking my bike and riding in chicago sunday. then hanging out with them sat night and sunday afternoon
taking the bus, flying back sunday and no ride
take the bike on the bus, ride sunday and have it shipped back to columbus
any other ideas?
my long ride is the only day where training takes out any time from us doing things. i either do everything before she’s awake or before she’s home from work. and i’m usually done on the weekends by the time she’s awake and wanting to do something, like 11am.
and if i’m being a complete ass about this, please tell me. i’m sure ST won’t hesitate on that.
drive yourself w/ your bike, ride Sunday. That way you can fufill all of your obligations. Also its better when you drive your own vehicle so you can control your time and schedule. Who takes a bus for an overnight weekend conference anyway- talk about cooperate stewardship.
Best to talk this through with your wife to be sure but you can let her know I said its ok to ride.
Easy. Take your bike on the bus, hang out with the wife, then 80-100 miles from home have the bus drop you off on the side of the road. Makes the wife happy and your bus mates will think you are crazy.
Kurt Kinetic in conference. Problem solved.Inclined to agree.
Don’t know how much strife triathlon puts in your life, but it sounds like some. Compared to others you’re not impacting family that much, but a long ride every sunday is actually quite a lot. That’s a significant portion of your weekend.
I have taken my wife up there a few times and let her do her own thing while I ride that course. It seems to be a happy medium but I don’t think that would fly in your case. My wife has gotten kind of upset when I’ve put the kybosh on some of the social engagements she planned prior to discussing. Happened mostly in the first go round. I’ve always tried to be upfront with the wife and make sure that she doesn’t feel neglected during the last few weeks of training when your either training, working, sleeping or eating. That being said we worked it out very early that some social things would be done solo or not at all. Other stuff like family or things you just can’t get out of we would make sure we planned around as well as possible.
Honestly If I were in your shoes, I’d take a day off of work to get my long stuff in before I went out of town for the weekend, which I’ve done several times in every year I’ve done IM. That way I’m pretty sure I’m getting my long stuff in without a lot of drama and the wife gets her deal as well.
How long you been married? How long do you want to stay married?
Your workout can be flexible, but the trip to friends is only going to happen on one day.
There are lots of ways for you to compromise b/c you can get a ride in lots of ways. On the trainer in the hotel, on the way home. At home on Monday night. It won’t kill you to do a swim at the hotel pool over the weekend and do your long ride on a weeknight. Just tell your wife that you have to ride one evening b/c you are missing one on the weekend.
been married about 2yrs. plan to be married for a long time. but this trip wasn’t to see her friend, it was for the conference. she decided on her own to see her friend and not stay with me.
Unreasonable? No. Stupid: quite possibly. Not knowing the work dynamic -will you be the only one from work not on the bus? Given the current state of economic affairs, do you really want alll of your co workers (and possibly your boss) talking about you and noting you’re not a team player? Assuming the “bus” idea is to promote work/relationships/team building. Do you really want to, or more importantly can you afford to, miss that?
Sub 10 is a pretty good time. presuming you’re trying to qualify. but at what cost? When triathlon starts to put a strain on a relationship (more importantly, a MARRIAGE), maybe you need to rethink your hobby. Yoou really want your wife to have resentment at all (which may last longer than the fitness from one long ride.
Get up balls early the day of the bus trip and ride on the trainer. Stay up balls late Sunday night when you get home from the bus trip. Enjoy the time making your wife happy. Suck up the time you have to spend with co workers.
Look, I’m not saying its the most enjoyable (short term) result, but it may result in the most enjoyable (long term) result
Seriously,
Can’t you have them drop you 50 to 100 miles from home on the way back?
Your wife is flying there instead of being in a bus or driving so I think you should b eable to take a “break” and go for a ride
Also I am not sure what you mean by going long, are you talking 3h hard? 5h to 6h h? 3h hard is more than enough if you only have a short amount of time.
been married about 2yrs. plan to be married for a long time. but this trip wasn’t to see her friend, it was for the conference. she decided on her own to see her friend and not stay with me.
Anytime someone uses the word “but,” it calls into question their previous statement. Just saying… it kinda comes across like you are more concerned about winning the argument than finding a solution. And in this scenario, nobody ever wins.
I’ve been married for 6 years now. Early on, I thought it would be “fun” to invite the wife along on business trips. Truth is, she was always very bored and I felt torn between networking and trying to give her the proper attention.
Not knowing the dynamics of your work environment, but would it have really been okay to bring her on the bus with you? Was everyone invited to bring spouses along for a 6 hour bus ride?
Do you have work obligations on Saturday night? Seems kinda crazy that your company would ship a busload of people out on a Friday for a conference that is only on Saturday and not expect people to do anything as a group on Saturday night.
I would explain to the wife that you originally invited her to come along with you so that you could spend time together. You realize that your training has been hard for her to deal with and that you thought spending a night in Chicago together would have been fun and would make up for the 4+ hour ride you were planning to do on Sunday. But since she made different plans, you are okay to go along with them AS LONG as you can get in a long ride on Monday or Tuesday after work.
