I will be starting my first year of medical school in a few months. I’m doing my first 70.3 this June, but would like to move up to the full distance next year. I can post respectable times right now, but I’m not competitive yet, although I would like to be. Does anyone who trained through med school have any advice? I was thinking about hiring a coach, that way I can simplify things and just do what the expert tells me.
First, congrats on starting medical school. My quick two cents… Medical school is hard enough, especially the first two years. The first two years are very time intensive. Lots of studying, lots of testing. With that being said, you still need to maintain exercise for your physical and mental health. I probably would not put something as big as a full distance on the calendar this first 1-2 years. Is it possible? Of course it is, but at what cost? Your schedule will constantly be in flux. It will be hard to schedule actual workouts or use a coach to the full potential. Your main job has to be being a medical student, your second (or even third/fourth) job is being a triathlete. Again, just my two cents.
I agree with mtstanek. to do a thorough job in med school, you will have limited free time. an hour a day to workout was about all my colleagues and I could manage, and that hour was critical for stress management. Don’t add more stress to your med school days; long-course competition will be there for you when you complete your training, and CONGRATULATIONS on starting medical school. do a good job there. your future patients will rely on your expertise and compassion.
I don’t have any specific advice for you, but the fastest male amateur at the recent IM Texas is a medical student. Here’s an interview with him, where he does discuss how he balances training and medical school. The short answer is that he uses a coach who can fit training into his schedule.
Yes indeed, congrats on medical school. I too started doing triathlons in medical school. Started with sprints and Olympics 1-2 a year, then moved up to 70.3s 4yrs ago. I’m 49 this year. Why so long to move up? Marriage, kid, advancing my career etc. In short, as previous poster said, medical school, residency and initial years of career (+/- family) are so busy and, depending on your specialty, unpredictable. It becomes difficult to train regularly, and perhaps more importantly, to recover from training sessions to be able to benefit from the workout build. In short, if you want to train enough to be able to just cross the finish line and you are decent athlete, then you could probably piece together a decent training regimen while maintaining your academic/professional responsibilities but it will be challenging to be competitive against the throngs of people who can and do devote time, rest, resources to the sport. I’ll stop short of saying you can’t do it but if you do hats off to you! If the goal is to do an IM and be competitive, I would just set that goal for sometime in the future when you have a little more control in your schedule (last few years of residency or post residency). Plenty of fun in doing shorter races and honing your skills and acquiring the necessary gear so that when you’re ready, you’ll be more ‘seasoned’ triathlete to knock it out of the box.
Either way good luck with the journey. And I can attest to triathlons being key in my professional life for providing balance and escape from the rigorous ups and downs of medicine.
I will be starting my first year of medical school in a few months. I’m doing my first 70.3 this June, but would like to move up to the full distance next year. I can post respectable times right now, but I’m not competitive yet, although I would like to be. Does anyone who trained through med school have any advice? I was thinking about hiring a coach, that way I can simplify things and just do what the expert tells me.
Lots of great advice here in the previous responses. It will be about balance in your life but my personal experience was that I needed to do something physical during med school. Lots and lots of studying and sitting led to a real need to DO. I had not yet found triathlon back then so I was going to the gym, playing 2-hand-shove football and soccer amidst the rigors of those 4 years. Actually, I was physically probably in the best shape of my life back then, but time becomes even shorter in residency and beyond. And we had no weekly caps back then so I can remember working ~90+ hrs/week. *(true story-I once fell asleep standing up during an indoor soccer game while waiting to go in). It is a far safer world now that that doesn’t happen anymore.
If you do hire a coach, there will be a great need for lots of flexibility. Work towards consistency in training. I wish you the best of luck in school and beyond. Stay active and fit for life.
Get your degree and dent the world!
I’m currently a 3rd year nontraditional medical student and had completed 4 full Ironman races prior to returning to school. I found running to be a great outlet for me the first 3 years and have ran several full marathons with a new PB last fall. So I think you can definitely train and train well to a certain degree. Balancing the load of training for a full Ironman hasn’t been on my radar because I felt like it would have added a whole other level of stress that I didn’t need or want. I think if you can be efficient with your studying and training it could be possible, but it would require some flexibility with yourself and your expectations as you navigate med school. I’m 40 years old and knew the recovery part of training wouldn’t have worked for me. It just takes me longer to bounce back and there is a lot of studying that needs to be done throughout the week as well. My thoughts would be to stay active, do some shorter triathlon races the first 3 years, throw in some long run races, and then look at doing the full Ironman race during the spring of 4th year after you have matched and have a little more breathing room. Another thought is to look at doing it during the summer between your 1st and 2nd year if you actually get a couple of months off. I know that varies by school. Good luck!
I will be starting my first year of medical school in a few months. I’m doing my first 70.3 this June, but would like to move up to the full distance next year. I can post respectable times right now, but I’m not competitive yet, although I would like to be. Does anyone who trained through med school have any advice? I was thinking about hiring a coach, that way I can simplify things and just do what the expert tells me.
Less nights on the beers?
This is such a tough thing to try and manage. You probably need to think hard about what your priorities are. There is no shame in admitting that medicine might not be your top priority. Unfortunately it does take an awful lot of time and energy to do satisfactorily, kinda like Ironman training. Realize that your priorities now will not necessarily be the same as what your priorities will be in a few years time. The biggest challenge over the next 7-12 years will be how much your life will change from month to month. From the time I started medical school until my first faculty job, there was never one year where I thought, “Yup that was easier than last year.â€
For me triathlon and medicine are lifetime activities. It is all too easy to overdo either and burnout. So pace yourself with both.
On that note I would suggest having very flexible training strategies. Maybe sun for frequency and don’t have too many plans because you will always need to change and modify them. As for a coach…it would be helpful if you had a good coach who maybe had some idea of your unique situation and was very flexible in helping guide your training. But the chance that the coaching gets too prescriptive and makes the training a burden or counterproductive is high…so be careful there.
In any case I would suggest that you can’t hold your breath through medical school or residency or parenthood or whatever else. Therefore if you want to do an Ironman, try to do it now. Just always keep assessing what brings you joy because it is all to easy to get caught up in other people’s expectations and dig yourself into a dark scary hole.
Best of luck it’s a big amazing ride you are about to jump into.
Inspirational for sure, seems like a good guy. Maybe I’ll hire his coach lol.
“Yup that was easier than last year.â€
Easy, fourth year, after your last interview/post match. Though clinicals were less flexible than didactics.
Re OP:
To resonate what a lot of people have said, you’ve got to have your priorities straight. But this does NOT mean medical school has to be your life. Gone are the days where you alternate between the lecture hall, library, and lab. The online resources (b&b, pathoma, sketchy, etc) are better than your lecturers and you’ll likely rely on them and your qbanks (uworld, amboss, etc) much more. And with COVID, there’s probably a Google drive with literally the whole last 2 years of lectures. This is to say your schedule is extremely flexible (minus mandatory labs, exams, “interdisciplinary” events); you set when you want to study. So this may be compatible with high level training. Also realize that within the priorities equation should include relationships (or lack thereof).
Other things to consider is how you want to pursue medicine. Are you shooting for top 10 IM, neurosurg, derm? Or are you trying for rural medicine, nonacademic neuro, most primary cares? The student life between those two groups (and within the groups) look very different. As an incoming m1, you should try to leave doors open; but if you already definitely know what you want to do, it may mean more or less time is available for training (both for med school, residency, and career). But now that step1 is p/f, if you’re attending a top20, getting into a top program is probably going to be much easier (more than before), and vice versa.
Regarding specific recommendations of incorporating training into school (or school into training if you choose):
Learn to study while training. Those lectures can be watched on the trainer, treadmill for z1 (for 3 zone talk) stuff (also would probably recommend doing 80:20 if not to have more time in z1).
Be familiar with anki. It is one of the most powerful reinforcement/reviewing tool (read: but NOT a learning tool). I got a handheld VR remote control for my phone so I could do my reviews on the treadmill (could even do z3s with these things).
Live in a convenient place. The places where most students live can, but may not be ideal for you. Things to consider include commute to pool (maybe consider a vasa tbh, though I didn’t), access to outdoor run/bike (most absolutely need to be indoors, but it’s nice to be outside once in a while.
Automate things to save time. For instance, oatmeal every morning. Same daily lunch, dinner, nutrition, with varying quantities based off need.
Get on top of things now. There is so much wasteful studying done, maybe with the mindset that more is better. I genuinely think, if you’re of average ability, you can do very well with 3-4 hours of studying a day. But those must be high quality numbers. And that takes practice. So I would say start studying for your first module (probably biochem) now. Maybe like 1-3 hours a day (plenty of time to still enjoy your break). The primary goal is not to learn the material (though that’s a nice perk) but rather getting to the point where you can cover 3-5 half hour lecture (probs start with b&b) of new material, synthesis it, and continue to review it during training and minimizing the amount of dedicated time you need (which you absolutely will need).
This was mostly a stream of consciousness. Let me know if you have specific questions.
I did my first Ironman during medical school, Coeur d’Alene 2012, just two weeks before step 1. Had a history of cross country running and a few trail ultramarathons, had done a number of triathlons prior over six years or so.
Essentially kept it quite simple and did a morning run (5mi) and evening bike studying on the bike trainer (often 90min). I only did two swim workouts (I’m very comfortable swimming).
Finished fairly comfortably in 12:45, with a 70 ish minute swim, around a 6:20 bike and a 4:45 marathon.
If you’re going to do an IM, do it now before your clinical years. They’re pretty mutually exclusive, especially if you’re married or have kids.
Best of luck in both endeavors. Feel free to write me if you’d like to discuss more.
very doable - Alex McDonald WON IM Lake Placid and was first AG overall at Kona in 2007 under my guidance, as a med student.
we worked VERY closely and adjusted/changed as needed.
Get to work. see ya on the start line.
more info here - https://www.slowtwitch.com/Interview/A_chat_with_Alex_Mroszczyk-_McDonald_117.html
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I haven’t done Medical School, but I am always inspired by Rodger Banister. He was in medical school when he broke the 4-minute burrier in the mile. I was told that the only free time that he had in 16-hour medical student work days was a 1-hour lunch break every day. I am told he would do 10 x 400m intervals every day on the lunch break. That was all he had time to do. Part of what makes his story so amazing is that he was able to accomplish the seemingly impossible on less training that anyone else. Take what you can from this example. Everyone else who is training for Ironman is going to have goals to peak at 15-20 hours a week. That is not going to be you if you are putting 16 hours a day into medical school. You are going to have to focus and what will yield the biggest gains in the limited time you have available. There are a lot of advise out there for this. Search for the HIIT (high intensity interval training), the F.I.R.S.T ( Furman Institute of Running Science Technology (name?)), The Triforce Sub 10-hour IM Plan, any time constrained type Ironman Training plan, etc.
I am a current 4th year, matched family Medicine. I did several Olympic and 70.3s before medical school, and then during medical school started doing ultramarathons and mtb marathon riding. 1st and 2nd year are by far the easiest years to fit training in, thanks to being able to watch lectures online, if you can learn to be efficient with your time. I would watch lectures on the treadmill or indoor trainer, and then would download the audio of them to listen to a few more times while running/riding outside on the weekend, then heavily relied on anki to help retain information. I loved using TrainerRoad too keep my bike fitness up too since it is affordable, effective, and indoor training was the most time efficient for me. During the summer between 1st and 2nd year I had planned for and trained for a full distance race, but it ended up getting canceled unfortunately, but that would be a great time to fit it in during school.
3rd and 4th year get a little trickier to fit everything in since your schedule will be inconsistent month to month and it makes it pretty hard to stay in a consistent routine, but still able to keep up good fitness (I did R2R2R in the Grand Canyon during MS3). After match in 4th year is another great time for training since most of my rotations have been pretty laid back, and there is no pressure to study or perform until intern year starts at the end of June.
Good luck though, and try to enjoy yourself through this crazy journey, there’s enough pressure as it is, and endurance sports have been a massive outlet for me to stay sane through it so far. Just don’t forget that your there to learn, and sometimes you might have to miss training sessions when a big test is coming up, so be willing to be flexible.
I am glad I never found triathlon during medical school, and only once the last of my children were born!
I know you will hear some success stories, but I would take them with a grain of salt.
Medical school is tough. Medicine gets tougher year by year until you are a consultant/specialists/attending (depending on which country you are working in) and then can get even tougher those first few years out. It can be easy to make a bad impression on people, and those bad impressions can take a lot to undo. Most employers don’t really hold being able to do IM triathlon with a lot of respect, because those in the know see what it does to their employees.
A wise older mentor of mine said to me that you can only do three things in life well, one should be your work, one should be your family, which leaves one other area of life. IM is a life long sport, there is no rush. You can certainly do many things from home these days to make life easier, but my advice to a new medical student would be that your medical school time should be your primary focus initially, as your success there is what will help set up the rest of your life in medicine in most circumstances (some may disagree and it is a generalisation, but as I have gotten older getting onto training programs has become more and more difficult and people are doing more much earlier to make themselves attractive for selection etc).
There is no shame in putting triathlon to the side, or concentrating on shorter distances, or just using some training for your own mental wellbeing.
This advice is coming from a 16 year specialist (it takes 13 years to reach my specialist level where I trained), so that is coming up to 30 years in the system (and I was lucky to start at age 17 so I am young still for this game).
Triathlon will always be there (as will medicine), but if you stuff up medical school you are altering the rest of your life trajectory.
Congratulations on getting into med school. I’m going to assume you’re in the US, othwerwise my advice isn’t too valid. Medical school is one of those experiences where every exam counts, every Step of USMLE matters, every shelf exam in MS3 -4 score matter (for better or worse). Don’t screw it up. To get the residency slot you want, you’re going to need to be on your game all the time. I know that this is a lot of pressure, but it’s reality. Don’t piss away the chance at your dream job because you were too tired to succeed academically because you were training for an ironman.
My advice is don’t train for an IM while in medschool. Train for medical School. This is hard advice. I was a collegiate athlete, and it was hard to get out of shape while in medschool and training. Depending on your family life, you may find time to workout for an hour a day, but the time commitment for IM training is incompatible with acing MS1-3 IMHO. My advice to you for succeeding in medschool is to find one or two study partners, and have a VERY disciplined study schedule. Unlike undergrad, the stuff you learn actually matters, and even the minutae will someday come in handy. Medical students are terrible judges of “what will be useful or what I need to know”. If you succeed academically, you will be able to choose a specialty that will enable you to do IM from a financial and time standpoint. If you don’t, you will be locked into a specialty that may not grant you the freedom do either.
I’m a neurosurgeon…
All these responses are great…but honestly… everyone is: different.
Don’t stress it… do well in school… and see if you can figure out a way to train.
Simple as that…
Good Luck!!
This is my dad advice and based on what I’m telling my daughter… she’s starting med school too. Her only interest in triathlon is watching me every now and then. I digress, school should come first and I’d figure out what your life looks like before trying to shoe horn in training for an Ironman. Maybe you’ll have time, maybe you’ll have money for a coach, lots of maybes. There are shorter distance triathlons that might be better suited for right now until you have the time… but that could be 20 years from now.
Being a triathlete, I’m a fan of general exercise, so I’d definitely say do something in whatever free time you have. I also appreciate having fitness goals in the form of races to keep you engadged athletically… but if you’re running on empty with med school and long course training, your quality of life and med school experience may not be the best.
Maybe something awesome will fall into your lap… a run club, study group with some other multisporters… but I’d put your school first. Good luck!