I have done several 70.3s, etc… and my first full will be in November. I also work 10 hours a day, some Saturdays, have 3 kids, one in swim lessons, one in dance lessons and one that is 1-1/2 y/o that wakes up at all hours. I follow trainerroads full distance, low volume triathlon plan the best I can but if you miss a workout, then forget about it and move onto the next day. I run either while my daughter is at dance (drop her off 10 minutes early and go), it’s an hour, or I go to work early, run from 530-630/7am, rinse off with the hose connected to the back of the building, dry with my swim towel and change into my work clothes (eat instant oatmeal and protein bar with coffee). I swim with Masters at lunch (12-1pm) 2-3 days a week then eat (bring my lunch to work) while working when I get back. I bike on the trainer (trainerroad program Tuesday/Thursday usually 60-90 minutes) after the wife puts the baby down and the other 2 settle into their nightly routines (830ish pm). Saturday is a long ride leaving right before the sun cracks (lights on front and back of bike), Sunday OR Monday morning is long run. I have had to split a 3 hour ride into 3x1 hour rides before. 1 hour before the family wakes up, 1 hour while little one is taking afternoon nap, 1 hour after they settle down for the night. With the family, things happen so you just have to be flexible. I get back to the house no later than 1030am on Saturdays (my 5 and 14 year old kids don’t get up until 8-9 anyway) and I am back after a 2 hour run on Sunday before ANYBODY is awake (sometimes the little one is). The hard part is I am pretty exhausted those days so I can’t sit down. Just stay moving otherwise you will be asleep on the couch. Also, my workouts are intense since I follow the low volume. My zone 1-2 stuff is only for warm-up and after that I get my heart up and keep it up. For my 5 hour ride coming up I will just suck it up and get back to the house around 11-1130. The family supports me. I think you can do it if you don’t mind being REALLY flexible. If nothing else it will be a great base build year(s) for me.
All in pink…
Whatever you do your kids will blame you and hate you because you’re the reason why they don’t have the life they think they deserve, so you may as well neglect them. Put yourself first.
As for work, leave after 8 hours and go training, what ever doesn’t get done, doesn’t get done. You’re a mug for working so hard. You won’t get rewarded for it. No one will thank you for it. Your colleagues all laugh at you for working so hard. Put yourself first.
I did Ironman Florida several years ago before my kids came along. I’m thinking about doing another IM for my 40th birthday in a couple years, but now I have a 10-12 hour a day job, two kids, three pets etc etc, you get the point. Can I train for an IM with that kind of time and other commitments. I did successfully train for a HIM last year and it wasn’t too bad, but obviously the IM is x2. Thanks for your input.
In my opinion you can not do it. Something will suffer. Usually it’s the family. I think some people here kid themselves into thinking they are doing a good job parenting while maintaining an “extreme” schedule of commitments. It’s a selfish goal to put in the hours to really do your best in a race in circumstances like yours. That’s just my opinion.
The one thing that I would say and I’m sure someone else already has, is that I would create a room with a trainer and a treadmill. That way you can maximize the amount of time that you have instead of driving somewhere to run/bike. I’d also find a masters team that swims in the morning and do that before work.
That’s what I’ve done. I used to have a job that required a bunch of hours but not so much now. But I still spend most of my time on the trainer/treadmill because 4 hours on the trainer is like 6 hours on the road because you’re not stopping at red lights, driving somewhere to bike and back home and getting ready.
Of course there’s going to have to be a few times where you’ll need to go outdoors just to make sure that you’ve still got a feel, but being on trainer/treadmill lets the little ones see you along with happy wife.
It’s going to be hard but you can do it if you make some sacrifices.
The one thing that I would say and I’m sure someone else already has, is that I would create a room with a trainer and a treadmill. That way you can maximize the amount of time that you have instead of driving somewhere to run/bike. I’d also find a masters team that swims in the morning and do that before work.
That’s what I’ve done. I used to have a job that required a bunch of hours but not so much now. But I still spend most of my time on the trainer/treadmill because 4 hours on the trainer is like 6 hours on the road because you’re not stopping at red lights, driving somewhere to bike and back home and getting ready.
Of course there’s going to have to be a few times where you’ll need to go outdoors just to make sure that you’ve still got a feel, but being on trainer/treadmill lets the little ones see you along with happy wife.
It’s going to be hard but you can do it if you make some sacrifices.
Can you do it? Yes. Just takes discipline to wake up early, train mostly indoors to save time, and squeeze out every bit of training time possible.
But should you do it? That’s up to you. I work a similarly demanding job and trained for 3 IMs in 3 years. Constantly rearranging things to get training in and being so exhausted totally burned me out and I dropped out of my 4th IM 7 weeks before race day. 1 year later and I still don’t know if I want to do anything longer than sprints & oly distance ever again. The opportunity cost for me is just too great.
I work 7:30 - 5:30 Monday through Thursday, and every other Friday I work 7:30 - 4:30 and have a 45-50 minute commute each way.
My schedule has been:
M - Rest Day
T - Up at 4:45, run 45 minutes to an hour (typically on the treadmill in the garage). Leave work at 5:30, get in the pool by 6:30 and swim 45 to 1:15.
W - After work brick: 30-45 minute ride on the trainer, 15-20 minute run usually accompanied by the kid as part of her XC workout… Alternatively Brick before work, OWS after work if the weather would ever cooperate. Seems like it’s been monsoon season here this summer.
Th - Up at 4:45, Hour on the trainer.
F - Up at 4:45, Hour run on the treadmill (Evening swim either Thursday or Friday at the gym)
Sa - Long ride/run, depending on wife’s work schedule. Though I’m 6 weeks out from my race so I’ve been doing the ride on Saturday
Su - Long ride/run, ideally the run as early as humanly possible so the wife can get her long run in as well.
Ideally I’d get one more swim workout in each week, but something has to give since my schedule is so exhausting. If I only get one swim in during the week, I’ll get a second one in on Saturday since the wife and daughter go do girly stuff in the afternoon.
I’m not the fastest guy in the world, and this is my first full Ironman (and probably won’t do another for 5 years when I turn 50). If I wanted to be competitive, I’d have to figure out how to eliminate the 100 minutes a day I stare at a windshield.
The only big sacrifices we’re making as a family is the daughter is missing a couple piano lessons in the next couple weeks because I’ve got 5 hour rides scheduled and the wife has to work. Otherwise, except for swimming, all my training happens at home and a lot of it when she’s asleep and we’ve made it a point to spend Sunday afternoons hanging out as a family.
Sounds like you and me are in the same situation, 10hr workdays (+2hrs of commuting) each day, young children, family etc. I did IMLP this year, my first full, and while it was challenging to navigate the scheduling ‘gauntlet’, it is entirely doable. That of course depends on your goals, ie are you looking to finish, set a PR, make the podium? Unless it’s the latter, I’d say us Age Groupers punching the clock every day have a very good shot at a not only being there for our family but also enjoying a great race experience.
For me, it’s 4/430am alarm clocks; M-Sat. During the week I get a solid 60-120minutes in before I need to be at work, be it swim, bike, run, weights, or a combination of these. The family is deep asleep during these morning workouts and I reserve my evenings exclusively for family time. My children are under 4 years old, hence bed time is still fairly early. I’m in bed by 9pm, 930pm at the latest. The only time I miss out on some family time are Saturday mornings when I typically do my long rides and bricks. (it seems I never do ‘just’ the ride any more haha). Even on Saturdays I’m up at 430 to keep the internal clock going, I’m out the door the moment the sun rises. If it’s a particular long ride, ie +56miles, I’ll often start on the trainer and transition to outside once it’s light enough. This gets me home between 9am - 11am on Saturdays. The arrangement with the wife is that once I’m home, I’m home and present (no recovery lounging around). Long runs are on Sundays, always done during nap time.
I’ll caveat that by saying that IM training isn’t necessarily 100% more than HIM training, not for me anyways. I’m just a MOP Age Grouper though. I trained 8 months for IMLP, 5 of which were spent (more or less) at the same amount of hours I spent training for HIMs, approx 10-13hrs per week. Months 6 and 7 this was ramped up to a max of maybe 18/19hrs during build weeks (10 day builds followed by 3-5 days of ‘recovery workouts’). I managed this by taking half days off at work, once a week for about 2 months. This only cost me about 4 vacation days.
Loads of tricks and I truly believe that, if this is important to you, one can easily solve for it without impeding on family time. It just means that dreaded alarm goes off early! Good luck and I hope to see you out there.
One thing to consider is how many hours do you plan to train a week? That makes a huge difference in whether it’s feasible to do an IM, raise kids, take care of a house, and hold down a full-time job. I’ve read about some very fast IMers only training 10-12 hours a week and winning their age group at Kona (one particular person in mind has 5 kids!!). Yet some folks might need to be training 20-30 hrs per week to be competitive. Hopefully you might require less training hours. Quality over quantity?
I’m in taper mode for my first IM and it’s been quite a challenge to fit in anywhere between 12-18 hours of training with a demanding full-time job as a financial analyst. And we don’t have kids. So my hats off to those who do have kids on top of a big job and IM training (you are amazing!). I honestly don’t know how you do it. I need 7-8 hrs of sleep so this leaves zero time for anything other than working and training.
Having a supportive spouse or other family member is also a huge key! My husband trains with me and is also doing the IM with me. So we spend all weekend busting out big training sessions during the peak weeks. If he wasn’t training with me I’m sure he’d still be very supportive.
Best wishes! Just be kind to yourself and your family. If we did have kids, I’d just do 70.3s or marathons and wait until they went to college. They are only little once 
I’d also think about another job with with less hours if that is a possibility. No one on their death bed ever wished they spent more time at the office 
xo
Yea, I’m not training that much more for a full than I did for the halfs I did. The biggest differences are the 2-a-day workouts and the length of the bike rides. My biggest workout for a half was a 3 hour ride followed by a 10 mile run. Swim workouts are 75 minutes vs. 45-50 minutes. To me, a HIM training cycle is comparable to a competitive marathon schedule, where I’m running 6 days a week.
I have a full time job that I am usually at for 8-9 hours a day (run a behavior room at public middle school), have one kid, have three dogs, a house to take care of, oh - and a wife. We would love to have another child, but will see if that’s in the cards. I do these races because I make it a priority. I will try to fit in 3 - 6 Ironmans per year over the next few years.
Here’s how I do it… I get up at 4 am every day of the week, get in a few hours of training (higher intensity stuff), go to work, go from work to the pool, go home. I have a trainer and a treadmill in my basement, and that’s how I can be productive with my time. My wife supports it, and I will hopefully change my work later this year to more of just coaching and training. If I’m able to do that, I can kick my full time job, but for now, I just have to make the best of the morning time.
This is almost exactly my life, too. Work is typically 7am to 4:30pm with a rare lunch break. Up at 4am to get in 75-90 minutes of workout before getting off to work (have trainer and treadmill in garage). Sometimes I bike commute. Stop in at the pool either to work or on the way home from work. Usually home by 5:30pm or 6pm and then it is just family time from there on out. Bed time around 9:30/10pm. I don’t sleep much.
On weekends, I’m starting my rides at 5am, done usually by 10am. What works for me is that my wife/kid are opposite me. They sleep a lot. I don’t sleep much. So, I’m usually getting home on weekends just as they are waking up.
Man some of these lifestyles seem completely unsustainable. No wonder most people seem to burn out of this sport in a few years.
My wife supports it.
/end thread
.
Yeah I can see how insane it all looks, esp for those of us with young families and 50-60hrs/week of work and commuting. The density of it all certainly contributes to high burnout, no doubt. One thing I’ll say to it all is this: it makes you realize quickly what is important in your life.
Yeah I can see how insane it all looks, esp for those of us with young families and 50-60hrs/week of work and commuting. The density of it all certainly contributes to high burnout, no doubt. One thing I’ll say to it all is this: it makes you realize quickly what is important in your life.
I agree - I like the sport, I like how it pushes me to “find time” but the “selfishness” of it wears on me sometimes, I get tired of it. For what its worth, I am a fairly motivated person that can’t just “wing” things but have decided to only do olympic-distance triathlons and really go after it for 12-16 weeks a year, maintain / cross train / do other things. Once the time rolls back again, I am excited to make the push and get competitive again. End of the day, it does not matter to me how I finish or what I do, i’ve dedicated myself to a sport when I was younger and in college and rather dedicate myself to a well-balanced life.
Yeah I can see how insane it all looks, esp for those of us with young families and 50-60hrs/week of work and commuting. The density of it all certainly contributes to high burnout, no doubt. One thing I’ll say to it all is this: it makes you realize quickly what is important in your life.
I don’t know how y’all do it, i struggle to get training in on a 40/hr work week, 2 dogs, and one wife. Cant even comprehend a 60/hr work week and kids, i think i would be a broken man in 4 weeks.
Yeah I can see how insane it all looks, esp for those of us with young families and 50-60hrs/week of work and commuting. The density of it all certainly contributes to high burnout, no doubt. One thing I’ll say to it all is this: it makes you realize quickly what is important in your life.
I don’t know how y’all do it, i struggle to get training in on a 40/hr work week, 2 dogs, and one wife. Cant even comprehend a 60/hr work week and kids, i think i would be a broken man in 4 weeks.
I really felt that way at first. Finding 60-90min/day of free time during the week really isn’t that hard. Convincing yourself that you have nothing better or more pressing to do during that time can be.
I really felt that way at first. Finding 60-90min/day of free time during the week really isn’t that hard. Convincing yourself that you have nothing better or more pressing to do during that time can be.
Nailed it
Yeah I can see how insane it all looks, esp for those of us with young families and 50-60hrs/week of work and commuting. The density of it all certainly contributes to high burnout, no doubt. One thing I’ll say to it all is this: it makes you realize quickly what is important in your life.
I don’t know how y’all do it, i struggle to get training in on a 40/hr work week, 2 dogs, and one wife. Cant even comprehend a 60/hr work week and kids, i think i would be a broken man in 4 weeks.
If it matters, I watch very little TV outside of NFL football and local news. There’s a lot of time to be reclaimed if you give up the boob tube.
I figure the 4-5 hours during the workweek I give up for training will add years on the backend to be a crotchety old fart, or a grandfather. Unlike my Mom who died at 62 and my Dad who died at 64 2 months later, before we had our daughter.