i’m a lawyer as well but my current job has pretty cruisy hours. pretty much a 9-5 job. those people who work long(er) hours do you find it difficult to train?
reason i ask is cos im basically staying in current job until nz ironman (i live in town it is held) but then i think i’m gonna have to start considering my career/future more because this job doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.
hey…i can sorta understand. i did an arts/law degree at uni, and i basically worked out that i didn’t want to work a job where the time commitments were so rigid and potentially huge.
so i skipped out of that field before i really started, and became an english teacher. i can train maybe 20-24 hours a week. the pay is average, and i use that word in its lowest sense, but it beats some of the lousy work i’ve had it the past. occasionally i still feel a little inspired…occasionally.
basically my employment works out so that i can train hard enough to drill myself into the ground, the only rub is it’s hard to get time off to go to overseas races as it means being away from my students for periods of time that don’t work in with their holidays.
i guess i could return to law, but i don’t think it’s for me. i always felt that it was a vocation that was either going to mind numbingly dull or overly aggressive.
Hopefully someday. Reg college comes before that, though.
I’m a lawyer, but don’t practice. I have a cushy job with the federal government . . . many places like to hire folks with a J.D. for reasons other than practicing law. I would like to have time to train more, however, we all have our priorities. I know MANY folks who work a job they really don’t like or “isn’t really going anywhere” simply because life has not delivered them any other options when all factors areconsidered. I would never sacrifice my career for a participant sport . . . (unless the sport were my career) nor would I ever take a job that didn’t allow for my participation in a sport unless my priorities dictated such - the goal is finding that medium between the two.
I honestly don’t know how most full time workers fit in the time to train for IM. I only work 39 hour weeks and try to squeeze in anywhere from 15-24 hrs per week training. Fortunately my hours are flexible (within reason) but still that means getting up at 4am etc. If I wanted to get the right amount of sleep I would need to be in bed by 9pm at the latest. When you train at nights as well there is absolutely no time to catch up on news etc and you barely spend quality time with the SO.
I salute all of you working full time and managing to fit in 15+ hrs training. Then there are those that do this for years on end!
I’m a lawyer but I don’t do heavy duty transactional work so my hours are more manageable. Probably an average of 50-55 a week, in at 8 out at around 6.30. I also have a wife and two young kids.
To date I have only done up to Olys but I am hoping to do a half next year. I can find up to 8-9 hours a week without much impact on the rest of my life but that means up at 5.15 four mornings a week and being prepared to do 3 hours on the turbo (!) rather than a group ride when needed to fit around the family.
Perhaps it is hard to make this completely relevant to you since legal hours vary enormously with the type of work and you are aiming at full IM. But for what it is worth it is possible to combine tris with longer work hours but you have to be very organised - each session has to have a specific goal and you have to accept that mid week beers and watching a movie on tv in the evening are not going to happen.
It also helps the sanity periodically to take a weekend off and get smashed. Strangely this is under emphasised in the training manuals but it works for me.
There are lots of different options for attorneys. It all depends upon how much you want to make and what your career ambitions are. I am in a medium to small size firm outside Detroit, bill around 1800 hours a year and have no real complaints about my income and have reasonably good prospects for the future.
On the other hand, many attorneys with my experience make more because they either bill more or have more clients. I doubt that you can train well for an IM and also work at a very large US lawfirm in a big city. I don’t think that I could either, but that is more because we have a child than because I have a job. Before children, I probably could have found the time to do so if that was my ambition.
Don’t lawyers/attorneys usually bill like 200+ dollars an hour?
Billable rates vary a great deal. Most importantly, what you actually receive is only a fraction of what you bill. First, start with what you collect, not what you bill. Then, there are little expenses like rent, equipment (computers, furniture, phones, scanners, copiers, etc), a law library, various support staff whose salary is not offset by billing, etc. Generally speaking, and there are a tremendous number of variable here, a good rule of thumb is that you receive about one third of what your total billables (hours times rate) are.
Same here, but, I think if you throw marriage and young kids into the equation, that’s a bigger deal.
Here’s what I have to deal with:
7:00 A.M.—get kids up, dressed and ready for school, take to school, at 7:30 A.M.
Work: 8:30 A.M.-11:20—Lunch 1 hour
11:20 —5 to 5:45, Work.
Leave work.
Wife works. She picks kids up at 2:45 P.M.
Right when I get home, she’s already tired of dealing with crying fits, and so on, and, its dinner, and home work for 2 hours, which I help do----throwing the time up to 7:45 P.M. Occassionally, in here, I can go out and run and bike for 1 hour, depending on how hard the homework projects are. My wife wants to go walk, sometimes, so whoever is doing something, the other has to do the homework, baths, dinner. There’s no consistency. If I sort of take over and barge in, on her or them, a 2 hour workout, there’s going to be some pissed off issue.
Bed at 10-11 P.M.
When do you do the workouts?
Weekends PLUS early mornings:
How about 5:00 A.M —to 6:30. One hour and a half hours only, pitch dark. Sunrise here is 6:30. So, I’m in the dark, with a reflector jacket, looking like a School Patrol Guard, or a member of the road bottle pickup prison crew.
And, I have to get back at 6:30, or there will be hell to pay, in getting the kids up.
Then, at lunch, I swim for 45 minutes.
How anyone with kids can just throw in 3 hours or more a day into the training is beyond belief to me. I would think, if you are honest with yourself, that if you did 3-4 hours a day of training, and you have work, marriage and small kids, somebody or something takes a hit, whether its work, or a wife. The only other circumstance might be, that you are rich as hell, and just shower the wife with income, and she’s a work ant, and doesn’t care, when you get home and you jetting off for 2 and half hours after work.
Hey fulla,
I’m a construction litigation partner in a large SE firm. I also have a family. Hours vary from a low week of 50 to 85+ while I’m in trial. I have had 5 weeks of trial this year alone (worked 41 days straight in preparation for one). Trials are not conducive to IM training! Yet, it is possible to balance it all. I did IMF last November and am doing another IM in October. Part of it is luck of the scheduling draw. Right now I have no more trials this year, so am able to squeeze in an average of 14 hours per week, last week 18. This means getting up quite early (3 AM for my weekly long run) and training long on weekends. It means cutting deals with the family and giving them top quality time when you are with them. It means making sacrifices on hanging out with the boys, watching crap TV, reading the paper, etc. I look at it as a 3-month hiatus while I live life in a very focused way. When I’m not training for IM, I keep it fun and unscheduled. When I’m in trial or hardcore trial preparation, I still squeeze in workouts, but keep them short and intense - i.e, fast 30 minute runs, swims, 1-1.5 hour bike on weekends). I started my 16-week IM plan with just a little loss of fitness coming out of those trials, but regained it quickly. You can do it, it just takes committment and balance. Good luck.
I’m not a lawyer, but anyone with a demanding full time job has the same sorts of issues. I work full time 40-50 hours/week, have 3 kids, the youngest of which is 5, go to school part time at night, and work out at least once a day every day, putting in 14+ hours/week. How? By being a slave to a schedule. Fortunately, that suits me.
I go to bed every night, including most weekends, between 10 and 11 p.m.
During the week, I wake up at 4:30 or 5:00 to get in a morning workout (after taking out the dog, checking email, etc) and get home from the morning workout (usually a run in the dark, which is why I fall down alot and have permanently scarred knees) 7-ish. Then it’s time to get kids up, and be out the door by 8:00 to get to work by 9:00. Almost never take a lunch.
Leave work by 5:00 to pick up the youngest at daycare by 6:00 p.m., home by 6:15.
Monday nights - kids’ guitar lessons - no workout; Tuesday nights - masters class 8:00 to 9:30 p.m.; Weds - usually a swim or computrainer ride; Thursday - class, no workout; Friday - either masters or swim alone. Saturday and Sunday - long run one day, long ride the other, swim both days. Days off from work are usually used to do another long workout if I feel I need it to train properly for whatever’s coming up, currently a 1/2 ironman in 3 weeks, followed by 1/2 marathon in 4 weeks, followed by a full marathon in November.
Repeat 52 weeks a year with little variation. 2 days a week I work from home, so I can cut out the 2+ hours of commuting, put in some extra hours at work and possibly get in a 20 mile ride at lunch.
I watch little television, usually feel that I don’t spend enough time with the kids,the house is usually messy, and I need to put in a lot more hours if I want to get much further ahead at work. But… the balance is good for me right now. Next year I’m doing a full ironman, and that may throw the balance off, but it’s temporary. Another time, I may need to devote more time to my career, and that will set the workouts back. My hope is to get the kids interested in triathlon so that we can do it together! It’s all a compromise.
I go to bed every night, including most weekends, between 10 and 11 p.m.
During the week, I wake up at 4:30 or 5:00 to get in a morning workout … Almost never take a lunch.
That’s as little as 5 1/2 hours of sleep a night … with no lunch?! My body would say “no way” to that.
I’m with Boothrand.
I’m with Jeff on this one. I earned an executive J.D. for the same reasons. Having the JD in hand has helped me immensely when it came to being competitive, resume-wise, for post-military retirement employment.
Kahuna
Fulla,
This topic has come up several times, but maybe not lawyer specific (although I’m not sure that makes a difference). I am in my 20th year of law practice, work about 60+ hours a week on average, am happily married with 3 kids, AND have done 135+ Tri’s and 12 IMs during this time. And, I am no superman.
The questions seem to become priorities, focus, and total lifestyle integration… When someone asks me how I find to train I always offer a wager that I spend less time training than they spend watching TV. I’ve never had a taker yet.
I also believe that most folks train too much (for their circumstances) and waste a good bit of time. My times are fairly good and I am fairly competitive on much less training than most of my triathlete friends, and they have spousal problems because of it. Really doesn’t make sense to me.
That’s just a few thoughts. Best wishes to you.
I’m ok a few days a week with less sleep, and get a little more on the weekends - I don’t get up before 7:00 or 8:00 on the weekends. And although I don’t take a lunch, I do eat!
I also agree with the poster who said they spend less time watching t.v. and more time working out. TV is a huge time waster for most people. My vice is the internet.
I’m a lawyer and I typically do 1-2 halfs and 2-3 shorter distance tris every year. Last year, I trained for an IM, but a work conflict forced me to withdraw less than a month before the race (but I was ready!!). I own my own firm, which is good and bad, as far as controlling my calendar. Here’s my general workout plan:
On weekdays, I try to get up between 5:00 and 6:00 and either run only or run to the gym (1.5 miles) and do weights or spin. I return by 7:45 and wake the kids, change diapers, get them dressed, eat breakfast with them and then pop in a video. I wake my wife on the way to the shower around 8:30 (I buy a lot of points by taking morning duty, her least favorite time). I only live 2 miles from my office, so I can generally be in the office by 9:00 - 9:15.
1-2 days a week, I swim over lunch in an outdoor 50 meter pool. The pool is only 5 minutes from my office and I don’t shower (I just smell like chlorine the rest of the day) so I can usually get in a straight set of 2000 meters and be back in about an hour. The outdoor pool is great, because I can work on my tan while I swim.
In fall and winter, I only do one long weekend workout (either a run or bike) very early on saturday morning, so that I’m home by 10:30 or so. My wife is a sleeper, so she’s usually still curled up with the kids in our bed until well after 9:00, so I’m hardly even missed. My regular cycling group (of which I am the only triathlete) does about 60-80 miles every saturday morning, leaving at 6:00 sharp.
In the spring and summer, I add evening workouts 1-2 days a week. The house rule is home by 6:30 - 7:00 pm, even if I workout. I eat with my family, give the kids their baths and play with them before the go to bed (8:30). If need to, I can work from home for a couple of hours, but I usually spend the remaining time with my wife.
Also in the spring a summer, I wake up early one weekday (usually wed) for my long run.
Sundays are reserved for family/recovery unless I have a race.
Granted: (1) I have a unique situation with my law practice that allows me a lot more flexibility than most and (2) I have no illusions of ever qualifying for an IM slot on merit (I’m a committed and proud MOPer). But those two things considered, I don’t find it hard at all to find the time to train or be with my family. I find it much harder to find the time to work 
I’m a lawyer with a one year old and am training for my 3rd IM- Wisconsin, in little less than 3 weeks. I put in a lot of hours, but they are flexible and if I am in the office I can zip out to run or swim during the day. My problem is that I am on the road a ton and most of it is drive time. My solution is to always have running shoes and swim gear in my car. I know every lake and pool in MI and get a lot of workouts in by just stopping at a park and going for it.
I find that I operate the best when quite busy as I am forced to make it happen and planning is imperative. My wife works out also and is real cool about this obsession. It can be done.
I don’t do quite all of that, but I do try to schedule all hearings and depositions that I have in Ann Arbor such that I can run through the Arb and Gallup Park afterwards.
David,
I’m a second year call (securities) and your post hit home.
Thanks