How many STers are Teachers? How do you get in the workouts?
HAHA, well you have almost 3 months off in the summer, there’s a good start.
No travel for work.
Lots of vacation time for Federal holidays, etc.
And you are done every day around 3 or 4.
I think you should be able to fit in a few workouts here and there 
My wife is an elementary school teacher. It’s tougher for her during the school year than it is for me to get a workout because I have a home attached chiro office and can pick my own hours. But her summer is great.
During the school year she either has to get a workout before or after school hours and on weekends. Her lunch time too short and she often has playground duty then.
I teach as well.
My first hour is off- so morning swims are non-pressure to finish
My other off period and lunch period coincide, so a short noon lunch run is available.
But mainly, I get up at five to get at least one of my sessions in and then one after school.
plus the summer off
plus the winter and spring break.
Today is a lab set up day, so I’m actually able to putz around on the computer a bit
I teach full time: Coaching cross country helped my running: I would run with the varsity if I was felling spry, JV / girls if not. Some days I just mountain biked. This meant I was at work at 7:15 (school starts at 8:20) and out running by 3:45. Now that that is over, I am in at 7:40 and still out at 4 p.m. so I workout anywhere from 4 until 7 p.m. I can only manage to pull morning runs in Sept. & May and swim early (6 a.m.) in March, April and May. I have no family obligations, so my weekends are mostly free … As are most of the 10 weeks in the summer.
Coaching cross country and track helps…most days I can run with the distance guys…some days are impossible to run AND coach…we have a pool at school, so morning swims are that much easier (sometimes even over lunch)…I basically don’t bike during the school year unless I’m on my trainer or grading papers on a stationary recumbent bike…I’m usaully home from coaching around 5:30/6:00, if I haven’t run I try to get out before dinner or after my daughter goes to bed…the real benefit is the time off in the summer and the holidays…lots of good training then.
HAHA, well you have almost 3 months off in the summer, there’s a good start.
No travel for work.
Lots of vacation time for Federal holidays, etc.
And you are done every day around 3 or 4.
I think you should be able to fit in a few workouts here and there
Okay, I have to chime in here.
Yup, teachers get national holidays off. Yes, we get 9 weeks in summer off. If it’s such a wonderful life, answer the following:
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Why do over half the teachers who enter the profession leave in the first five years?
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Are you required in your job, without additional pay, to continue your education in your “free” time? And, if you don’t take classes with all that “free” time, you can lose your certification and be unable to teach?
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In your profession does the community, nation, and every person on the street have something to tell you about why our nation’s youth are “failing to learn” and why teachers are incompetent? Not that they have suggestions to make it better, except that it must have been better in the 50’s (when half of all students didn’t graduate from high school.)
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I went into work today to plan out lessons in my absence, meet with a substitute, and make sure things move along well. DOes your work require that?
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Do you take time off of work (personal leave days) so that you can grade student work because you have 153 students who wrote three page essays, and they expect you to respond to them all?
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Do you work 10 hour days, five days a week and follow it up with working five hours each day on your “weekend?” Would you coach cross-country, track, baseball, football & ect without meaningful pay?
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Do you have a master’s degree and earn less than 35k a year?
The whole “all that time off” garbage is just that–garbage.
Your right, being a teacher and a triathlete is an awesome pair…when your off. When you are in school however, it can be very time consuming.
As an example, I teach middle grades math. I see about 100 kids a day and I assign homework three nights a week. I also give weekly quizzes. Do the math and figure out just how much I have to grade. However, if I did grade absolutely everything I would be wasting a lot of time. Much of the homework I grade only on completion. That leaves only weekly quizzes to grade for correctness. Plus, I have a student teachers aide and I have her grade for me. And you can always allow students to grade thier own work.
My advice to you is to don’t make school the utmost important thing in your life (Unless of course your single and not a triathlete). I have some teachers here at my school that stay every single day way past a normal hour to leave. It can actually be unsafe. For me, number 1 is my family and I made it a promise to myself to never take anything home that I don’t have to. **Take advantage of planning periods, lunch, grading schemes, and teachers aides. **
Get one workout in during the morning when your family is still asleep. Then shoot for another workout after school. And since your not taking anything home with you, you still have all weekend.
Both of my parents are teachers, I honor and respect the position and all that goes along with. I was just busting the original poster’s chops a little bit, no harm meant. And thanks to you and the other teachers, I had a few teachers basically change my life, one led me to run which led me to triathlons 
twowheels,
Chill out dude, he was just joking … I love my colleagues, but a few are a little too defensive and complain a bit too much, the reason I tend to avoid certain faculty lounges … Teaching is much better (for me) than my previous career and other jobs, I can tell you that. We do get a lot of days off and sick days compared to most other jobs, but we need them: No one could do what we do 250 days a year for what we get paid … And the kids and parents couldn’t handle it either.
I teach middle school PE and health as well as coach cross country in the fall and track and field in the spring. I’m in my 3rd year, only 26 years old. Let me tell you, the day is EXHAUSTING. After leaving work I’m rarely in a mood to work out, however I usually force myself to get in a quick 45 minute workout around dinner time. When not coaching, it’s easier. I’ll get home at 3:30, take a nap, then workout before the gf gets home. When coaching, it’s a bitch. I normally get home at 5 if there’s no race or meet. By then I’m exhausted, need to eat, and have to get ready for bed by 9:30. Little time to work out especially if I want to hang out with the gf or a friend. No chance to work out during practices because I’m the only coach and need to check on everyone. The days off are great, but during the other 9 months I have little social life if I want to train. Oh yea, for meets, I get home at 6:30 and then need to process results for 30-80 kids depending on team size. This doesn’t include grading 300 kids (all the kids in the school that have me for class). I may be teaching my last year…
I teach high school where the students leave at 2:20 which is when my workout day starts. I bring my workout stuff and change in my store room, and head out the door by 2:30. I bring my bike on Monday and keep it at work all week and take it home Friday so I’ll have it at home over the weekend. I either ride outside or on the CompuTrainer (which I keep at school too). I can swim in the school pool, but 2-days a week I wait until 6:00 p.m. to swim with at the YMCA with the masters team. The good or bad, depending how you look at it, I do all my double (or even triple) workouts pretty much back-to-back in the afternoon.
have the police caught the guy that put a gun to your head and made you take up your career as a teacher?
It does suck being a teacher sometimes…I’ve had to use my past 4 summers to get my Master’s done, but now I’m finally done, and I can afford to work part-time if I’m frugal and use the rest of the time to train. I have time to run or swim in the am, but since I have to be at school ready to go at 8, I have to be done by 7. I also can’t get in any mid-day workouts-god I hate my friends that get to run during their lunch hour! I only get 40 minutes total for lunch. With no shower facilities, it just isn’t worth it.
Good points: 2 hour delays, days off (I use spring break to get some consistent training in early spring), and occasionally, if no meeting or tutoring, about 2 days a week I can get out at 3:45 for a quick afternoon workout. And of course summer. although I will work part-time, 8 weeks of 20 hours a week is a hell of a lot better than none!
Bad points: b/c we’re given days off, you can’t really choose to do a race out of town unless it works within your schedule. My district has limited vacation days, and those I usually save for emergency travel or appointments. Hence, no IMFL, IMMOO, or IMC…too hard to take a week off, so I went with IMLP solely due to scheduling.
Same problems I’m sure most jobs have. But the most difficult thing is the rigidity of the schedule. Kids need you there and on time. I find I have to use all my afternoon time for doctor’s appointments since its sometimes too difficult to deal with getting a sub. But as with all jobs, its doable!
This is my 25th year in the profession. It is both very worthwhile and, if done right, very exhausting. In addition to teaching middle school social studies, I have been very involved with our teachers association in the last decade or so and have headed up our last few rounds of contract negotiations. You add those duties into the daily mix and you have a whole 'nother definition of endurance event. Your content knowledge, your work ethic, and your interpersonal skills are tested every minute of every day…and if you want to do some training, well, for me it is early in the day.
Swim at the Y starting at 5 AM almost year round. Depending on the day…do a quick 1000, hit the treadmill for a few miles, then back into the pool for another 1000 or two or hit some weights. Done and showered and in my classroom by 7:15 or so. Class doesn’t start till 8:20, but there is ALWAYS something to do…a meeting, e-mail, hall duty, etc.
There are times, before the days get too dark, where I will try and do something after school, a bike, maybe a run, but most often those sessions, particularly on the bike, wait for the weekend. You get home pretty dang tired…and not often before 4:30 or so if you have any additional duties. I have a trainer all set up in the garage…but it is a real piece of willpower to jump on it at night since I have hit the half century mark.
The holidays and the summer (now about 10 weeks tops) are great, no doubt about it, and by late July and August I have a pretty good level of fitness going to carry on into October. I have somehow kept a streak going of at least a few age group podium finishes every year since 1989…something that would be unlikely without that summer training time.
The best part? Seeing a bunch of former students get involved in the sport…even when they beat me!
I teach as well…switched into it this year from pharma research. I feel like it’s been easier to fit workouts in on the whole than it was in the corporate world. When I’m on track, I get a swim in in the morning (homeroom starts at 7:20) and another workout on the way home (usually leave around 3:30). On nights that I have to attend class or professional development i run during the lunch period and take a working lunch during my prep period.
Like any job (and maybe more so) it takes good time management and efficiency. I use interactive notebooks (i teach physical and natural sciences) so the kids have homework every night, but i check it all on fridays while they’re doing lab prep. That leaves me just lab projects and quizzes to grade, which there is ample time to do during prep period, even for 185 kids.
Unlike what was mentioned above, i’ve only been complimented by the general public for my decision, most folks do respect the profession. And in my district anyway, starting salaries approach 40k.
I would say that 1/2 of new teachers quit because they find out they “suck at teaching”…not because it’s too demanding. Every job is hard. I think teaching just points that out a lot more emphatically than perhaps other jobs. When you see 100+ kids in a day, if you are not “meant” to be a teacher…your day will be pure hell. I work with amazing teachers who love to come to work every day… I always think it’s funny when teachers and non teachers talk and debate…everyone thinks they work harder than the next guy…but it’s all preference…I love my job, it pays crap, but I knew that going in…I wasn’t expecting to get rich. Teachers that complain about salaries to everyone should have figured that out BEFORE they spent 4 years in college to become a teacher.
**I would say that 1/2 of new teachers quit because they find out they “suck at teaching”…not because it’s too demanding. **
The life of a neophyte teacher is very difficult. The reality of the classroom is very different than college training. The out-of-classroom challenges that students bring with them are more overwhelming than ever. Neophyte teachers don’t have the accumulation of materials and preparation that experienced teachers have. They literally are working the night before just to stay “a day ahead”. That’s just the reality of the situation. The grading and preparation are just as demanding and time-invasive as the actual teaching that takes place during the day. In those first few years, it’s literally having a “day job” and a “night job” … as illustrated by the bleary eyed, walking-dead, expression many new teachers walk around with. The other “teaching activities” such as parental contacts, other responsibilities in the school, meetings, curriculum mapping, etc are also time-demanding. The frustration with out-of-school aspects with the students are tough to deal with. New teachers often get the out-of-classroom responsibilities that more experienced teachers have declined (out of wisdom). So, the teachers that need the most time, have the least.
It’s not surprising some teachers opt out.
The job does get easier with experience, namely due to the accumulation of quality and new lessons and material accumulated over the years. They pay increases over time, and the teaching processes get streamlined. But, the first few years of teaching are about as demanding as a job can get.
I’m now an elementary principal after 4 years of high school teaching. It gives me a totally new perspective of teachers and the amount of stuff they/we do. Most teachers are contiually refining and reinventing what they do in order to be more effective. Very few just sit on what they’ve been doing year-after-year. Sometimes it seems as if there’s no “grace period”.
Combine all that with the growing social issues, ESL and ELL students, students with family troubles, uncooperative and unsupportive parents, increased demands without increased funding, funding increases at rates lower than inflation leading to continual, yet real, situation of “doing more with less”. It’s can be frustrating and overwhelming.
When neophyte teachers sit down and calculate their hourly wage factoring in all the evening and weekend hours, it can be depressingly laughable. Other teachers figure out that their “money” is simlar when they stay home with young children rather than work so hard and pay so much for daycare, eating out, etc.
I won’t say that some don’t quit because they find out that they aren’t good teachers … but the vast teacher shortage disputes that. Even a poor teacher can get a job somewhere, and since pay is based on time/education rather than merit … they’ll find work and the same pay as a teacher that goes above and beyond. I think the stats back it up rather clearly … if teaching is such an easy job, with such great benefits such as june, july, and august, and populated by professionals that can’t do anything else (or so the expression goes) … why is there such a shortage of them? Why don’t more folks come and get some of this “easy money”? I say that somewhat in jest, and somewhat as a serious question to be pondered.
I wish everyone had the opporuntity to view teachers from my perspective. The job description itself is overwhelming. Everything teachers do above and beyond the job description is amazing.
Lastly, I encourage and enthusiastically invite everyone to “adopt a classroom” and go to the class to read to the kids, volunteer to help struggling readers (and math students), donate clothing to the families in need, help the teachers prepare materials, donate materials, etc. Furthermore I challenge you to not cry “happy tears” on the way home. =)</
To address the topic at hand …
IMO, you have to train in the AM (and possibly another workout after school … stress-reliever). Too many things will (and do) come up during the day that seek to occupy your evening hours. With teaching, you have to grade the assessments of the day AND prepare everything for the next day’s lesson(s), not too mention parent contacts, meetings, etc. It’s not the “teaching” that takes up so much of the “off time”, it’s everythng else that’s not necessarily spelled out in the ‘job description’.
I have been teaching HS SP.ED. for 16 years. Great pool, great strength facility 100m from my office. 1st period prep hour - out of the pool by 730AM=3km. at my desk by 750AM PB & honey sandwich/protein drink for breakfast.
After school; strength in the fitness center, or home by 3 for run while daughter rides, or solo bike.
Summertime - 6AM swim. 8AM run. 10AM Big breakfast.
Prep for ITALIA! http://www.bicitreregioni.com