I am finding it hard to balance my life, work, lifting and triathlon schedule. This summer is my first attempt at a 1/2IM. What tips and tricks are you using to stay strong (lifting), stay trained (swim, bike, run) while still getting the job done and home for dinner? Lets assume you have two little girls too. :O. I am trying to swim from 5-6a 2x per week, running 3x per week, biking 1x per week. I need 1 more bike day and have lost all my lifting days…
you seemed to have left out evenings. Not the best hours to train I’ll grant you, but they’re better than nothing.
Almost exactly the same boat I am in. I have to maintain a certain strength (absolute) whilst training for a half ironman. Oh and I have to travel a lot. Best advice I can give is to combine as much as you can. I find I can maintain strength on 1 or 2 workouts per week. So that’s a run, workout, run. Swimming is either a run,swim,run or a bike,swim,bike. Sometimes I’ll leave the car at work with a change of clothes, run home that night, bike in the morning etc etc. Jogging prams a good if the kids a really small (and bonus points for giving the mrs some quiet time).
Find those solutions.
Ditto on the travel…that is also killing me. Evenings are so hard because im exhausted from work, feeding kids, kids to bed, etc. I run at lunch and lift at lunch. Spin on sundays. Good times…makes me really appreciate when I cross the finish line.
Not a lot of advice, but I do understand. And I would say, if you are going to be 1/2 training, you better add more than 1 bike/week. I swim or bike in the mornings, run/bike right after work while I’m still awake and the rest is family. I can’t do bed times and then go get on the trainer, I’m slowed way down by that time.
Does your spouse workout? Ages of kids?
I am finding it hard to balance my life, work, lifting and triathlon schedule. This summer is my first attempt at a 1/2IM. What tips and tricks are you using to stay strong (lifting), stay trained (swim, bike, run) while still getting the job done and home for dinner? Lets assume you have two little girls too. :O. I am trying to swim from 5-6a 2x per week, running 3x per week, biking 1x per week. I need 1 more bike day and have lost all my lifting days…
First, I’m not a great example as I don’t have kids (but do have a wife), but I do have a work schedule that varies wildly week to week, with significant amounts of last-minute travel that pops up. In general, I’d say the following have helped me keep it all in check:
1 - Multiple workouts in a day. I swim masters 2x week from 6-7a and will typically get in a run on one (or both) of those days immediately after
2 - Bike trainer. At the moment since it’s cold in NY my bike lives on the trainer. I takes me all of 2 minutes to prepare to ride (put on shorts, fill up water bottle) and I’m off on my workout. Definitely the most efficient 45-90 minutes I spend working out all week.
3 - Run bag ready to go. Since I do a lot of last-minute regional travel, I try to make sure that I’ve always got a bag with my run gear ready to go. Biking isn’t always feasible depending on gym facilities at hotels, etc., but I can always find a treadmill or step outside the hotel. Ditto having shorts/cap/goggles in the bag so I can swim if a pool pops up - www.swimmersguide.com is your best friend if you travel
4 - Don’t be afraid of some sleep deprivation. When needed, early morning and/or late night workouts can do wonders. I know some get amped up by night-time workouts and can’t go to sleep after, not an issue for me. Nothing better then getting off a hard trainer ride, taking a shower, and immediately passing out in bed.
I hear HTFU works well.
Seriously, here is what I do. I work out 5 mornings per week. 1 or 2 workouts during lunch. 1 or 2 during evenings (which always happen on my way home from work). I find that this gives me 6-7 decent workouts per week and the family doesn’t get too pissed.
Also, I find running working out the best during the morning. You can leave from the house, run 60 to 75 minutes and be back at the house. No car needed.
Cycling happens during evening or on weekends.
Swimming either morning or lunch.
You can lift/stretch at home.
You haven’t really mentioned when specifically you are working out…AM, lunch, when?
The key for me is lunch workouts, if you can swing it. I’ll put my travel schedule up against anyone’s (200K miles with United last year) and I have 3 girls (plus a puppy!) at home. I also have a wife who is just ahead of Mother Theresa in terms of vying for sainthood. ;^)
Most days are an early AM workout with a secondary workout at lunch. So Tuesday & Thursdays are swim in the AM and run @ lunch. Wednesday / Friday is for the bike (either in the AM on the trainer if it is cold, or outside @ lunch if it above freezing). Sat & Sun are reserved for longer workouts.
the challenge for my is flexing my schedule to accomodate my travel, especially for the bike. I need to be in Fl on Tues / Weds this week, so I will ride early on Tuesday and swim and then run on Wednesday when I am in FL. Next week I am in Orlando from Sunday - Thurs so I am sending my bike down this week so I have it down there. One advantage I have is that I am a 20+ year cyclist, so if I need to sub a workout on the elliptical instead of a bike ride, it is not the end of the world. RUnning is relaively easy on the road obviously, swimming a bit more challenging…
Can you commute by bike or run?
There is no balance. There are priorities.
What is your goal: finish the HIM as fast as you can, or be able to bench press a zillion pounds?
(I’m implying that you should drop the weight training at least until the HIM is done).
Make the most of the early to mid-mornings on the weekends for longer bike rides/runs.
Assuming the kids are not babies and not yet teenagers - Take the wife and kids to the pool on the weekend afternoons. They can “play” while you do laps and then you can join them.
Spend more time going really hard as a percentage of your total work-out time than the “standard” programs.
Cut the length of the 2 week day swims down and add some running - an hour of swimming is a LOT of yards for those of us with limited time. (also if you move one to the weekend, you can use the other for weights)
As much as people on here dont believe it there are many of us who would like to go as fast as we can yet still maintain strength for our jobs. I will never be a pro triathlete but I enjoy competing in my age group, unfortunately I have to have a level of strength for my job which is definitely slowing me down but I HTFU and make the most of it.
To the OP, early mornings are your friend and you should always have running/swim gear in the car or in your luggage and take advantage of any downtime.
All great advice; thanks everyone. I am going to step up my bike as the weather warms…It is such a struggle…sure wish I could win $130MM to free up my work schedule (i.e. - retire)…then I wouldn’t have any issues. I also am going to have consider dropping the lifting (not that I am a major meat lifter, but I like to keep the bi, tri, chest in shape). Being my first 1/2IM, I am not quite sure what to expect. I can easily finish a sprint and olympic; but the 1/2 is another animal. My dream is to say I am an Ironman and complete the real deal…a full IM. Just once at least.
If your goal is to just keep those muscle groups “in shape”, I would think much of that can be accomplished through your swimming. Your not gonna be huge, but you should be able to maintain for the most part. Speaking as long-time cyclist, for the first time in 20+ years, I actually have something that resembles an upper body.
So focus on your tri training and maybe lift on a rest day from your tri training if it is important to you. If not, leave the weights for the off-season and focus on training for your goals.
I agree with dropping the weights and focusing on the tri training. You’ll still maintain a lot of strength but you need to start coaxing your body into more of a slowtwitch physiology. No more than 1x/week and on your day off. Constant weight training (in the traditional sense) is definitely NOT going to help you for your 1st half-IM.
Once my second child came along, I found that I just couldn’t train for anything long anymore. My second son was born in 2006. I tried a half IM in 2008 and it was a disaster. The time just wasn’t there. I’ve always been pretty good at finding time to train. I make the most of mornings and lunch workouts. But once my brood doubled, I just couldn’t do it. I’ve been doing short course stuff since then, usually 3 swims a week (all at lunch), 4-5 runs (usually in the mornings) and 3 bike rides (a pair of midweek trainer rides in the evening and a long ride on the weekends). I lifted one day per week during the season (I gradually cut my lifting down from 5 times per week in the winter to once a week by the time racing season rolled around). For me anyway, it’s just too hard to train for the long stuff with my present work schedule and kids at the age they are (4 and 8).
Seriously, a HIM is not that difficult. If you can find 8 hours a week for 16 weeks with a few 12 hour spikes, you will be fine.
“Seriously, a HIM is not that difficult.”
I love comments like this. A half IM is difficult. It’s not the hardest thing out there but if done correctly, i.e. raced not finished, it is a very daunting event, particularly in hot weather. Four, five or even six hours at a hard pace makes for a tough, tough day. I’ve done multiple half IMs and they’ve all been hard.
I went from lifting 4x a week to stopping, and my triathlon performance skyrocketed. My shoulders stopped being tight while swimming, my muscle went to areas where I actually used it doing the sports, I had more to time to train and lost weight from the extra training, and my fitness increased. Quite simply, you can’t reach peak triathlon performance on a limited time schedule if you spend as much time lifting as you do the triathlon sports.
Obviously its a different case if you need strength for work (I did a few years ago while still in undergrad), but in that case, you shouldn’t be training for long course triathlon if you want to aim for max potential. Longer =/= better; try focusing on sprints! They’re awesome.
You do not need to lift. If you feel the need to lift rest assured you can do it in the fall and early winter. Train specific to tri now. I have three kids(13,9,7) and i coach also, it can be done.