What I’ve found over the last few months as I’ve gotten more serious about my training is that it’s very difficult to do both my job and my training well at the same time. I seem to follow a pattern where I’ll train consistently for 2-3 weeks and I’ll notice my job performance goes down. I’m a high school teacher, by the way. My lessons become boring, grading falls behind, etc. Then I focus on my job and I notice I end up skipping more training sessions because I’m taking the time for my job. I justify this by realizing that my job allows me to do the things in life I love such as triathlons. This will go on for 2-3 weeks then the focus goes back to training. What I want is balance.
I truly admire those of you who somehow figure out the right balance of job, training, and family. I don’t even have kids so I simply can’t comprehend how those of you who do have kids do this sport well. I’ve signed up for my first half IM’s this year and plan to do IMLP next summer. I’m hoping to figure out this balancing act so I enjoy the long course races as much as I love the short course races. Those of you who do ironman distance races yearly; my hat is off to you!!
Sounds like you have balance overall. Many triathletes will plan a training schedule that builds (often in volume) over the course of a couple of weeks to a hard week and follow that with an easy week. You can plan this around your work.
I have a busy and demanding job and am also a (single) parent. That’s a little misleading because my son’s dad is very involved and takes him half the time, but I still need to build time with my kid into my life (and a whole lot of little league games).
So what I did was figure out how much time I can train. I have about 12 hours a week. Period. Then I found a coach who is willing to work with that (his training principles are based on lower volume, higher intensity, which works for me, maybe partly because I have a solid base after years of cardio and strength training). Then I came to terms with just doing the best I can with that amount of training.
This approach has actually reduced the stress of training for me (no angst).
You make a darn good pont Tom H. I think what you experienced/identified as a kind of “ebb and flow” of doing well at training but poorly at work, and vice versa, is pretty typical.
Who are these magical “Susan Dell” people who can do everything in a day? Where are these perfectly balanced lives? I haven;t expereinced that lifestyle. It is pretty much 24/7, around the clock, little time for sleep or food and something always has to give. That kind makes things run in cycles where work is good and training is weak and the other way around.
That is good though, it provides variety and blanace of its own as long as you are aware of it and maintain your standards at work, which is most important.
I’ve found kind of the same thing, except more with personal relationships than work. When my training is “on” my connections with people seem to drop off some. Mostly b/c I’m not going out, being social, dating, partying, etc… b/c I have to be up at 4:30am to get everything in. Most of my friends understand this, so we go nuts for a couple of weeks after the season ends.
I own my business, so I can always delegate responsibilty when I have other things to do. Sometimes I just HAVE to work, so I accept that I cannot get all my training in. Missing a workout here or there is not a problem IMO, as long as you have a high degree of consistency with your training.
I think it’s mostly having balance in your head, and being able to forgive yourself for missing out on some things in order to achieve certain goals. If you cannot train guilt-free then you won’t be able to perform at your highest potential.
12 hours a week? I just put in my largest weekly hours in YEARS two weeks ago…I squeezed in 9! (I have a two-year-old!) I’m a “higher intensity” or “go home” type of trainer, too. It really works better for people like us than the LSD training so often advocated…I don’t have time to lolly-gag around very often. You can even do OK in long courses with this style of training. My LSD workouts all come in the winter…they are essentially my same old workouts, just not as hard. I can do well as an AG’er, and that will probably be it…but, my swimming suddenly improved…so maybe I’ll even be able to move up, who knows?
As long as it improves the quality of my life, whatever level of achievement I get from this sport is perfectly fine. That’s the only real balancing act that needs to be watched. If quality of life is suffering somewhere because of too much training, or because of too much working, something needs to be adjusted.