Manatees Roar into the 20s! CLOSED (Page 19)

I've got a question for the Manatees. For those of you who are married or in a relationship, does your partner support your training? Is your partner a fellow athlete? ..... 

....So I'm just curious how everyone does it and how do your partner's support it. --Tom

Tom,  This is a very sensitive subject for lots of people.  No, my wife is not an athlete. When I started the sport 5 years ago I was very concerned about the time that training would take away from the family.  I looked at the calendar and after moving things around a dozen times came up with a plan that I though would make enough time for me to train without cutting into too much of the family time or my responsibilities around the home.  Then I approached my wife and told her that I wanted to the 70.3 Triathlon in the town we lived in 8 months.  She had concerns.  First, she said you don't own a bike.  I did own a bike it just had been in our garage for 8 years to where she had never seen me ride a bike in the time she had known me.  Then she expressed concerns that I would come home from weekend workouts and crash on the couch for a few hours to where I wouldn't get the weekend chores done.  Then she expressed concerns that I would take too much time away from the family.  So I didn't sign up for the race, but I started testing the training plan to see if it would work.  I had to do 100% of my running and cycling on weekdays before 7:00 AM (the family got up between 7:00-7:30 AM).  I then had to do my swimming during my lunch break from work (which limited me to 20 minutes in water a day for 4-5 times a week).  I did up to 3 hours bike rides on Saturday mornings, but go them done early and due to doing my nutrition better than I did the two years that I tried to be a Marathon runner I was able to do my morning workout and still get through all the other activities of the day without letting too many things slide.  After working the plan for a while and things working out I did sign up for the 70.3 race in our home town.  Things when good for the first race, but then I planned a Half Ironman race 13 months after the first race and training started over again.  Then I planned another race 13 months after the 2nd race and trained was about to start over for another year, but by that time there was definitely some friction.   My wife would say we needed to do a project early on Saturday morning and I wouldn't know if I should tell her that I had a 3 hour bike ride planned or if I should just skip it and not say a thing.  If I did skip it I would feel like I was sacrificing for the family and the next week when my wife said that she had a project we need to get done early in the morning and I thought it was my turn to do a workout she would feel like I never made priorities for the family and was always going off to have fun when there was work to be done and I didn't have my priorities straight.  So, before training for the 3rd season we had to discuss whether I needed to quite triathlon all together or if it I should stick with it.  We decided that quitting it would just result in filling the time in the week up with less ambitious goals (i.e. watching another movie rather than riding another 30 miles).  So we made goals together for the 3rd year of training and thing changed dramatically.   Instead of my wife saying, "We need to get this project done early on Saturday morning", I would say, "I feel like I should maybe skip my Saturday morning workout so we can get a jump start on this project".  My wife would then say "What is your Saturday morning workout".  I would tell her I have a 3 hour bike ride and she would say, "You need to get that done first or you won't meet the goals that you make for this year".  It was a total 180 degree turn-a-round.  Because we had made goals for the whole year together and because My wife was a part of making those goals the time I spent working towards my goals were no longer seen as taking away from her but seen as if I didn't do them that I would just end up wasting my time watching another movie or doing something else less-productive and she didn't want to see me falling into that trap. 

It is still touch and go sometimes with the training but I am up at 5:30AM everyday to run my 8 miles while the family is sleeping and they recognize that I trying to better myself and trying to pull my weight with the family responsibilities.  Its still not perfect and my wife does feel jealous some time that I have time to exercise everyday and she sees year after year pass when she makes goals to exercise but never gets past day three.  Our youngest turned 5 last year and all three of our kids have shown interest in running.  I have search for youth running clubs for three years but it is really rural where we live so part of our year goals for 2020 I asked my wife if it would be alright if I started a youth running club for our daughters and a few other running families that we have talked to over the past 3 years that also had expressed regrets for there not being any running clubs in our area.  She got excited about the idea of our youngest finally being old enough to run with the family and it gave her hope that she would finally be able to get on an exercise plan that would last more than 3-days.  She is still not an athlete, and she will never be interest in competitive running like I do but she is interest in having a regular exercise plan and so we are going to start the club as a way to improve ourselves in 2020.  We have 23 kids on the roster and will start club workouts in three weeks. It won't be a cake walk will take a lot of work but we want to be productive people so work together to be those type of people.   Plan together.  It won't change things overnight but it is a start and it has improved things in my home over the past 2-1/2 years.  

Strava has added a Tri Challege for February -- Swim, bike, run, handcycle, wheelchair for a total of 25 hours in February. Athletes who complete the challenge will receive a digital finisher's badge in their Trophy Case. (super exciting, I know)

Tom,  This is a very sensitive subject for lots of people.  No, my wife is not an athlete. When I started the sport 5 years ago I was very concerned about the time that training would take away from the family.  I looked at the calendar and after moving things around a dozen times came up with a plan that I though would make enough time for me to train without cutting into too much of the family time or my responsibilities around the home.  Then I approached my wife and told her that I wanted to the 70.3 Triathlon in the town we lived in 8 months.  She had concerns.  First, she said you don't own a bike.  I did own a bike it just had been in our garage for 8 years to where she had never seen me ride a bike in the time she had known me.  Then she expressed concerns that I would come home from weekend workouts and crash on the couch for a few hours to where I wouldn't get the weekend chores done.  Then she expressed concerns that I would take too much time away from the family.  So I didn't sign up for the race, but I started testing the training plan to see if it would work.  I had to do 100% of my running and cycling on weekdays before 7:00 AM (the family got up between 7:00-7:30 AM).  I then had to do my swimming during my lunch break from work (which limited me to 20 minutes in water a day for 4-5 times a week).  I did up to 3 hours bike rides on Saturday mornings, but go them done early and due to doing my nutrition better than I did the two years that I tried to be a Marathon runner I was able to do my morning workout and still get through all the other activities of the day without letting too many things slide.  After working the plan for a while and things working out I did sign up for the 70.3 race in our home town.  Things when good for the first race, but then I planned a Half Ironman race 13 months after the first race and training started over again.  Then I planned another race 13 months after the 2nd race and trained was about to start over for another year, but by that time there was definitely some friction.   My wife would say we needed to do a project early on Saturday morning and I wouldn't know if I should tell her that I had a 3 hour bike ride planned or if I should just skip it and not say a thing.  If I did skip it I would feel like I was sacrificing for the family and the next week when my wife said that she had a project we need to get done early in the morning and I thought it was my turn to do a workout she would feel like I never made priorities for the family and was always going off to have fun when there was work to be done and I didn't have my priorities straight.  So, before training for the 3rd season we had to discuss whether I needed to quite triathlon all together or if it I should stick with it.  We decided that quitting it would just result in filling the time in the week up with less ambitious goals (i.e. watching another movie rather than riding another 30 miles).  So we made goals together for the 3rd year of training and thing changed dramatically.   Instead of my wife saying, "We need to get this project done early on Saturday morning", I would say, "I feel like I should maybe skip my Saturday morning workout so we can get a jump start on this project".  My wife would then say "What is your Saturday morning workout".  I would tell her I have a 3 hour bike ride and she would say, "You need to get that done first or you won't meet the goals that you make for this year".  It was a total 180 degree turn-a-round.  Because we had made goals for the whole year together and because My wife was a part of making those goals the time I spent working towards my goals were no longer seen as taking away from her but seen as if I didn't do them that I would just end up wasting my time watching another movie or doing something else less-productive and she didn't want to see me falling into that trap. 

It is still touch and go sometimes with the training but I am up at 5:30AM everyday to run my 8 miles while the family is sleeping and they recognize that I trying to better myself and trying to pull my weight with the family responsibilities.  Its still not perfect and my wife does feel jealous some time that I have time to exercise everyday and she sees year after year pass when she makes goals to exercise but never gets past day three.  Our youngest turned 5 last year and all three of our kids have shown interest in running.  I have search for youth running clubs for three years but it is really rural where we live so part of our year goals for 2020 I asked my wife if it would be alright if I started a youth running club for our daughters and a few other running families that we have talked to over the past 3 years that also had expressed regrets for there not being any running clubs in our area.  She got excited about the idea of our youngest finally being old enough to run with the family and it gave her hope that she would finally be able to get on an exercise plan that would last more than 3-days.  She is still not an athlete, and she will never be interest in competitive running like I do but she is interest in having a regular exercise plan and so we are going to start the club as a way to improve ourselves in 2020.  We have 23 kids on the roster and will start club workouts in three weeks. It won't be a cake walk will take a lot of work but we want to be productive people so work together to be those type of people.   Plan together.  It won't change things overnight but it is a start and it has improved things in my home over the past 2-1/2 years.  

I did the St. George Marathon last fall too.  I kind of fall into the category of your husband where I think that Marathons, Ironman races, etc are pretty crazy.  I, however, have a bother that is 18 months younger than me that did two full Ironman events in 2002 and in the last couple of years has started to do ultra trail runs (i.e. 100 miler type stuff).   So...I do some of these crazy long races in an effort to have a shared experience with my brother and understand him better.  My ultra Marathon Brother lives an hour from me here in Oklahoma but we have two siblings living in Utah included one in St. George so we all ran the Marathon.  It was my first Marathon in 10 years and the first Marathon for both of my Utah siblings. 

Very cool that you race with family! I've done a number of triathlons and half marathons (and 25k trail race) with siblings and in-laws and find it is a great way to stay in touch and share experiences despite living in different cities and or states. None of my family members will join me on any triathlon longer than a sprint though! The HM and 25k were one-offs too, but they and the rest of the family track me when i do IM and HIM, so it's almost like they've done it too 

A lot of things happened to cause the changes in BT.

• A large group left for Facebook.
• The main person behind BT became less involved.
• New management (ownership?) that us perhaps less involved in BT on a day-to-da basis. 
• Some key people, including Yanti, a founding Manatee, left to focus on other matters and no one picked up the slack.  You'll still see Yanti as a moderator on some boards but she's been off BT for about three years. With no new moderators being recruited, well, you get the idea.

I noticed the biggest decline with the last "redesign" of the site. It made it significantly more difficult to socialize, adding more clicks, more time, etc. just to check in on your friends. The feedback was given by so many members and simply ignored. It's now just habit and new people don't have anything to compare it to, but I truly think the redesign and ignoring of the feedback drove a lot of regulars away from the site in general. Which in turn, trickled down to mentor groups.

And around the same time, there were a few BTers who were just unnecessarily aggressive and mean. I pretty much stopped posting in the regular forums because of those interactions, and I think a lot of others did as well.