Ironman in med school? (Page 2)

You just answered your own question. 

I'm a bit late to the discussion but I'm who Fred was referring to above. I did IMLP and finished in around 14:02 at the end of my second year of medicine. I didn't quite achieve my goal time, but I feel I finished solidly. I have a similar background as you, I swam varsity my first few years of undergrad (Bsc and Med School at UofA, Edmonton, Alberta). You can look back at my logs from the last year if you want to see what I was able to fit in--there were a few times that sacrifices had to be made to study for sure, but for the most part I was able to keep a relatively high training volume up. That being said I literally had no time for anything else--I hardly went out, I was in bed by 9pm pretty much every Fri/Sat night, had limited involvement with other extra-curriculars and so on. The worst month for me was May probably because we write an exam similar to the USMLE part 1 up here in Canada (just more school based vs a standardized national exam), so time management became critical to fit in training. I found my schedule to be fairly predictable in 1st and 2nd year so that made training easy--from what I have discovered about clerkship thus far, not so predictable and much harder to say you will get that session in after work when you don't get out till 8pm and have to be back at 6am. 

Basically I agree that it is possible and only you can decide what you are willing to sacrifice for the IM. I don't feel it significantly impacted my grades and I have rarely gotten anything but positive feedback from my preceptors about my level of preparation,etc. I agree with some of the others that your injury history is what I think would hold you back, because if you really want to do an IM, you can make the time within your schedule to do it. I'm currently on prob close to a 7 year hiatus from IM--I'm considering Emergency so maybe in my 4th year of residency I can do another one??? But for now I'm sticking to HIM distance and below where tri is concerned.

Good luck! If you have any questions feel free to PM me! Now back to studying for my Obs/Gyn final and OSCE!!

Good luck on the exams! 

Thanks for the reply!...I think, even though I really appreciate what everyone has said so far, that I'm going to do it this summer. I'm doing pretty well in medical school so far, and I already train a good amount, so I think I am prepared to step it up in the process of the training and still not let my classes suffer at all. I hope I'm not making a bad decision, but I really would like to do one, and I don't see myself ever having time after this summer. I barely trained for my first HIM or even my first marathon, and still did fine. I'm aware that an ironman is an entirely different beast obviously, but I hope to still finish decently. My goal is to just finish, (well, within a reasonably respectable time) maybe not the ironman equivalent of my 5:04 HIM, but decent. Its going to be incredibly difficult, but I am up for the challenge of making both work. 

Yes, I knew you were going to do it anyway!  This thread has brought a lot of nostalgia! Wannabefaster it is true, we really did study 12 hours a day!.. but like you were saying heck, we could still train 2 hours on top of 12 hours of studying but, yes, not have time for much else. What a great break from studying is S/B/R.  True, right now many of us work for 24 or 36 hours stretches at a time and still train.  Adding kids on top of that is a real doozy, too.

GOOD LUCK swima! Lake Placid is a dreamy place, you will love it

I am also late to the discussion and have come nowhere near an IM, but I did do medical school with 2 small children and faced many questions about how I managed to do everything.  As many have said, it's very individual.  I actually found med school very manageable, and I did quite well and ended up in my first choice residency.  I think a lot of this was because I was more mature than many of my classmates- I didn't go out on the weekends, I didn't get sucked in to the social drama, and I was efficient with my work and study time.  If you are focused on IM training and aren't worried about the social life, you may be just fine (in fact you may find that you are more efficient if you have to work hard to fit it all in).  I would just go in to it with some mental flexibility, and be willing to drop the IM if it's interfering with school or your health (and I am SURE that you know this but make sure you are maintaining a high enough weight for your health- I had a med school classmate die of anorexia so I feel compelled to mention it).  Good luck in both, and have fun!

I know this is late, but I agree with E-Dub also.  I'm currently training for IMLP and am a neuroscience Ph.D grad student.  I have very similar time constraints to you, but training for an IM is definitely do-able if you really want it.  I also agree that although you're busy now, chances are you're never going to have tons of free time as an MD either.  I decided to train for one this year because although I'm busy, I know that after I'm done with grad school I'll be busy with post doc, then finding a job, etc., plus will probably have more family commitments in the future.

What I do to fit everything in is I always try to get a workout in in the morning.  This way, no matter how busy my day is, I at least got one workout in.  I also multi-task.  If I have a exam to study for, I put some of my notes in paper protectors (so I don't sweat on them!) and read them while biking on my trainer or running on a treadmill.  That way I don't have to sacrifice school work.   Or I review notes, then go for a swim and think about a different part for each lap (did this while having to remember all the cranial nerves, each lap was a different nerve).  

So I think its definitely possible, but only if you really enjoy it.  If training just adds another stress on you, then it will be difficult to keep up, but I find that it gives me a way to de-stress after long days, which makes me look forward to my workouts most of the time.    

WOW, what a great thread, and tons of good advice. I must start with, I am no Doctor and have never been through the schooling. I have no clue on the amount of hours spent studying or the time it will take up. The one thing I can respond to is: Never regret. In the last year I have seen  many many lives lost and shattered in a milli-second. The thing I always ask myself, would they have changed anything in the last year or so if they, some my close friends, knew what thier future held.

This may sound stupid but you never know what the good LORD has planned for you. I say be very efficient and prioritize your time wisley and DO IT.

I have never done an IM yet, but I can guarentee sometime in 2012 I will accomplish it. It is just something that I must do. I'm actually trying to convince one of my partners who was severly injuried, 30 percent right frontal lobe removed, to let me swim, bike and run him to the finish in a oly or sprint. Right now he is convinced he will do it on his own. It is going to be a very long and tough road for him but I pray everyday he has the ability and chance to do it.

JUST DO IT

One more thought to throw in the mix: I think heavy training hurts my cognitive capacity. I feel decidedly less sharp for the rest of the day after a tough/long training session, and I think the cumulative fatigue of IM training makes for cumulative cognitive fatigue, in me anyway. I'm a grad student, and when I look back on my work from last summer, when I was in the depths of IM training, I notice more mistakes than usual. My guess is that it's reduced glucose supply to the brain because it's being syphoned off by depleted muscles -- I'd love to see a study on it. If you do decide to do it, check out Don Fink's book, the training plans are great, and the subtitle about time efficiency reflects some of the content. Good luck!

Neweyes-actually, most studies show quite the opposite.  Exercise increases the supply of key growth factors to the brain, which actually increases plasticity (aka the ability to create new synapses and theoretically form new memories) and even stimulates neural stem cells to proliferate. Heres an example (if you're at a university you should be able to access the article I believe): http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006899311018403  In fact, the most common method of actually increasing neurogenesis in mice is simply adding a running wheel to their cage.

However, there is a lack of studies on heavy exercise reminiscent of IM training (which would theoretically increase corticosteriods higher than moderate exercise and decrease positive effects on cognition), but this effect may be cancelled out by the increased stress (and corticosteriod production) of mice/rats being forced to exercise in many studies, instead of exercising for their own enjoyment.

...and I will now step off my neuroscientist soapbox.  

Well, there are many studies that show physiological changes and improvement of affective state, but on cognitive function the evidence is less clear. The study you link says exercise "upregulat(es) proteins related to cognitive ... function," but that's quite different than improving cognitive function. I suspect there are many variables that complicate the issue, certainly depth of fatigue/glycogen depletion is an important one. Here's a review that says dehydration from extended exercise causes decline in cognition and memory: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001691802001348It's certainly possible that was my problem, though I'm pretty good about hydration in general.

I'd be curious to hear what other IMers think.... how is your clarity of thought (separate from mood) during peak training?