How did you get your wife "on board" with Triathlon? (Page 4)

Gordon, you liked that one? Todays ride was 1435 straight days, 18 degrees this morning at 5am.

LOL! Hardcore!

I had to sit down and do the math Kevin, got a 4 year anniversary coming up soon, right?

I want to respond more fully to this thread but wanted to comment on this aspect.

First, my wife is 100000000% supportive of me training - even telling me to stop being a lazy and go do it if I'm sitting about.... having said that, we still do have the same issues as everyone else in terms of making time for each other etc (I also have a busy job which eats into evenings etc).

However, laying out the training plan DOES NOT work for us.  I think its because it then appears that the training is THE MOST important and then everything else falls around it....but in many respects it should be the other way around.... 

As a couple with no kids, and a wife that's a runner, we do a lot of stuff together - but I wanted to comment on this further.

My wife is injured at the moment, and has been for a couple of months and will probably be out of action for another 6 months or so -  but we still try to do my training 'together' - even if she is not training...if that makes sense...?

For example, I might do a one hour run Sat morning, with a goal of meeting her at 9am at a local cafe for coffee.... I leave home, do my run, she leaves home and walks to cafe (15 mins away) takes her ipad to read newspaper online, has a coffee, I turn up and we have breakfast together then walk home.

Another example is that she wants to go shopping.... we pick a shopping centre 50kms away. I leave home and ride my bike there, she leaves home 15 minutes later and drives there, we arrive at approx same time.  I throw my bike in the car, get changed (apply 20 litres of deodorant) and then we can wander the shops together...

If my wife needs to go to work on a Saturday, I will ride my bike up to meet her when she finishes, and we can do something together on the way home.

What I am trying to say is that integrating the training with your partner does not necessarily mean that they have to 'train' with you.... make sure that your training lines up with activities you can do together...if she has some interest, or relaxation time, or simply likes to read a book, then you can integrate that by making your training 'fit around' her activities.  

That is a great approach Try! I will add that to my idea list (it is long now!) Thank you for sharing that wonderful approach with us.

I've found a few keys.

1.  If I go riding or to the gym directly from work, it feels like "work time" and it doesn't cut into "home time" as much.  So, when there's daylight after work, I'm changing into bike clothes before I head out the office door, driving to the trailhead, and getting in a ride before I head home.

2.  Discussed the whole exercise thing with the spouse, and got her to declare that "time spent being reductive counts as time spent being productive".  I'm down about 150 lbs (not a typo there), and still fighting to drop a last 35.

3.  Keep the schedule reasonable.  For me, it was an agreement that I wouldn't have more than three things lined up at any given time.

4.  Make sure the spouse sees some benefits.  A bunch of the "cool kids" from church were doing a local tri in August, so I made sure the wife got to go to the carb-loading party the night before.  I would normally skip social events like that, but thought it would be a good chance for her to talk to other tri-widows.  She decided that while I'm still insane, I'm not nearly as insane as some of the other people doing it.

5.  I don't get to complain about her hobbies.

6.  I've been able to include my teenage girl in many of my workouts - if it's just a trip to the gym, she will go hit the exercise bike while I do "whatever".  Her button is anime, so she only gets to watch new episodes if she's earned exercise points.  I do NOT pay attention to her scale numbers, everything is driven solely on minutes of exercise.  Rewards are paid only on the things for which she has direct control, and any health/size benefits are secondary.  I hope to help her avoid a lot of the health/size/esteem issues I faced for decades.  She will never be ballerina size, but if we can avoid stage 3 obesity, great.  The extra benefit is that my wife is less prone to see my training as being completely and utterly selfish.

Your mileage may vary - consult your doctor or pharmacist for a complete list of side effects - manufactured in a facility that processes soy, milk, wheat, peanuts, and other tree nuts.