General Discussion Introduce Yourself!!! » Introduction Rss Feed  
Moderators: IndoIronYanti, k9car363, alicefoeller Reply
2018-07-24 6:53 AM


1

Subject: Introduction
Hey everybody! My name is Paul and I’m from New Jersey. Here’s my story: after being overweight (about 250 pounds) for most of my adult life, I actively started to lose worth about 3 years ago for my wedding. I was 191 on my wedding day and was loving it. Since then I’m down to about 175. Anyway about 2 years ago my wife’s uncle, who is a beast triathlete, said hey, why don’t you do some races? I said sure. It was just running at first. 5ks led to 10ks and then half marathons. I was making progress and hitting pr’s constantly. The same uncle one day suggested a tri. Training for my first sprint was awesome, I loved that it was so much more than just running. I trained my ass off and took 3rd in my age group in my first sprint. I was hooked! Fast forward to now, I just competed in my first Olympic and didn’t do as well as a would’ve liked, but regardless, I finished. I love the sport and plan on continuing. But I have a dilemma that I’m assuming is pretty common. I work a lot, mon- fri 4:30am til about 3:30pm, and most Saturday mornings til 9:30. I have a 7 month old son now, so my time is pretty limited. I’m having serious trouble finding time to train. My wife is supportive, but often sees my training as neglecting precious family time. I understand, I come home from work and immediately leave again to train for hours sometimes. This sport is extremely important to me and I absolutely need to stay fit and competitive. Any advice?


2018-07-24 10:39 AM
in reply to: Tripaulie

User image

Champion
7542
5000200050025
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Bronze member
Subject: RE: Introduction

Welcome Paul, 

You have a pretty good story.  

As for managing the time conflicts, you will have to decide what is truly important in your life.  

Health and a few hours a week working out to maintain health is important and you should fight for that time.  Hopefully, you're no good to anyone DEAD.    

Once the health aspect is covered, additional workout time to be *more* competitive or to go to longer distances will have to be negotiated between you and your wife.  

You can also throw $$ into the equation...pick up a triathlon magazine, and you'll find hundreds of ways to spend $$ to be faster, make workouts more enjoyable, etc.  Races and travel to races will also consume $$.  Once you solve the time conflict, expect to have the $$ conflict.  

 

2018-07-26 8:02 AM
in reply to: 0

User image

Regular
1126
100010025
East Wenatchee, Washington
Subject: RE: Introduction
Originally posted by Tripaulie

Hey everybody! My name is Paul and I’m from New Jersey. Here’s my story: after being overweight (about 250 pounds) for most of my adult life, I actively started to lose worth about 3 years ago for my wedding. I was 191 on my wedding day and was loving it. Since then I’m down to about 175. I just competed in my first Olympic and didn’t do as well as a would’ve liked, but regardless, I finished. I love the sport and plan on continuing. But I have a dilemma that I’m assuming is pretty common. I work a lotI have a 7 month old son now, so my time is pretty limited. I’m having serious trouble finding time to train. My wife is supportive, but often sees my training as neglecting precious family time.. Any advice?


First, congratulations on your weight loss. That's a major accomplishment that will pay dividends for the rest of your life.

As you've discovered, triathlon can pull you in and drain your time. It's fun to train, fun to race and really rewarding to see improvements. But since employers rarely grant extra time off work for training this time comes right out of our personal time...which naturally begins to impact the time available for family, friends, household chores, or just pure relaxation. It's the triathletes dilemma.

As you've also discovered, improvement requires incremental training. More time. And as you increase your race distance, training demands jump as well.

Here are a couple of thoughts:

First, it's really important to be on the same page with your family. They need to understand why fitness and sport (triathlon) are an important part of your life. You need to hear how your training potentially adds stress to the rest of the family as they try to offset your absence from home while working out. There is a very interesting post started yesterday by Coach Scott on the subject of balancing triathlon training while maintaining support at home. You can read it here: https: //beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=552303&posts=10&page=1

Second, look at your race distance. Being competitive in sprint distance races requires less training time than Olympic distance. You can really limit daily training time requirements by focusing on the shorter distance races.

Third, in my opinion, a rest day every week with very little or no training is important. Recovery is a critical part of adaptation to get faster. If you plan your training you can drop-in your rest day to maximize family time. Granted, the conundrum is this usually means a Saturday or Sunday with no training which are the days you don't work (or work less) so you have the most free time to train. But that off day that is 100% family can be a tremendous help.

Fourth, train with a purpose. Having a training plan is always important. When you're time restricted, having a plan is REALLY important. Consequently, every workout needs to be focused on a purpose (speed development, aerobic base, recovery, etc.) You just don't have time for empty miles or wasted workouts.

Finally and probably most important, keep triathlon in perspective. Yes, fitness and health are important. But the long term fitness benefits you get by training to be a middle of the pack athlete are not much different than the health benefits derived by being on the podium. Those longer and longer training sessions will help your race fitness and make you faster. They probably won't make you much healthier. No question, the ego stroke of being on the podium is a tremendous motivator. You also only get one shot raising your son. It would be a shame to miss it

Best of luck.

Steve

Edited by lutzman 2018-07-26 8:03 AM
New Thread
General Discussion Introduce Yourself!!! » Introduction Rss Feed