I fit tem where I can
Sometimes weekdays until early morning
Simetimes right after work until late night
Sometimes weekends early morning until noon
I really do not see the difference between someone who would golf 18 on Satuday morning or run for 4-6 hours
We all have different priorities and committments
I make no other activity that I personally do for just me a priority over running -
We have a 5:30pm saturday church service - works nice
I like to do almost all sports - but I do not do much of any of them unless a family activity - because running is what I am currently committed to.
My kids 10 yo and 6 yo do not have a lot of activities yet - But if I need to run from 3am - 8 am someday - that would be fine also.
Long dead ... But my stench lingers !
Lots of interesting stuff here.
I sometimes wonder what's a better route for busy working people. Training for 10ks or training for ultras. I work Mon-Fri 9am to 8 p.m., never weekends.
I wonder if I'm better off training: 6 x 5 miles on the week days and then two huge long runs on the weekends.
Of course I could be the man like Purdey and wake up at 4a.m. on weekdays.
A1, can't wait for you to find that lucky girl.
"If you have the fire, run..." -John Climacus
I'm lucky enough to have a wife that trains for marathons. Her long runs are 3 hours and I can do 30 in a little over 4, so all in all, only an hour more than she spends on a weekend. Our kids don't do weekend sports yet, but even with work/activities during the week it gets chaotic. We trade off, we don't always both do everything together with the kids. The other thing I do is run after the kids go to bed or 3-4 AM but this doesn't happen as often as I'd like because of 11+ hour work days...
I think the key is really decide if you are committed to running your goal mileage including long runs on a weekly basis. If you are, you will figure out a way to do it. Sometimes you just have to put your head down and plow on... Be careful though, once you start doing 30+ mile runs, you may find you enjoy it too much.
Thanks for all the advice everyone, kind of helps put things into perspective.
I'll just get in the runs when I can. If I can't, maybe I'll back to back, maybe I'll double. I have started to believe more in the total volume over the longest runs. Last year i PRed my marathon with my longest run at 16 miles, but my overall mileage was higher than it has ever been, with more runs in the 8-12 range during the week.
I thought of this thread on the drive to work, while I was trying to figure out how in the world I'm going to make this weekend's runs work... so figured I'd post a real world example of how I'll get in my long runs this weekend.
My wife is oncall this weekend, and unfortunately is already booked up for 8+ hours all three days. To make matters worse, this was to be one of my highest volume weekends... I was shooting for about 100 hilly (ie, slow) miles between Friday and Monday. Talk about a storm of bad timing...
So I'm thinking of something like:
Friday (16-18 miles)
- Lunch Run - 8 miles
- After work - 8-10 miles - Run up a local mountain and have dinner w/ the family
Saturday (30-35 miles)
- Green Mountain, early AM, 5am - 8am - 5 miles, 3000' of gain
- PM long run, have friend drive my car (and camp) at 10,000'. Run there from Boulder, about 25 miles and 7000' of gain, sleep in my car, drive home early Sunday. (Several of us sleep at 10,000' 3-4 nights a week to acclimate, so have one of them drive my car instead of theirs)
Sunday (25-30 miles)
- Friend offered to watch the kids for a half-day, so 5am-Noon long mountain run, 25-30 miles, 8000'+ gain.
Monday (~30 miles)
- Early AM recovery run around the house (7am - 6 miles)
- Take the kids into Boulder for the Memorial Day festivities, wife meets me there after work for dinner, etc. Run home from there via the long way. 15+ miles, flat
Weekend Total: 100-115 miles
I'll have to tweak it to fit, but the potential is still there to get big miles.
Good Bad & The Monkey
cgerber for the
I'm running somewhere tomorrow. It's going to be beautiful. I can't wait.
Poor baby
Word.
I don't have kids, but I have a pretty demanding job and luckily, an understanding husband. I do almost all my weekend runs around 4am to fit them in and on the weekend I often start by 6am. For 100 miler training, nighttime runs are good for many reasons. One weekend I had pretty much no time during the days to get in runs and it was to be a big weekend... so I did a 9 hour night run Friday night, finishing just in time to hop in a car for a road trip (fortunately I was not the driver).
~Sara It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great. ~ Jimmy Dugan
GreyBeard
I struggle so much with doing runs more than 5-6 hours. I get so bored. I like having a race (50m, 100k) once month to really keep the body used that. Can't believe you all that do 100 miles on the weekend.
Doubles have helped me this year and I really do think they've helped to just keep the legs beat down. A1's 3x/day is impressive. Never done that but may have to give it a try. New job is keeping me ridiculously busy, unfortunately.
2020
I struggle so much with doing runs more than 5-6 hours. I get so bored. I like having a race (50m, 100k) once month to really keep the body used that. Can't believe you all that do 100 miles on the weekend. Doubles have helped me this year and I really do think they've helped to just keep the legs beat down. A1's 3x/day is impressive. Never done that but may have to give it a try. New job is keeping me ridiculously busy, unfortunately.
Hey man, perspective: Having a job is a great thing, these days.
Your time block is built in, just run during the 5-6 hours of soccer,softball etc. With 3 kids and three sports this has been a saviour. Added bonuses, 1) don't have to listen to parents always harping on the coaches,umpires etc. 2) in the case of travel, lots of new routes. Also if spouse is willing, run to or from all games/practices. It may not be trail miles, but races like Stone Cat really are not technical and building up time on your legs is more important.
Problem there is that I am the coach of one of the soccer teams, and assistant coach for baseball. And with 3 kids I usually have to drive there because my wife is driving one fo the other ones to their game.