48 Weeks To Iron Hubby: Man on the Road

The two biggest obstacles to training for an Ironman for most people are work, and parenthood. While our days of parenting infants and toddlers are long behind us, parenting teens may just require more work (or is that just more driving them around?), and hubby has the distinct disadvantage of also traveling for his job, usually one week out of every two. Except this month it's been 3 weeks out of 4.

So how do you fit it all in when you have a family, work, and travel to account for?

Fitting in workouts when you're on the road so much makes for a challenging training schedule. Here's what we've figured out for Wayne's workout schedule to maximize his use of time when he's away from home and when he's back in town:

RUNNING: This is the easiest activity to achieve anywhere, so running stays a constant in Wayne's training plan. His longer runs will occur on weekends, since he's almost always home for those. But on the road, he can usually fit in 2 - 3 more runs a week, even during traveling weeks. Most business hotels now have a treadmill or two at a minimum, and he can use these when traveling in the wintertime. Boring, but necessary!

BIKING: Wayne's training plan will alternate between light bike weeks (Friday and Sunday rides only) when he's traveling, and heavier bike weeks (Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday) when he's home. We're planning on a couple of strategically placed "big bike weeks" where we pump up the bike volume in the spring and summer. Right now he's concentrating on getting as much time in the aerobars as possible, to build up his muscles before we start hitting the longer rides in the spring.

SWIMMING: When he's in town, Wayne's hitting the pool with the Masters, and steadily improving his swim times. When he's out of town, well most hotel pools leave a lot to be desired, so that's hit and miss. Still, swimming is the shortest part of an Ironman, and one that Wayne should be able to make a decent time in, even at his current skill level.

In short, training for triathlons requires a commitment, whether you're in town, out of town, have kids to get places, or whatever your circumstances. While Wayne is busy jetting to some other city and running on a hotel treadmill, I have dropped the kids off at Kung Fu class and play rehearsal respectively, and with the dogs in tow I'm fitting in my 3 mile run, sometimes in the pouring rain. That's what commitment and training is all about - getting it done, no matter where you are and how you have to fit it in. A lot of people are surprised that Wayne signed up for the Ironman, given his work schedule, but like so many Ironmen before him, he's made the commitment to get the workouts done.

My Triumph Over the Worst Hotel Pool Ever

There are a lot of bad hotel pools out there. The competition is fierce, but folks I think we've found a winner in the San Jose Hilton at the Convention Center. Measuring in at just over 3 feet deep its entire length, with a width smaller than my armspan, and a length of about eight or so yards. Special features include a knee-busting concrete shelf that runs half of the length of the pool to teach anyone foolish enough to attempt a breaststroke or two a lesson. To enhance your swimming pleasure, the wall to the right blocks most of the sun through most of the day, so you can freeze in the shade instead of being refreshed.

Mackenzie and I are taking this week to toodle around central California, and included a stop-over in San Jose where we took in the Museum of Technology. We got to stay a night with hubby who was in town for business, hence the Convention Center hotel.

Most people, faced with the ridiculousness of this pool might've thrown up their hands in despair and given up, but not I. Since this is the one upper body exercise I can do with my arm, I'm loathe to give up so easily. I managed to eek out 1000 yards in this disgrace of a swimming pool, counting three lengths as one 25 yard length of a real pool. For those of you who are counting, that means I swam 120 lengths of this silly little body of water just to get my 1000 in. It's crazy-making, I tell you.

My point however, if I had one, is that we can let circumstances get us down, or we can soldier on. The people who are successful at maintaining fitness are the ones who get their workouts in regardless. They are the businessmen I saw in the tiny fitness center lifting weights, and the folks who take the morning walk regardless of the weather or the setting of an alarm. And yes, the ones who swim 120 lengths of an eight yard pool.

Fitting It In, Hotel Pool Style

We just got back from the Reno Air Races, a fantastic experience (can you beat sitting out at the pylons while planes like Corsairs, twin-engined Hellcats, and P-51 Mustangs zoom just over your head at near 500 mph???)! While in Reno, we went running a couple of times in the very early morning before heading out to the races. The air was quite chilly and the altitude was definitely a factor (almost a mile high, wheeze, wheeze), and the strip of casinos isn't a running route I would normally pick. Without my bike, I tried to fit in my workouts as best as I could. Of course I didn't want to go five days without swimming, so you know what that means.....

The Hotel Pool (cue dramatic music).

You've probably been there before: traveling for business or with your family, wanting to squeeze in a swim workout, faced with The Hotel Pool. Maybe it's kidney shaped, or round, maybe it's only three feet deep, maybe it has a staircase that spans one end, preventing turns. It's always a challenge. This one was at least rectangular in shape (that's a bonus), and the staircase didn't reach ALL the way across, leaving me a narrow strip of wall on which to turn (I'll count that in the "plus" category too), plus it was saltwater (niiiiiiice). But it took me six, count them six strokes to get from one end to the other. This, as you might imagine, made for some very vexing lap swimming.

My motto however is Just Get the Workout In, so laps I did, probably hundreds in all (I didn't count, that would've been too depressing) and after awhile I just found my rhythm, got in the groove, and got the swim done. So instead of looking as bad as it might've with the vacation thrown into the mix, my first week of taper looked rather reasonable. I bookended the time I was gone with bike rides, so I got at least two into the week, three relatively short runs, and three forty-five minute sessions in the 12 yard hotel pool left me with a decent workout schedule for the week. That and all the airplanes I could ever hope to watch!