I love my daughter more than life itself. But frankly…her ice skating or doing flips at the gym is not more important than me pedaling a bike. Probably less important…I’m getting old enough where consistent exercise has serious long term heath benefits.
Sports are not important. Statistically speaking, nobody makes a living at sports. It’s not worth taking seriously unless you’re doing it to be happy. Talent shouldnt come into the equation.
I’ll expand on this a bit - being happy should be a lifetime endeavor. Having a kid is not a reason to just give up on things like sports that bring you joy.
Kids should be a source of additional joy, and a way for you to share what you love with another person.
Why is talent and career possibilities coming into play?
Here are some grown adults saying their sport is more important than their kid’s because kid’s sports aren’t as important. But riding a bike is.
Sounds like OP just needs to talk to his family, discuss priorities, and use Train Now.
Just because you don’t have a coach, and you have a busy schedule, doesn’t mean you need a new hobby. Most of us don’t have a coach and many of us have busy schedules too.
Do what you can to keep yourself and your family happy. Only you really know how to balance all that.
Sports are important for kids and adults alike. Some of my greatest lessons came from sports as a kid. I can’t imagine my parents telling me I couldn’t go to a bike race or a soccer game as a kid because it was too far to drive, their sport was more important, and I wasn’t going pro anyway. It’s not all or nothing.
Youth sports are great for physical and social development. Participation in sports had been scientifically proven to increase self-image and performance in the classroom. I loved doing sports as a kid! Unfortunately many youth sports have seen a shift to “elite” teams which clubs have monetized with the promise their child will “get ahead.”
As an example, my nephew was on a travel baseball team at 8 years old. I went to one of the games and the coaches were yelling and arguing calls with the umps. Parents were rude in the stands. At one point the opposing coach told his kid to hit it to third base “because that kid can’t catch or throw.” Sure enough not long after there was a pop up to third base and the kid dropped it. The parent yelled for their team to keep running the bases as the kid sat in the dirt with his head in his glove crying. I was appalled this was the atmosphere of an 8 year old baseball game. I LOVED little league baseball as a kid… no way would I put my child in an environment like that.
I have experienced many other examples, such as club coaches telling their kids not to do high school sports & punishing them with extra running when they do. There’s a lot of good coaches and clubs out there out there but unfortunately the bad ones seem overshadow the good.
First, training: Do you race? Are you just looking for fitness? Other than workouts, what kind of riding do you like doing? 5-7 hours may not be ideal, but it’s not bad. If you like a personal connection over TR or some other DIY plan, find another coach.
Second, childcare:
I belong to a high-powered-job-mom’s group, and usually the first bit of advice is to outsource. Can you afford a part-time college student who can pick up some of the shuttling duties? You and your wife can be awesome, supportive parents without having to do All. Of. The. Things.
Another vote for either TR low volume or TrainNow. A years subscription to TrainerRoad is less than one month of coaching. I’ve used coaches twice and gotten great results. But I was dedicating 10+ hours to ride and pretty consistent. With nothing in the calendar race wise this year, in all in on TR low volume. But will sometimes take a few weeks between blocks and just ride or use TrainNow.
Don’t give up on cycling! Just ride when can (indoors or out). If you are looking to maximize performance gains, nail TR LV. Otherwise just have fun.
Sports are important for the things they provide, but they do not ‘matter.’ By that, I mean results, success, winning. It just doesnt matter. At all. Except to the person trying to win, and for very personal reasons.
What do sports offer? Exercise, potentially a sense of belonging, a way to make and spend time with friends, an outlet for competitiveness. None of this changes based on age. Sports are something to do if it makes you happy.
People that put pressure on kids to perform in sports, like you mentioned at the baseball games…it just frankly disgusts me as well.
Sorry to hear, that sucks. Trying to put myself in both of your shoes, I can see both sides, and perhaps the right conclusion is that the best path forward is not to get a coach. Her arguments sound very reasonable and it is honorable that she forgoes money that she doesn’t consider well-spent.
On the other hand, it seems you don’t know how to enjoy your hobby. I think your coach’s advice to focus on having fun on the bike goes in the right direction. We only have two kids and they are fairly young (wish I had 1–2 more …), but the constant game of schedule tetris is hard. “Can you take the youngest to his vaccination appointment?” “Nope, I’m already taking our oldest to a dentist appointment at the same time …” Here is what has helped me a little:
Be very clear about your priorities. For me that is 1. family, 2. job and 3. cycling, in that order.
Be clear about why you want to train or spend time on the bike. For me structured training is therapeutic, it is one of the few times of the day I have time for myself and learning to listen to myself has done wonders. These need not be your reasons, just try to figure out why you want to train as opposed to just ride.
If you constantly have to reschedule your workouts, you are doing too much, there is not enough slack in your calendar. Reduce the number of workouts, length of workouts or both. E. g. I had to rejig my workout schedule after our kids changed daycare. I had to shorten my Wednesday workouts from 90 minutes to 45–60 minutes.
Depending on how much time you have per week, I’d concur with the others and suggest either TrainNow or a low-volume plan.
Try to combine things. When I can I do my weekend endurance rides with my two kids in tow. My wife can then go to the gym, to an acapella rehearsal or just chill at home. My kids get some fresh air and I get my fix in.
While you are right that endurance sports are selfish to a degree, if you keep a balance, you are also teaching your kids good habits: kids will tend to emulate their parents and showing the importance of physical exercise is a good thing. Ditto for doing hard things.
My father had a lot of kids.
On my 17th birthday I bought a crappy bicycle. I was trying to learn to ride, hitting everything. And spending all my free time working on it. Coming home after dark, in mud, bruised, oily hands…
He noticed the bike after 4 months. He realised it belongs to me after another 2 months.
Enough said.
You are going to have to explain this one. It just makes no sense to me. A coach has told you the hard truth; that they don’t think it is worth your while paying them to coach you with such an erratic schedule, frequent illness, and other priorities that means coached cycle training, at this stage in your life, plays a distant second fiddle.
So why don’t you just go cycling when you are not sick and you can fit it in? If I had the stresses you describe and this mad erratic schedule of driving kids everywhere; then I’d just see the cycling as some down time to restore some balance. That doesn’t warrant structured training, or a coach; if I had woods near by I’d just grab a mtn bike and go ride some trails for a while to clear the head and slow things down a bit.
Giving up on something you enjoy (you do enjoy it don’t you?) because a coach has said you’re not right for each other, given your circumstances; well it seems like throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Maybe I’m reading this wrong. It seems you only want to cycle; if you can be competitive? To me, this just seems wrong. First comes your love of the hobby, secondly you may or may not be able to become competitive.
Have a long hard think about what it is you love about cycling.
I just can’t come to any rational conclusion where I find any fault in the coach’s words here.
The math just doesn’t make sense to me.
The OP literally says that he was sidelined with all sorts of illnesses 6 out of the last 12 weeks (… illnesses that have sidelined me for over half of this quarter") and that personal matters (sort as away games, life challenges, etc) ate into the schedule even BEYOND that (… “had to skip days and sometimes do two-a-days to work things in”). So, what are we looking at here? His coach lays out a plan for the quarter and for almost 2/3 of it the athlete wasn’t able to adequately follow it and thus it had to be adjusted and re-re adjusted for the vast majority of the quarter? I think this just sounds like this isn’t tenable long term and she was doing the moral thing on her part.
Also, seems like she isn’t saying that that you shouldn’t chase performance. Seems like she was alluding to the fact that maybe she is seeing that you don’t seem to get any enjoyment out of training or being on the bike and is worried that also isn’t long term sustainable? For me following a plan can’t just be a check the box sort of thing, right next to “take the kids to practice”, it has to be something I look forward to and be excited about if it’s to be sustainable.
Seems like a TR plan with the flexibility of TrainNow, as many have suggested, is tailor suited to your current needs.
Welcome to parenthood, it comes with personal sacrifices, well in my opinion at least it does if one wants to be a good parent. Whoever the coach was, that’s great of them. Structured training for cycling requires time and consistency. You are short on both. When my kids were young and we were going between games, tournaments, school events, and coaching for a few years, well I was thrilled if I could get in three hours a week of running and that was often either at 5am or late at night. But, now my kids are 19/21 and I’m 50, I can hit the gym 3-4 times a week for an hour for a weight workout and I rode 4-6 hours a week on the trainer this winter and I’ll hit ~10-12 hours a week once I can ride outside again in April. Most of my friends and people I know who have kids who put in serious time on the bike are 45+ and their kids are older. Cycling is great, but it can be time consuming. There are only so many hours in the day and week and it sounds like rightly you are putting your kids first. That said, like others have said, get a good trainer if you don’t already have one and subscription to TR and use the TrainNow feature and watch your progression levels from there. The ability to hop on the trainer and a treadmill (if you run) in your house makes things incredibly time efficient versus going outside, especially if it’s early AM and dark, etc.
This is not the first thread on a similar topic and I always find it interesting as I took cycling up as an activity that is less demanding of time than other things I have done in the past (sailing, rock climbing amongst others…). The main reason being that cycling doesnt involve any travel, if I get 3 hours on a Sunday morning thats 3 hours riding, not 1 hour of something and an hour travelling either side.
Seeing how quickly people slip if they give up on an active lifestyle when they have children gives me the shivers. I am 44 and have two boys (4 and 6) which I love but I also want to be able to go mountain biking, skiing etc with them when they are teenagers and I am in my 50s or 60s. At the moment I have a busy job, family time is priority and I run the children around to multiple clubs each week, but still fit in 8-10 hours a week cycling, its not always easy but achievable with discipline - just get on with it rather than watching TV / scrolling on you phone thinking about it!
I work my training and cycling around my family. Myself and my wife have a working agreement that one of Saturday or Sunday I get out for a spin. Some weekends that doesn’t work, but most it does - the girls sport is the priority to be honest. It has got easier as they’ve got older, as they’ve trimmed down their sports (of their own choice/ clashes for them forcing it). A events we do have on the calendar, but there’s stuff my wife does to that is likewise.
In terms of training, I transitioned to morning workouts. Before Covid on portable hybrid rollers in work. During covid, kept that going but was 100% remote. Both at MV. Now with hybrid working, I do LV 3 weekdays (2 back to back days), and then hopefully a weekend social spin. One of the days in the office, I either bike commute (both ways) or run commute (just one day). If I have to go in more days, I generally bike commute and suck up missing a workout.
Fitting in around family (and to a lesser extent work) is why I originally came to TrainerRoad. With all the enhancements since (AT/ AI FTP), it’s even easier. Dealing with a coach would be extra cognitive load for me, as opposed just moving stuff around on the calendar.
If you only have 5-7 hours a week to ride you should not waste it doing interval training or locked at zone 2, especially inside on a trainer. Get outside and ride for fun with a group or on your own.
Wouldn’t that depend on when those 5-7 hours are available? N=1 I’ve an hour to 90 minutes in the mornings, most mornings. I actually feel more mental benefit from a workout than the extra faffing about going outside. I can prep most for inside the night before.
Maybe let’s rephrase. At your stage in life, cycling can be more about enjoyment and less about structured training for performance. You should not feel bad about shifting to this mindset. You can certainly have your preferences, but it may just not be practical to have structured training right now with the commitments you have. You could obviously think of ways to lessen those commitments. Do you have to drive your kids out of state, can you carpool with other parents, etc.
I can tell that we’re in similar situations. I have been basically sacrificing my sleep for the past 5-6 years to get “me time” after everyone is asleep because otherwise, daytime is always too erratic to get things done.
I would not recommend going down this path lol. Feels good in the moment but sleep deprivation and its long term effects are real.
I had hired a coach to guide me in weight lifting and he catered to “dads”. For some reason, with 2 kids in school, i managed to get 3 months of coaching without much interruption and then we were “done” with our agreement. Right after that, basically, hell broke loose. Messed up my back, caught covid, got a bad cold, kids got sick and then got lice!?; basically the 12 plagues of parenthood LOL
It’s not easy to fit in our training schedules with kids and their activities, and i’m doing triathlon too so there’s “going to the pool” that’s involved too, that takes up considerable time.
Unless you can find a blank spot in your day (early mornings, late evenings) that also enables you to sleep enough, schedules will get in your away. I would say, don’t give up cycling, try to see how “compliant” you can be to a schedule and go with it. Even if you have to show up for a shorter workout (30-45 minutes) try to stick with it
You just eliminated low and mid volume TR plans. Not recommending the poster should follow those plans due to erratic schedule but I find it interesting that many view 5-7 hours of training as not worthy of structured training
