My wife and I had our 3rd daughter last night. I am trying to figure out how to adjust my training. I have my Half Ironman coming up June 30th and my full at IM Louisville.
I am wrapping up the last week of the build phase and start specialty on Monday. I already dropped specialty from mid volume to low volume. I am not concerned about getting the hours in. I am normally up at 4:30am to get my run/bike in then I swim during my lunch break at work. The biggest change is going to be recovery time. I am not banking on getting my 7 - 8 hours anymore for the next month.
I am curious how i should adjust my workouts based on sleep changes. For example, if I have a 1 hour bike ride at 4:30am, but I have only slept 3 hours before I don’t want to kill my training by getting on the bike for a workout if I will be doing more harm then good.
Train when you can, don’t worry when you can’t. It’s a hobby, not a job.
…then don’t get up at 4:30, get another 3h sleep if you can. Remember, it’s not the training that makes you faster, it’s the recovery. No recovery means no faster.
For our 3rd I dropped out of long distance tri and went low vol half distance for a year. That didn’t really work out for me, so I found a way to ‘hide’ my training and went back to IM last October. You’ll probably know by now how much babies sleep and how much you need to do around the house and family. Just put the time in when you can.
This is the part I am worried about. At lot of the topics are about finding time to train, but thanks to my work schedule I don’t have that issue. I did find one discussion that said to focus on getting in the high TSS workouts versus the long runs/rides everyweek if I have to cut something. On the VERY VERY VERY VERY bight side, the first night in the hospital she slept 4 hours. We actually had to wake her up to eat.
I would totally not have done any fulls this year if I didn’t already pay the entry fees. Between the half and the full a $1,000 is a lot to eat.
Tough spot, man. Just had our second ten weeks ago, and I shifted from SSBMV down to Low Volume Build. Even that caught up with me after four weeks, and I’m only cycling. Good news is now that we’re more settled, I’m back to SSBMV again and no issues (again, only cycling).
In your spot, I’d just accept that some workouts aren’t going to happen. I’d set my goal at one workout a day every day and start there. You know how it’s going to be. I think the important thing is to recognize that performance is probably not going to be where you’re used to and just be OK with doing the best you can.
Three hours of sleep isn’t viable. And you indicated you’re not worried about the workout time, just recovery, so it seems like the answer is to cut back the training time so you have enough time each day to recover/sleep. If that means sleeping three more hours in the morning and only getting one workout in, I think that’s your best bet.
sleep is so crucial; I wouldn’t sacrifice it for the ride; you’ll need to do some other shuffling if possible, but don’t get 3h and then ride intensely. Your body will eventually crash
I figured it would be more work to create a new thread. My daughter is 1 month old and sleeps like a frigging champ. 4 hours at a time. I have noticed though that I need to take 1 full day off for recovery though. Below is my schedule for next week. I try to take either a Monday swim or a Tuesday bike off since those are right after the long weekend runs. Any have other thoughts on tweaking the schedule to get a full day off? I typically swim on my lunch breaks MWF because it doesnt work well on the weekends. My next race is HIM Steelhead is June 30th.
