Training scheduling puzzle

Here’s a fun puzzle for you all.

My wife gave birth late December to our 3rd child. Hooray! I am very tired.

I had been on a low volume plan which I’d been able to consistently follow.

However since no.3 appeared that has gone out the window, as she will not be put down, so me taking an hour out in the evening has become very burdensome. I’m managing usually 2 hour long workouts which I pick with TrainNow.

I’ve worked out I can probably carve out time for a half-hour trainer workout during my workday, probably four times a week, and then do a longer one on the weekend.

So, in that situation, what would YOU do?

3… Chapeau. Father of 1 here - I can’t do intensity in the evening as I find it wrecks my sleep, so I get on the bike around 5am, but my daughter is now 5 and sleeps 11-12hrs a night…

I’d do what you’ve planned, I would probably use intensity to make up for volume on the 30min sessions and then a longer Z2 ride on the weekend. Do you run? I’ve found this can be a nice way to get in aerobic work and toughens you up (bones/ligaments/connective tissue). I find it quite efficient for those 30min windows.

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Father of two here and I understand the challenge.

At this stage, it’s probably just about riding and enjoying the process of being on the bike (i.e., no defined targets/outcomes). If that’s the case, would use the 30 min sessions to do some HIIT/Tabata sessions.

These are fun and challenging and providing you can accept that these are sub optimal training (for an endurance sport), probably a decent use of your time. Progressions can still be built in, so not wasted time. Alternatively, some longer VO2 max sessions could be fun (e.g., 2x8 @105 etc).

Once sleep patterns settle down, you could get back into a well structured training plan, but for the moment I would simply focus on enjoying what precious time you have.

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Thanks guys, gonna look to pick from whatever TrainNow throws at me and try and get a bit of variety between threshold/sweet spot, then long and short VO2/sprint sessions in the week for now.

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It’s not obvious, but if you go to the Specialty Plans and pick Enthusiast, there are Maintenance plans (mostly 60 minute HIIT) and Time Crunched plans with 30 minute workouts. You could pick one of those and then use alternates on the day of.

Good luck and congratulations!

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