Juggling 'training' with work, family, illness

I don't think that having a child necessarily means accepting illness. In my experience, I seemed to avoid the winter bugs that my colleagues all seemed to catch and that was when I was doing all my winter Munros. I thought that regular exercise in the fresh air was either increasing my immunity or it was just killing off the bugs.

I also think there's just a compromise needed when you've a family and work to juggle. It's a bummer that you can develop/maintain fitness as you could when still single or childless but, for most folk, that's just reality.

There should be a support group for "time challenged fathers" on here 😂

No idea.

I have an 11 week old baby at home and I'm barely managing to get any work done, let alone exercise. Lack of sleep has me with the mental capacity of Al Dente Spagetti and I'm just hoping I can eke out enough work to try an meet some work deadlines before my boss notices I'm achieving what feels like HeeHaw!

I don’t think that having a child necessarily means accepting illness. In my experience, I seemed to avoid the winter bugs that my colleagues all seemed to catch and that was when I was doing all my winter Munros.

Would that not have been because you were up a mountain rather than anywhere near the lurgy carrying kid?

I thought that regular exercise in the fresh air was either increasing my immunity or it was just killing off the bugs.

same here. I get up early, eat well, exercise always outside hard 3 or 4 times a week and never get sick. And I work in hospitals where there’s always sick patients and colleagues. If I feel like there’s something coming on I always feel better after exercising.

It's an interesting thought actually! I'd been focusing on overdoing the exercise, when in reality I rarely get more than 4 hours a week on the bike, but perhaps by underdoing it I'm leaving myself just as susceptible. I do like a lunchtime or early morning walk so that would be a good thing to slot in more often

Change jobs and ride to work ! I'm WFH 2 days, but I commute into the office 3 days a week, then the days at home I can take a long lunch and nip out for an hour if weather is OK. The commuting days, I ride what ever the weather. It's the only way !

I sometimes findit easier to train in the winter months - dark and often poor weather means there is not much that the family wants to do. Zwift helps too.

I went through a lot of this thinking most recently after 2 x covid and 8 weeks of other respitary illness has lowered my fitness and FTP, and settled as follows:

a)I've always balanced my training and nutritition around the family. In the week I tend to train between dinner & their bedtime or after their bedtime so that I spend that time with them.

b) Illness sucks and will likely affect results/outcomes. But you cannot help that and stressing about it does no good. Ask yourself, really how important in the world is a couple of extra places in a race or 0.2% extra FTP?

c) Unless your training is leading to a fundamental improvement (money, opportunity) for your family, it shouldn't be impacting them.

Essentially neglecting family time for a cycling hobby / a place in a little know XC race is pretty deplorable, and your cycling does not pay the bills / improvement their lives in the main enough to neglect work either. It's mostly a selfish hobby actually. I know this because I caught myself doing it. I train, I race but these days thats all less important than the time I spent playing 'American football with my daughter and a fluffy toy last night.

Ask yourself, really how important in the world is a couple of extra places in a race or 0.2% extra FTP?

Very good point and a failing in my thread title. For me 'training' is now all about consistency and just getting out and riding, realistically I'm just 'training' so I can enjoy my riding as and when it occurs and maintain fitness.

Change jobs and ride to work

I think I've actually just landed a job I like! Would be better to move house to be closer to the city after an ill-advised WFH inspired move to the countryside 😖

Without adding to it becoming a cult- since switching to Z2 as the mainstay of my training, I feel damn near invincible! Good metabolic health of the sort fostered by this type of training really does seem to make you healthier and healthier.
I’ve not lost so much as a week to illness for kicking on for 2 years.

As for the rest- I’m extremely lucky in that the wife and boy are obsessed with ponies. They spend as much as 25hrs a week either fiddling about down the yard or getting out doing events, rally’s and camps.
Because they can already compete almost as equals (the boy regularly beats 45yr old ladies on big horses), she isn’t missing out on her hobby either in the same way as I would be if we just rode bikes together.

I keep reminding him that I’ll happily go and watch if he wants (he doesn’t 🤣) or that I’m here if he needs me or wants to get the clay pigeon trap out or shoot targets with the rifles or take the bino’s and go wildlife watching or anything else he wants- but he knows and understands that pursuing our own interests isn’t a reflection on our relationship.

If I could ride like him, I’d not want to mess about on bikes either 🤣

I'd concentrate on little and often over winter. Big efforts leave me susceptible to illness, I could "set my watch" by being ill after a couple of big efforts - like having COVID now after riding Saturday, walking all day Sunday and a work out Monday. And every time it feels good in the moment so I do it anyway.

I don’t think that having a child necessarily means accepting illness.

21 month old boy here. Since he started nursery I've been more sick, more regularly than I ever have in my life. All 3 of us just go from bug to virus to infection to Covid and back again. It's been torture.

Given you sound like you've done the "zone 2" over winter, if you're definitely clear of Covid, on intense days smash out a z4+ ERG workout and/or do a series of short intense races... Working on repeatability of approx 5-15min efforts.

For instance there's:-
Three "micro Mountain Massif" back to back races that started at 1200 today, it repeats later at 1800. https://zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=3559610
Four back to back "Tiny Races" on Saturday that start at 0900, 1500 and 2100 https://zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=3564124
Five back to back "Team SZ Crit iTT" on Sunday starting at 1600 https://zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=3524099

Or for a workout, https://whatsonzwift.com/workouts/less-than-30-minutes-to-burn/emilys-short-mix , three increasingly tough hills etc.

The Zwift race options are so frequent and varied now, it can take some restraint to give yourself some z1/2 and even rest days. And these short supersprint races aren't going to keep you away from family stuff for long, you might even be able to squeeze something in at lunch. Don't go mad on supersprint overload too soon, gradually increase the number of them you do on a day and how many you do in a week.

Essentially neglecting family time for a cycling hobby / a place in a little know XC race is pretty deplorable, and your cycling does not pay the bills / improvement their lives in the main enough to neglect work either.

What have you done with @kryton57?

If you think that being exposed to your own child is compromising your health, you've got something else going on. I've got 3 kids aged 6, 8 & 10 currently and the only think I've managed to contract in the last 3 years is Covid, twice. Once that definitely came form the eldest son, but the 2nd time somewhere else.

As for diet etc, nothing to extreme, I like cake, I like beer and I don't really limit any of them as frankly I can't be arsed at the moment, I can still race XC to a reasonable mid pack level in Vets, knock on top 20 in regional CX and place well in marathons.

Training wise I WFH so get about 4 hours in during the week at lunch, sometimes 5 and the occasional weekend ride or even one after school / work and that does well enough.

It’s been a particularly bad winter for constant low grade bugs. Seen a lot of it at work and one of us has had something at every point since before Xmas.

I’m not a racer, so my point of view would be to just ride for the fun of it. Too dark/wet then don’t bother. Just not feeling it, don’t bother. I was only out twice last month, but both rides were brilliant fun. That’s what it’s all about. Fitness will naturally come back as you get out more.

My solution to the training vs family and work is
1) plan it, measure it - get a proper training plan and track yourself to it (I use TrainingPeaks),
2) make the time daily - for me it's early before work with the sacrifice of earlier bed times to ensure recovery,
3) make it easy - it all happens in the garage, Zwift, functional strength training, yoga for stretching and recovery.

As for dealing with Covid. This is out of your control. Dealing with it is a mental thing. It's tough. I'm 2 weeks in from catching it, still feeling lousy and the one week of skipping training has set me back three months on my plan and measured fitness (reduced my FTP). Absolutely gutting but it does motivate you to 'come back stronger'.

Essentially neglecting family time for a cycling hobby / a place in a little know XC race is pretty deplorable

There's an argument, of course, that the flipside of this is that it's arguably better to spend less time with a happy, fulfilled partner / parent / friend than more time with a miserable, frustrated, grumpy one. I'm not suggesting anyone should neglect their family completely to train like a dog, but equally if something's really important to you, there's usually a compromise to be reached. Particularly if the alternative is to be a miserable, grouchy bastard at which point your nearest and dearest are probably desperately hoping you'll sod off out on your bike instead of hanging around like a dark cloud.

Anyway, having spent the last two months with some grumbling, low intensity, knackering viral thing, I'm simply taking things relatively easy and enjoying just riding rather than fixating on any particular event or target. Sometimes - and at the moment everyone I know seems to be ill - you just cop something and there's not much you can do about it bar the basics of good diet, sleep and not battering yourself overmuch.

What have you done with @kryton57?

Covid, chest infections and people passing away around me gave me a new perspective.

There’s an argument, of course, that the flipside of this is that it’s arguably better to spend less time with a happy, fulfilled partner / parent / friend than more time with a miserable, frustrated, grumpy one. I’m not suggesting anyone should neglect their family completely to train like a dog, but equally if something’s really important to you, there’s usually a compromise to be reached.

I agree, my prior statement is a bit strong. Such compromise as a Recovery ride on Saturday with Jnr on his second road ride clipped in with his new Tri shoes works, we both get bike time, man to man time and I get my TSS into the right ballpark 🙂

There’s an argument, of course, that the flipside of this is that it’s arguably better to spend less time with a happy, fulfilled partner / parent / friend than more time with a miserable, frustrated, grumpy one.

This. It’s a balance but my family is pretty supportive of me getting enough time exercising, to not be too grumpy. But not so much I’m tired and grumpy. It’s a thin line.

If you ever work it out let me know. Almost 20 years in to parenthood and I've kinda given up. I get out on my bike when I can and enjoy it when I do. For fitness I just tend to go for walks. My oldest is at uni now but the youngest plays football 3 or 4 times a week so I go for a walk when she's training/warming up, I always watch her matches. I do a physical job anyway so a gentle walk is often all I can handle at the end of the day. The flipside is that we get to spend some good quality time together in the car listening to music and chatting. We have a really good relationship which given she's 14 and remembering what I was like as a teenager, I'm really grateful for. This time will soon pass so I'm making the most of it.

For me time with the kids is the best
I think you just have to accept that for a while you can't go all out biking
That said I get grumpy if I don't ride

I've had to change the way I do things, bodyweight stuff after kids are in bed and weekly nightride whilst my eldest is at scouts
Also started skateboarding of a Saturday morning between kids dance class and football, which is lots of fun

Bugger trips are planned well in advance and now my ekdest kids are old enough to get out on the bike round local trails, I can have a fun time with them, without worrying about smashing my PBs

When I was racing,a lot of my training time was my day to day commute,this also meant I was there for all the end of the day/bedtime routines ,and as they got older,sitting down to eat together. For the bigger miles at weekends,I would often set off early to place where the family would catch up. Chuck bike in the car,enjoy wherever we ended up, then all head home together. I didn't get much lurgy when I was commuting,even when they were tiny snot monsters.We also made the races a big family day/weekend away. Forget personal trainers,having a child shouting "COME ON DAD" from the trackside is all you ever need 😉 😆

I was pretty fit and managing to juggle family / riding / work up until my second was born. Then its been a horrible few years of going downhill, continuous illness, massive stress at work and home, and I've realised trying to keep my fitness at the right level was also contributing to the stress too. I was constantly getting injuries too as I pushed myself too hard when absolutley knackered, not accepting my body wasnt as fit as it used to be. I ditched cycling altogether in Nov, apart from the occassional family ride, and I have felt much better for it. Been using the time to get on with the huge list of DIY jobs I have and focus on trying to do things that will make my family happy

Yes I've got a bit fatter, I imagine my FTP has taken a battering but I'm a much nicer person to live and work with.

I'm planning on starting back at Easter, gently with the aim just to focus on smiles, not miles. No more going out in the pouring rain, freezing cold or sitting on the turbo for hours for me. Been there. May end up back there, but only if other things allow.

Maybe just give yourself a break

just to add, my wife has even started suggesting 'I need to get back on my bike' which never, ever was suggested before my break!

DT78, Upham and Kilmeston say hi. 😉

Heck, yesterday I only got as far as Durley outskirts before going up Church Lane (that heads to Alma pub) and then quickly turning off to head back to Horton Heath and Burnett's Lane... Even around there it feels so peaceful and rural compared to Southampton sururbia!

Any crossover with your Alpine thread 😉

Significant training for a single day with passes in the alps, let alone multiday with luggage......

Something will have to give, scale back your alpine ambitions a little (single base, shorter days with less mileage and ups)or scale back time w the family...

Two young kids here. Some really good advice here. My two cents… just be kind to yourself and what do you really want/how fit do you need to be? You’re already fitter than most. As long as I’m fit enough to enjoy the odd ride with friends, not die at boltby every year, then it’s just about balance. The wonderful intensity of family life reduces capacity for training, so like kryton says, just balance it out. Ps they’re totally germ factories 🙂

regret not getting put that side of town more. south downs are awesome. I'll be toast just getting there these days!