What is your ‘life status’?

I’m astounded not only by the number of hours to train that some people have but also the post-race blogs, analysis, time on here etc.

Is everyone single with no kids?! :smile:

I’m 41, married with 5 year old twins and a full time job that I don’t really travel much for (no overseas, some UK)

How about you?

Just turned 35. Full time job and two very young kids. Wife is fully intent on adding a third to our tribe too.

Mainly get my easy hours on the bike commuting and then trying to squeeze everything else in at anti social hours where I won’t be leaving my wife on child care duties.

Thought about dropping full distance for a couple of years until the kids are older but I feel like I’m just about getting away with it

Nearly all of my Hours come from commuting and lunchtime sessions; my only session in ‘family time’ is an early Sunday morning ride… but I’m back by 9am now the Ironman is done. I’m 45, with a 9 & 5 yr old.

Age seems to be creeping in for me over the longer distances, but in Sprints I haven’t really slowed down…odd!

Live in partner, work for myself at home, no kids.

I actually trained longer hours when I was much younger and had a 2 1/2 hour train commute each day but was single and did nothing else with my life. Up at 5.45 in the pool at 6 then off to work, home just after 7, jump on the turbo or run, eat at 9, bed at 10. Spend most of Saturday cycling, most of Sunday morning running. Rinse and repeat for several months.

I’d suggest it’s commitment to other people rather than a job or a commute that gets in the way of training time.

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49 years old, 4 kids of my own, 2 step kids. Ages 20 down to 9. Work full time running a business. Partner also works full time so i do most of the cooking etc in the house.

This year have done the Boston Marathon, Swissman and UTMB. Marathon training is less time intrusive as its about speed. Swissman training was only 2 months as was UTMB.

Hours for those events were averaging 14 hours a week with peaks of 20.

How? Commuting works well. Its 10 miles to work and I just selfishly used the weekends. I also took half days in my peak weeks for training. Cheaper than flash kit!

Now its payback with new lights fitted last weekend and stuff in the garden!

I am unpopular during peak months but then the kids love having a dad who is fit. My partner prefers me trim, but does not like the time commitment. I wear a tin hat!

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I am 39, 2 kids (tweenagers). My wife didn’t work for years and only part time when she did go back but no is at uni and working part time. I work a solid 40 hour week, never more than that. No travel at all.

My wife does the school run so that frees my mornings to do what I need. Early morning swim, long runs to work. Turbo sessions and runs in the evenings.

In some ways for me its getting easier. My eldest comes home from school and goes straight to her room, not much want on her part to see me. At weekends they would rather see their friends than spend time with their parents.

I am changing jobs and back in the big smoke so that will put a bit of restriction on me, but I can either do something in the morning and start work later or get home early and train in the evenings.

When I was IM training that did mean 5-6 hour on the bike of a weekend which left my wife on childcare duties. But the deal was I do that and the following year she does a Master degree at uni.

ETA - as for posting on here, post race analysis, plan loading in TP. I like to do all that on the firms time when I am supposed to be working.

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Yeah, you’ll notice I tend to go radio-silent evenings/weekends/holidays :upside_down_face:

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Same here.

Hammy needs to create a ‘vanilla button’ in site settings for us lot :wink:

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47, 3 kids age 15, 17 and 20, 2 youngest live at home, eldest is studying (sometimes possibly??) in the UK. Wife spends 50% of time in UK with work, but is slowly spending more time in Switzerland (which results in less training)

Took up triathlon 3 years and 11 months ago - 2015 Osprey sprint was my first, my kids were already pretty independent by then. This summer more than half my weekends were taken up with events, kids very happy with this because it meant that they were dragged out on fewer family trips, and could spend more time with friends.

This year my average time per week training and competing has been 11h59m, which is 25m less than last year. in summer, 4-6 hours training is commuting by bike, 2 hours running at lunch-time, around 2.5-3 hours is a Saturday morning ride, I get home by 11am, and the rest is swimming.

Work as a head of supply chain, currently not a massive amount of travel, due to internal restructuring project

31 - 3 kids (6,3,8 months) recently changed jobs and now have a 90 minute commute (50 miles each way) and a high stress job.

I used to do a lot of lunchtime running and bike commutes, new job, not so much. It’s made it much harder! Then again, I probably average 5/6 hours training per week and don’t do long distance tri (maxed out last year with my first 70.3).

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At a first glance I read that as your kids were 6 months, 3 months and 8 months :rofl::rofl::scream:

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44, 3 kids, mortgage, basically work 9-5 (although freelance), train on average 7h per week, commute times and lunchtimes primarily. Unfortunately back of the pack.

If it weren’t for the mortgage I’d say life is good.

Sounds like a tough gig; good job you’re a fresh 31 years to cope!

49, 1 kid (17), wife doesn’t work. I do up to an hour’s training on week nights and 2/3 hours Saturdays & Sundays. Commute by bike @4 days per week but it’s only 3.5 miles each way. Don’t race much at any distance (but only Sprints/Olys if I do), just like to keep training to stay the right side of the obese/morbidly obese equation.

One of the main benefits of training, is being able to eat more cake :sweat_smile:

I hasten to add that’s not cake mid-ride! I think I’ve done that once in the last 10 years or so. I have had the odd garage flapjack/red Coke emergency stop on the long training rides though.

51 with 2 young children; 8 and 3. Only done two LD in 2012/13 so only had one child at that time. bike commuting and one day run commute accounted for most of the training with an early start to get to the pool, Long bike early doors on a Saturday, run on a Sunday.

I now have to do morning school run so that kind a scuppered the training regime. Last couple of years have done a marathon a year requiring much less time commitment and just rode the bike for fun.

Was meant to do Staffs this year and Lake Placid but got injured. Tried not to let training impact too much on family time, did lots of evening runs and spent some unsociable hours on Zwift managed to wangle 1 or 2 days WFH a week allowing a bit of lunchtime training, got injured before I figured out how to fit in some swimming.

I’m definitely with you there. I’ve never got the cafe stop thing, get out, get it done and get home.
I used to go out with a local cycling group and that was one of the main reasons I stopped, a 3 hour ride took 4+ hours.

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I’d rather stop cycling than not have a cafe stop unless it’s a short ride!

Ah yes, but you’re practically a Bachelor Jeff :wink: