Every Sunday night I prioritize & schedule my weekly training then print out the weeks calendar to post on my fridge.
After working inside behind a sedative desk job M-F and being the primary caregiver M-F night for my kids after work while my wife works I need Saturday morning to get outside. This is my allocated 5 hrs of me time to achieve balance. I would be a caged animal if I didn’t allocate time to check out off the grid from life’s responsibilities for this mental and physical health break. If for some reason the weekend gets booked, I will use a personal day off work to still achieve this & stay consistent in this basic cycle between working hard and checking out. I believe this health break investment allows me to keep a high pace during work week. How I spend this allocated time to get the most return on my training investment is to cycle. Visalia is close to some of the best climbs in California so I’ll hit Yokohl, Drum Valley, Mt House, Sequoia National Park to name a few. 50% of triathlon is cycling so half of my ability to meet my triathlon goals comes from consistently hitting this 1 key workout.
My second highest priority investment is not even a workout but rather everything I don’t do in order to optimize #1 above. You would not believe how many decisions I make in order to not impact that sacred Saturday morning ride. Not going out drinking Friday night, not buying an expensive car so I can buy an expensive bike, not using my babysitter Friday night so I can allocate same babysitter funds Saturday morning, not letting my gear go unprepared but having laundry done and bike mechanics dialed prior to Saturday morning, not subjecting my body to a mediocre workout to tire out the legs on Friday but doing active recovery so my legs are fresh, etc. You can see there is a lot of thought that goes into Friday to optimize Saturday and saying no to distractions to be able to achieve focus on my #1 priority training time investment.
My third priority is to follow an exact marathon training plan for 3 key days a week. Runnersworld smartcoach lays out a good plan with the 3 basic workouts the long run, speekwork and pacework/hills/brick. The plan also gives you 3 additional easy days so you can run an every other day hard/easy cycle. The good thing about running is its extremely flexible on your schedule if you become a morning person. You don’t have to use sacred weekends to do a long run, setting the Wednesday morning alarm for 4 am and putting on a headlamp will do just fine. I like to complete one run as a brick immediatley following my Sat ride and the other two runs will be setting my alarm early during the week. To get a quality workout, I personally really need to get those 3 key runs outside and for the easy runs, going to the gyms treadmill will do.
My fourth priority is nutrition. I spend every Sunday night doing my grocery shopping for the week. I have a grocery list that I always use and continuously improve every time I read an article or do additional research. Being that my wife works until 8, I have a home made meal ready for her every night but also benefit from this myself as real clean fresh food is key to athletic performance.
My fifth priority is going to the gym itself M-F after work. Lifestyles is great and has child care, kids club and swim lessons so my kids enjoy it to while I workout. I have totally changed my workout philosophy in the gym. First, on Monday and Friday I do active recovery going into and coming out of the weekend. Second, I swim sometimes all 5 days but at least 3 days a week. For swimming, the more often I feel the water and spend 30 min to 1 hr duration in the pool the better swimming I am simply by being familiar with flow. There is a huge opportunity for me to improve technique so I am studying and doing swim drills to improve. After recovery and swimming, my gym time gets allocated for make up runs, easy runs, cycling and some strength & functional training.
My 6th priority is the home cycle-ops. I can put a lot of time in on trainer at home while the kids are sleeping, parking it out front while the kids play, jumping on it at night after the kids go to bed while I view DVR’s TV and on Tuesday mornings taking it to my 5:15 am cycling group workout. There is a great article on Andy Potts and how he uses spinnervals to put in the loin share of his training on the bike indoors. I put this last on my priorities not because it gets skipped but because I have so much flexibility to fit it in whenever which happens to be often since its so convenient.
For additional reference to help plan your week, ref: http://www.active.com/triathlon/Articles/Weekly-Goals-Planning-to-Help-Balance-Your-Act.htm
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