How do people do this??

Wow, balancing running, biking, and swimming is hard, hence the title of this post. Trying to practice all 3 activities weekly is proving difficult, leaving me to wonder how some of the more hardcore triathletes out there make time for all 3 daily. I'm impressed, to say the least. I also feel decidedly inadequate.

If I haven't mentioned it before, I'm training for my first full marathon, in addition to jump-starting my triathlon training. I'm already registered to run the Disneyworld marathon in January 2010. I'm not even into the higher mileage weeks yet, and already running takes up a significant chunk of my time. To roughly outline what my marathon training plan dictates, I run four times a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday) and cross-train once a week, which leaves two days open for rest. I've been doing my swimming on Tuesdays, and that takes care of the cross-training day. But I feel like I need to do at least one bike ride a week, too, so I've been trying to push myself to do a ride on Thursday or Sunday. 

When you combine that with working 40 hours per week (including some occasional very late deadline nights), trying to sleep at least 8 hours a night, cooking relatively healthy meals, and having a social life...well, something's got to give.

I have come to the conclusion that before I can start full-blown triathlon training, following a strict plan created by a coach, I'm going to have to come up with a different type of plan...a "balance plan" if you will. I'm not sure exactly what it will look like, but the first item on my list is going to deal with cooking and eating. Last week, when I worked past 10 p.m. twice, I ate a sandwich for dinner on two different nights, and a can of soup on another. Not only is that not nearly enough food, it also seems pretty unhealthy. And on the two nights that I ate sandwiches, I came home to find out that my darling boyfriend had eaten Sunchips (the first night) and tortilla chips with cheese dip (the second night). And not for appetizers, either. For meals.*

So, I am going to experiment with "cook ahead and freeze" meals. We grocery shop once a week, so if I make lists of ingredients for 2 or 3 different meals, cook them on the weekend, and then freeze, label, and date them, we will have things to heat-and-eat on the nights I work late, or on nights where I'm just very tired and don't feel like cooking. 

That one change alone could save me...maybe 30 minutes to an hour on any given week day? It's worth a try!

And to all those out there who work full-time, have families, and are triathletes, let alone IRONMEN...I give you this:

(that's applause, by the way).

* Note - My darling boyfriend can, and will cook (and he's good at it, too), it's just that he gets lazy and distracted if I'm not here to remind him to eat dinner.