Parents keeping me down

Seriously, 10 days isn't going to kill you and heck, if you're active and skiing you'll get some sort of workout each day anyway.

Dude...

Okay, your parents are offering to take you skiing out West for 10 days. That is a very nice thing to do. I am sure you can figure out a way to get in some training while you are out there.

There is running, and there is life.

In the grand scheme of things - even in the not-so-grand scheme of things - those 10 days of winter base mean very little. A great ski trip with your family can mean a lot.

There will be a day when your parents are sick or dying, and you will look back on this and laugh about how you even questioned going on this great ski trip.

I will just add that I was a top HS runner and full-scholarship D1 runner that did very well in college running.

Go on the trip. Live your life. Running is but a small part of your experience here...

When you get home today, apologize to your parents, thank them for taking you and go have a damn good time. Hell, I bet you get up every morning at 6am for some wicked altitude runs. You'll probably come home fitter than before.

I'd much rather be skiing than training.

1. I'm sure you can run while skiing

2. If you're that against skiing your clearly not very good.

My concern:

1. 2 x 14hr trips is pretty much 2 days of no running, sitting in a car all day. On a normal day, this means a 4mi easy morning session and a 9mi afternoon run as well as core, etc...So 2 days gone of that.

2. My parents are pretty into the skiing, and seeing as their friends will also be there, they will feel even more motivated to get to the mountain by 8am and ski till 5pm. You can probably tell, there is no time to run.

A period of 10 days (in winer break) that far into my schedule is like losing about 120mi of training. I'm in a preiod of my life where running is the most important thing to me and I want to be the best that I can. I know that while I'm out skiing around some kid is running and doing core. Do I really want to sacrifice 120mi for skiing? In my opinion, it's not worth it.

I had almost forgotten how self-absorbed high school kids can be.

You are so wrong, and on so many levels.

Don't forget the obvious risk of catastrophic injury from the skiing.

Erm, you say you're skiing 8-5. Get up at 6:30, smash a 6 miler. Come back at 6pm and do another one. 90 minutes a day will keep you fit and if you're at altitude may even increase your fitness.

Compromise. Maybe plan a few stops on these 14 hour drives so you can run. For the trip, maybe they go skiing at 8am and you stay back and run, then you all go skiing in the afternoon.

You should be thankful you have the opportunity to go on such vacations with you parents. Running at times is a very selfish activity, but like many posters have said, there is more to life than running, but if you really want to do something, you will find a way to fit it in.

You mentioned skiing from 8-5 and said no time to run. Do you turn into a pumpkin at 5 or something?

I went on a week long ski trip with my dad senior year of HS. We skied all day every day and I still went out for a run every night. Between being tired and the altitude, the running sucked (I'm from sea level and we stayed in a town at 9k feet) but I still got it in because I wanted it.

I have memories from that trip that will last a lifetime. Holy shit I ate so much food that week...it was awesome.

You sound like a whiny little bitch.

Care to elaborate?

Oh my... wrote:

I had almost forgotten how self-absorbed high school kids can be.

You are so wrong, and on so many levels.

Seriously man, I guarantee you will be fine.

Are you really going to sacrifice a wonderful family vacation for 2 stinking days of running?

Go on a long run the day before your road trip. Use the travel day as rest. Or, get up at 3am before you leave and log 10 miles. sleep in the car.

On the mountain by 8am is fine. Get up at 5:30 and train.

Or, tell your parents you need to train and will meet them on the mountain at 10am every morning.

I went to Aspen with my parents my Junior year of High School. I got in some damn good training up there. I remember pretending to be Rocky.

I ran 9:08 in High School, okay? I went skiing every year. i went to the islands every year. You will find a way to train.

Stop being so selfish. Your parents love you and you are VERY lucky to have this opportunity.

The rents wrote:

Care to elaborate?

Okay, you are obviously a troll.

Never mind.

Former D1 scholarship runner here, too.

Put into a 4 or 5 mile run on the car travel days. You can use the easy days anyway. I actually think the biggest problem by far is not the abbreviated runs but the possibility of eating total junk on the road - something to avoid. So plan and eat healthy.

Run as long as you like in the mornings (and I find running in the mountains to be conducive to longer slower runs which should not hurt you at this point), and if your parents have already hit the slopes, call the resort to determine the best way to join them (i.e., a shuttle) around noon. They will survive your non-presence for a few hours.

If you need more aerobic training (although running 10-12 miles in the mountains and skiing all day is a lot), hit the cross country ski machine or rowing machine at the ski lodge for 25-30 minutes. Even in my best shape in high school, I would have been exhausted with this routine, so with any sort of planning you will be more active than you can likely handle.

It takes more discipline to work around family commitments and still train than just being in your groove around home. That kind of discipline will pay off (mentally more than anything else) with big meets which often require travel, too.

A 9mile run in the morning takes me about 1hr. I get up a 6:30 to run means I'm done at 7:30 and we go to the mountain a 8? Are you kidding me right now?

If you've ever skiied from open to close of a resort, then that's usually 9hrs. You are dead tired after that and legs are completely sore. Running afterwards? I doubt it.

I may come off as whining on this thread, but I assure you, having gone on these kinds of vacations before, there is pretty much no free time if you combine all the packing, driving to the mountain, skking all day, skiing at night, unpacking, going out with my parent's friends, etc...

It'll be hard to maintain my training is all I'm saying.

Get out of the tunnel and go on the trip. You will see that once there you will be able to run and once your back three or for days into your normal routine you won't even realize you had an "interruption".

As an aside, you are the type of person that will end up with chronic injuries because you overtrain all the time. RELAX and put running into your life. Don't make running run or ruin your life!

I think that running a 100mpw schedule AND skiing 9hrs/day WILL lead to overtraining and possible injury.

How old are you? Just curious. There gets to a point where it's a losing battle for the parents. Anyone remember the National Lampoon's vacation movies?

George Sheehan (you may be too young to remember him but he made a pile of money writing running books in the 70s and 80s) once said, "Life is a conspiracy to keep you from getting your training in."

If you're going to keep on with the sport and really get to whatever your full potential is you're going to have to learn to deal with that conspiracy and make adjustments during times when your routine is disrupted. When that sort of thing happens you go into "maintainence mode," i.e., you focus on doing what you can and minimizing damages.

There are 24 hours in a day so if you ride in a car for 14 and sleep for 10 you've got two hours left for running. Even if you only use 30 or 45 minutes of those two hours to run you'll at least be maintaining your level of fitness and most likely improving it slightly. Lydiard always said that even a 15 minute run brings benefits. Don't ever fall into this all or nothing mentality that says if I can't do all of the running I want to I won't do any of it.

Ski resorts have roads. They are very good about clearing those roads of snow and ice. They have to or they'd have no customers. You can run on those roads. There may be snowmobile trails and those are quite good for running. No, it won't be as pleasant as being on some pristine trail and it may be at an earlier or later time of day than you like. But you can do it. Some resorts also have fitness rooms. Fitness rooms often have treadmills. You may not get in that full 120 miles you mention but you can get in a reasonable chunk of it.

The mature thing to do here is to go pleasantly on the trip explaining to your folks that you'll be spending some time running while they're skiing, socialing, eating, etc.. Your parents deserve to have a holiday doing something they enjoy and lots of us would be hesitant to leave our high school aged kids alone at home for days on end. And for what it's worth to you, Shorter used to go on skiing holidays.

When you're older you'll be happy you got along with your parents and that they are able to take you on vacations. Not everyone has that man. Enjoy life, put the running on hold for a week.