Training with small kids...does it get better?

Hopefully you and your wife can work as a team. She is on kid duty in the morning so you can get your run in, and you put the kids to bed at night so she can relax for example. Running has to be your highest priority besides your obviously family, relationship, and work responsibilities if it’s going to happen though. Lots of time for other hobbies after you turn 40-45.

Yeah same here, I sometimes run at lunch - though not a fan as find the pressure of worrying if I'll be late back a bit annoying. For me night time is best, after they are in bed. No pressure to be back , roads a quiet and body isn't too stiff like it is in the morning.

Over40 wrote:

Yeah same here, I sometimes run at lunch - though not a fan as find the pressure of worrying if I'll be late back a bit annoying. For me night time is best, after they are in bed. No pressure to be back , roads a quiet and body isn't too stiff like it is in the morning.

Yeah but doing that means you get zero quality time with your wife all day, which will cause it's own issues. Theres no real foolproof solution once kids and family life takes over , you just have to squeeze in suboptimal training whenever you can while accepting that your performance will be compromised

Yes, it does get easier, kind of. I only have 2 kids, 10 and 13. Kids are much more self sufficient right around the 10 year old age. I can leave them home alone if my daughter, 13, is there to supervise. If it’s just my son, I feel guilty leaving him home alone although he is totally fine staying home and playing Fortnite.

The other piece is that the kids want more alone time at these ages. We still watch movies at night on the weekends, but they mostly want to hang out with their friend in person or online.

The flip side for me is that work only gets more difficult as you get older. Long days, projects, work dinners, etc are the norm when you move up at a company. Also, the kids sports are starting to get pretty intense. Weekend soccer tournaments out of town. Practice or game 4 days per week. Luckily my wife stays home with the kids, so she handles practice duty. I do enjoy the games.

However, with COVID I’m running better than I have since 2014. Only commute to work twice per week, no more client dinners, and working from home I can actually sneak in an easy 5 miler at lunch time if I have to.

If getting a run in is so important you need to be creative. Give up TV, and cut out social media. Wake up early.

If running is a key thing that makes you happy your wife should acknowledge this fact.

The question should not be if you go for a run but when.

Earn brownie points. Take all three kids out to play while your wife has some "me-time" and then go out for a run later in the day while the youngest is taking a nap.

tired parent runner wrote:

I’m 39. My kids are 3, 5 and 8. Right now, I’m fairly exhausted just by general life and I feel like my training isn’t awesome.

Older friends—Do things “settle down” a bit when the kids are a little older like late elementary or middle school age? Obviously I will be older then and will have to deal with age-related training issues as well. My younger two are still preschool (one is pre K). They just have so much energy and want a lot of attention on weekends. My oldest is a little more independent and much less “work”.

Here my personal experience. When they are young you need to borrow time from something else and forget the idea to race competitively. From when they are 8/10 they can start running with you. Don't force it on them. My son enjoyed it from the get-go. He is now 15 and runs middle distance fairly well for his age. My daughter is 12 and had none of it for quite some time (liked fencing, soccer etc) until one day (at home during lockdown) decided to join for a run and now she is totally into it. She moves very well in space, i think she can go places if she decides to keep doing it. Piece of advice for you - if you want to keep achieving something meaningful from your running, do consider to reduce mileage and race the short stuff (under 5k). Running long distance when you get over 40 is pointless as you are losing aerobic capacity every year. People seem unable to understand this. You might even be able to train with your kids as they grow. Btw i am a coach.

I'm 36 with a 7, 5, and 3 year old.

Just hit a 2:4~ thon and training to break 16 in the 5k. I have a full time job I absolutely love and have been doing for 14 years. Marriage is good and am growing spiritually.

Prioritize and invite them to participate.

I run at 5 or 5:30 every morning. Get about 30 minutes to myself to do my devotions after the run. Ready for the craziness of the day by 7am. Out the door to work by 8:30.

Kids do ride-runs with me once or twice a week on my easy days. They can go 5-7 miles at 7:00-7:30 pace. I'm getting 60-80 miles a week easily.

Priorities in order:

God

Family

Fitness

Work

Ironically, if you do all that in the right order, all the others benefit. I'm happier and healthier for both family and work when it is all in balance well.

Have 3 kids. Work is a fairly demanding job. Have managed 7-8 miles a day and 2 workouts a week for 6 years straight. Feel like I could reasonably do another 4-5 miles a day just by running to pickup kids, doing errands, watching less TV, etc.

Tips:

-Get a treadmill and run at 5 or 5:30am. You can very easily get in 6-10 miles before they wake up most days.

-Trade off with your partner on weekends. You each get two hours alone with the kids/yourself.

-Utilize your lunch break. People burn unbelievable amounts of time at work just socializing and being inefficient. Carving out an hour is easy. Heck, run on your treadmill/outside while listening to work calls where you’re not an active participant. We all have those.

Rarely so people truly lack the time to do things. It’s a matter of prioritizing.

I have a three year old and two teenagers. You just do your best. You will miss runs and run less probably overall but do your best and you will see results eventually. Once they can watch themselves it gets easier and can drive lol

citius5000 wrote:

I have a three year old and two teenagers. You just do your best. You will miss runs and run less probably overall but do your best and you will see results eventually. Once they can watch themselves it gets easier and can drive lol

Two teenagers and a 3 year old? God bless you for not being scared off of having the 3rd.

whonamestheirkidgerman? (new device) wrote:

I'm 36 with a 7, 5, and 3 year old.

Just hit a 2:4~ thon and training to break 16 in the 5k. I have a full time job I absolutely love and have been doing for 14 years. Marriage is good and am growing spiritually.

Prioritize and invite them to participate.

I run at 5 or 5:30 every morning. Get about 30 minutes to myself to do my devotions after the run. Ready for the craziness of the day by 7am. Out the door to work by 8:30.

Kids do ride-runs with me once or twice a week on my easy days. They can go 5-7 miles at 7:00-7:30 pace. I'm getting 60-80 miles a week easily.

Priorities in order:

God

Family

Fitness

Work

Ironically, if you do all that in the right order, all the others benefit. I'm happier and healthier for both family and work when it is all in balance well.

this. THIS is what's it's all about.

Lol, because moms know these things already!

3 kids you are outnumbered. never have more then you and your wife or you are overpopulating the world.

second you started late as I did, enjoy and try to run when you can, you don't have to be a world beater ever again, if you are not by now you won't ever be and you kids won't care either way.

lastly when you kids get older you will have time to yourself to run, but you will miss the kids wanting to spend time with YOU! Enjoy the kids now cause they won't want to be around you later and that is no knock on you, just life.

My kids are 14 and 12 and Damn I miss the ages that your kids are at, Good luck

tired parent runner wrote:

I’m 39. My kids are 3, 5 and 8. Right now, I’m fairly exhausted just by general life and I feel like my training isn’t awesome.

Older friends—Do things “settle down” a bit when the kids are a little older like late elementary or middle school age? Obviously I will be older then and will have to deal with age-related training issues as well. My younger two are still preschool (one is pre K). They just have so much energy and want a lot of attention on weekends. My oldest is a little more independent and much less “work”.

Yes, it gets better and things settle down. It gets a lot better when your youngest gets into Kindergarten, then much, much better when you don't have any in elementary school.

My training wasn't awesome at your age and kids ages, either. It was lowest on the priority list and I struggled to make progress, often going backwards, just trying to hold on. But I'm 47 now, my kids can get their own food, manage their own bodily fluids and have friends other than Mom and Dad.

Because of that, I've run more this year than ever in my life, I'm setting lifetime PRs and consistently competitive, sometimes winning, in the Masters division in local races. Soon, I hope to take a shot at qualifying for Boston and actually being competitive in the Open division in smaller races. While that might not mean anything to anyone else, it means something to me, and it's been a lot more fun than running to Target for pull ups and microwaving chicken nuggets for kids 100 times per week.

Things will get better.

PS-I agree with focusing on your kids and family right now, running later. You'll always be able to try to prove you're Superman to some road, but you won't ever get to relive the days when you are Superman to your kids.

Ipads.

5 and 3 year old. On weekends when I want to go out for an hour or two and then spouse goes out after, when im watching them ipads. And I nap after my breakfast.

I ask them to wake me up if they die.

Only once I woke up and nobody was in the house. I was a bit freaked out but they were playing down the street in a park. Works for me.

I run at 6am and my wife brings the 3yo kid to day care. I pick her up at lunchtime and put her to bed. I only work until about 3pm (from home, self employed) and the rest is family time. My wife’s very supportive, yet works a few hours in the am as well. I bring in all the money tho. Due to corona we can’t see other people anyways and I’m in bed somewhere between 8 and 9pm. I’ve been logging 100mi weeks in singles and it’s been pretty easy on all of us.

I guess my main trick is sleeping early, getting up early and working way less than most.

whonamestheirkidgerman? (new device) wrote:

I'm 36 with a 7, 5, and 3 year old.

Just hit a 2:4~ thon and training to break 16 in the 5k. I have a full time job I absolutely love and have been doing for 14 years. Marriage is good and am growing spiritually.

Prioritize and invite them to participate.

I run at 5 or 5:30 every morning. Get about 30 minutes to myself to do my devotions after the run. Ready for the craziness of the day by 7am. Out the door to work by 8:30.

Kids do ride-runs with me once or twice a week on my easy days. They can go 5-7 miles at 7:00-7:30 pace. I'm getting 60-80 miles a week easily.

Priorities in order:

God

Family

Fitness

Work

Ironically, if you do all that in the right order, all the others benefit. I'm happier and healthier for both family and work when it is all in balance well.

I'd say I want to be like you when I grow up, but I'm older with fewer/younger kids. Good stuff up here.

I get out of bed at 4am to ensure I can run before the family gets up. I'm home and showered by 6:30. When I want to run doubles I take my little guy in the jogger in the afternoon. Of course, I'm a teacher so I work about 6 hours a day now (with no commute) but I'm on dad duty from the end of the schoolday until bedtime while my wife works.

And yes, you can PR with kids. I ran a 5k PR this year.

Can confirm: you can get faster and have kids. You HAVE to run before family is up though. Women are much better at this than men, which is why you see more women with full-time job, kids, etc. at OTM.