Who's consistently run 100 mpw with a fulltime job?

This....if you 100 + FT + marriage + kids - then you're neglecting your family and work. Really sad to hear that some of the folks here actually double. So, you leave your family in the AM to run - leave them during the day to work - and then leave them again at night to run. Sad.

jobs are easy wrote:

TimeManagement wrote:

Curious to hear some anecdotes about how people have managed to train 100 mpw with a fulltime job, family, cooking, social life, etc.

100mpw with full time job: Easy

100mpw with full time job and happy marriage: Difficult

100mpw with full time job and happy marriage and kids: Very Difficult

Your subject is too short. You bring up the other stuff in your first paragraph, but those are the key challenges.

HRE wrote:

Are you sure that's in Dutch and not Flemish? It's a Belgian website and the guy is in Brussels.

It's pretty much the same, Belgians just call it a different language to feel unique

Full time job, I hit about 150 mpw. No kids!

HardLoper wrote:

HRE wrote:

Are you sure that's in Dutch and not Flemish? It's a Belgian website and the guy is in Brussels.

It's pretty much the same, Belgians just call it a different language to feel unique

I did not know that. Thanks.

chickenlegsjg wrote:

This....if you 100 + FT + marriage + kids - then you're neglecting your family and work. Really sad to hear that some of the folks here actually double. So, you leave your family in the AM to run - leave them during the day to work - and then leave them again at night to run. Sad.

jobs are easy wrote:

100mpw with full time job: Easy

100mpw with full time job and happy marriage: Difficult

100mpw with full time job and happy marriage and kids: Very Difficult

Your subject is too short. You bring up the other stuff in your first paragraph, but those are the key challenges.

People like you guys are so lame. You can run 100 mile weeks in less than an hour and three quarters a day. Kids are usually busy with TV, video games, homework, and so on. How many people get home from work at six and spend the whole evening with their families with undivided attention the whole time? And if it's really that big a deal, get a treadmill and run for ;part of the time you're hanging out with the family.

Fleming did that kind of training at 140mpw and ran 2.12. We all did a little less and it took 4 yrs of college and 3 more years to withstand 110mpw at that pace. I had little ability in HS never ran faster than4.50 for the mile. Reaching this level of training I was able to run 24.30 for 5 miles,a little under 30 min for 10k,1.04 for 20k and 2.20 range in the marathon. Nothing great but would have never even done that without training with people like Fleming and Best. This is what we did maybe it was too hard but it was fun and a glorius era. In 1983 there were 389 Americans that ran a sub 2.30 marathon that sure does not happen today.

I think you are right, at least this is my experience. I need to add, that if you want your marriage relationship and relationships with your children to grow, and you actually WANT to spend quality time with them, this becomes even more difficult. In other words, "being" married and "having" children isn't the issue...

No offense, but do you ever feel the desire to lighten the load on your spouse's shoulders by cleaning up, doing dishes, filling up the car, cooking, etc...? How about something (think of something relevant for your child, e.g. playing, or helping with homework, or just a talk) to do with your children?

If you are at work 8-9 hours a day, plus add 1 3/4 hours, that is 9 3/4 - 10 3/4 hours being away; with the last 1 3/4 hours of being away being your own choice..

What I still don't get, but I am hoping you can explain to me, is unless it is a job (money making activity to support a family), how is your hobby higher priority than helping the family?

I'm a nice guy so please don't attack me ;-)

You can do all those things and still run for an hour and a half or so on weekdays and more on weekends. I don't know how else to explain it. Run on your lunch hour, run again after work from work during the rush hour then drive home in less time than it would take if you went straight home from work, or do the reverse in the morning, i.e., leave for work well before the rush hour and run once you get there. Run back and forth from work. You can be home by 6:30-7:00 unless you've got an awfully long commute. Or do your second run after your kids have gone to bed or while they're watching TV and are ignoring you.

None of this means that your family is not your priority and sure, there are individual situations where someone really may not have a couple hours of free time most days. But there's always been a lot of whining from people who feel bothered that other runners are more committed to the sport than they are, run a lot more than they do, and decide the best way to deal with that is to carry on about what dedicated workers and family men they are and how the serious runners are worse people because of their commitment to running. If you don't want to run for an hour and a half a day most of the time then don't. It's fine. Just cut the sanctimonious crap about how much better you are then people who run that much are.

I have only hit the 100 mpw mark once, but hit 90 a couple of times and 80s a whole lot. This false dichotomy of "attend to your family" or "run high volumes" is just that - false. It is possible to do both.

I have the good fortune of having a job with a fair degree of flexibility, so that makes it a lot easier for me to manage to do this. I also have a very supportive wife, which is key. On the flip side, my wife also runs, and she runs in the morning, so that forces me into being more creative in getting in my runs.

But as a general matter, I am able to get in 80-85 mile weeks for a good month at a time while still attending to my family responsibilities. I do the dishes most nights, I cook dinner on the weekends, I get my kids up and ready for school while my wife is running, I go to their softball games, we go for walks, etc.

Don't get me wrong, it stretches me thin and I do miss dinner some nights as I am working out with my group, but I would miss dinner most of those nights even if I were only running 50 miles per week.

As to why? Because it brings me utility, as that term is used in economics. That utility comes from being fit, feeling accomplished (both from simply working out and from setting long term goals and achieving them), from the stress reduction that comes with exercise, from the camaraderie and social interaction that comes from running with friends, etc.

The end result is not that I cut out my family, but that my social interactions outside of my family are more limited and are almost exclusively running-centric. No more guys' nights out, no more beers after work, no more catching up with the guys to see the game, etc. Instead, it is meeting friends to run, going to a race, or, on some weekends, having family friends at our home for dinner.

No, I hear you, and understand your points. I don't like whining either and don't think that someone who is more committed to running (or another hobby, like wood carving or making furniture) is necessarily a worse family man/woman. I'm just slow when it comes to understanding and believing how the nearly impossible can be done. I heard on this forum so many times that "When it looks too good to be true, it probably is", so I started to believe it.

My issue is that, most of the time, these miraculous stories of full time work + 100MPW + 4 kids + no sleep + "being married" ..., don't exactly pass the sniff test for quality execution. If it is really a full time job (working at a running store 35 hours over 7 days is not "full time") requiring effort and focus, that must make one tired, plus it costs you "time". If you are working on relationships, that takes time and effort, so you have even less time and energy. E.g., if you have 4 kids, it doesn't seem possible to have quality time helping them grow, unless you have a nanny or some other type of help. Then if you don't sleep the doctor recommended 8+ hours a night, you become even more tired... I'm no genius, but that seems impossible.

The only (very strong) motivating force I see in continue running despite these (very bad) odds for long term ability to continue with this, is the desire to (1) impress someone, (2) other selfish reasons.

Look at running2win. Virtually no one runs 100mpw on a consistent basis. Of non-professional non-college runners we're probably talking about a couple hundred people in the whole country, of which even fewer have kids. Sure it's possible to do, but pretty much no one does it.

Never got up to 100 but have done a lot of 80-90 mile weeks with a full time job. I have 2 kids, wife. I should also say I only run in the evenings and never do doubles. To me the hard part isn't getting in the miles, it's feeling a lot more tired during the week than if say I'm running 40 miles a week. I don't feel like doing yard work or household chores as much. I still do those things, but it takes a lot more to get my arse off the couch. I've also run this mileage for four training cycles. My wife and family understand its a temporary thing, though sometimes my wife does get pissed if I do a 15 miler on a Wednesday, which typically takes up the evening. I would also say if you are involved with other activities, church, non-profits, little league, it becomes really hard to be active with other stuff while you're running this kind of mileage. Sometimes difficult as it was, I'm glad I did it to run my fastest marathon. Feel like I clocked pretty close to my potential.

working 100 wrote:

I used to log 80-100 while working full time, so 100 was peak, not average. Most weekdays I'd get in 90 minutes in the morning with 1 day speedwork, 1 day tempo, the others days easy. During peak weeks, I'd also add an easy 30 minutes in the evening. A big time saver was the fact that I took public transportation and could leave my clothes at work and run home.

Getting enough sleep is the hardest part.

Pretty much what I did. My main run of the day is always lunch time so it does not impact my family or social life very much at all. I would had to run in the evenings rarely when something came up at work that prevented a lunch time run.

I used mornings for some shorter, recovery runs.

I've averaged 120mpw so far in 2017. Up to 140+ a few times. I've been running 100+ since 2014ish. I'm lucky to have a very conducive job for it (manager of running store) but I'm still working full time. Typical schedule is:

Monday - Easy 10-12 in AM / Easy 4-6 in PM

Tuesday - Fartlek or tempo in AM / Easy 4-6 PM

Wednesday - Long Easy Run up to 2:30 / PM easy 3-4 depending on morning

Thursday - 10-12 in AM / Easy 4-6 in PM

Friday - Intervals or fartlek in AM / Easy 4-6 in PM

Saturday - 10-14 in AM / Easy 4-6 in PM

Sunday - AM Long Run with workout / PM shorter run with hills or strides

I've gone from 15:30 5k / 26:02 8k / 32:12 10k in 2013 to 14:31 5k / 24:10 8k / 30:55 10k / 67:32 HM now in 2017. Like I said, my case is different because my job is a bit more forgiving for occasional days off for races and I don't start till 10am at the earliest, but I'm usually doing double runs after work at 8pm. It's very possible to fit in 100mi in 7 days if you take the time to actually plan it out and take advantage of your days off work to get things done.

I've not run 100 mpw, but do manage around 70 mpw. I have a full time job (40-45 hrs) and 4 young kids. For me, a lot of the mileage is done between 4:30 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. while everyone is sleeping. If I run in the evening, it's always with a jogging stroller and my youngest child with me.

Weekends are tough, especially since 2 of my kids have started playing sports, which means, I still do a long run on Saturday starting at 5 a.m.and try and get home as my kids are starting to wake up. I usually get home and they are in our living room watching cartoons. I've had to do a long run with a jogging stroller before, but I don't like doing that, because it can really change your pace.

On Sunday's, I'll take my youngest in the jogging stroller while my others tag along on their bikes. I can usually get between 4 and 7 miles on Sunday's by doing this, plus, the kids get some extra exercise.

I don't have many friends left where I live, so my social life isn't a big deal. But, I don't feel like my family time suffers since my kids and wife are asleep most of the time I run/train.

I'm not afraid to take a day off if I'm more fatigued than normal or have sick kids.

You say it seems impossible which strongly implies that you've never given it a go. So you likely don't know if it's possible or not. A huge part of the appeal of this sport to me was to find what "impossible" things I actually could do if I had a real go at doing it.

Similarly, just because you can only see certain motivations to continue running doesn't mean those are the only reasons there are. I was never concerned with impressing anyone aside from myself, which is probably a good thing given that my running was never that impressive. But I took great satisfaction in eventually being able to run a marathon at a faster pace than I could manage for a mile as a high school runner. I was not going to give up doing that when I got a job or had a family unless I absolutely had to. So rather than think of how it was impossible to continue I figured out how to make it happen without neglecting anyone. In your list of motivating forces you're missing the most important one; loving the sport and wanting to do it as well as you can.

Smoove wrote:

No more guys' nights out, no more beers after work, no more catching up with the guys to see the game, etc. Instead, it is meeting friends to run, going to a race, or, on some weekends, having family friends at our home for dinner.

Sounds like my definition of a perfect social life. Races and training is social, that's enough.

Guilty as charged. To remember that story was wonderful. In life we harrow our small field to and fro and to bring back a time like that warms my spirit. Thank you..