Having a kid, maintaining elite-ish running career, possible?

This is kind of up your alley:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11641757

Agree 100% , this is applicable even without a child. Imgagine if this was the case, then any story of late blooming would be curbed simply because one couldn't contend for the Olympics right out of college.

Phil Coppess is a runner I haven't seen mentioned. What he accomplished as a single parent boggles my mind. Anyway, here's a good article on his training, racing, and parenting:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/04/sports/phil-coppess-still-holds-twin-cities-marathon-record.html?mcubz=0

Good luck to you and your girlfriend. I hope you can find an arrangement that works for you, her, and your child.

Make her your wife and then we'll talk

The difference between 60 mpw and 120 mpw is quite significant. Not only with family, but with energy levels, recovery/massage/strength to maintain, work hours, energy at work, extra pursuits (startups? No way).

It's still possible to train at a high level and have kids if you're well organized, but I don't think that a 60 mpw runner can understand the other sacrifices with work etc. Just my perspective as a sub-elite ultra runner.

Well said. On that note of commuting, I've found that running to work takes about the same amount of time as most people's commutes. Might as well run commute. I try to do it 2 days a week, I want to aim for 4-5 but I'd have to be super organized in taking spare sets of clothes etc to work.

BabyReagan wrote:

Hi!

Will cut to the chase. 24 year old, turning 25 later this year. Just found out my girlfriend is pregnant, and she is on the fence but leaning towards keeping it.

While I'm no world beater I'm a competitive runner in my area and improving steadily, I've set career goals of sub 14 and sub 29 that which I intend to pursue (Currently at 8.15 for 3000m and 14.15 for 5000m). Now, spare me the "you're not fit to be a father if you put your running career before the child's needs"-comments, I understand that priorities will change. What I wanna know is, preferably from somewhat competitive runners, is it possible to finagle a serious running career while having a young child? My girlfriend would (most likely) be supportive of my running as long as I still play my role as a father in the relationship.

Much obliged.

So, she's on the fence as to whether she should murder your child or not?

Every baby is different, the easiest are pretty stressful, and the hard ones are downright debilitating. For the first few months of your baby's life, they are 100% the priority, above all else. For the first two to three weeks, you will not sleep more than 2 straight hours. After that, count on having to get up at least once per night.

Your girlfriend will also be doing the majority of the child care, so you need to step up in that area too. Get up and night with her and change a diaper, bottel feed when you can, clean the house, do the shopping, do whatever it takes. She's doing a tremendous amount of work just feeding the kid. She will also see your running time as recreation, not as something you have to do. Make sure she has some time away as well, this will keep her from resenting your runs. She may also have postpartum issues, which are no joke, you need to keep an eye on that as well.

You should expect that you will miss runs, you probably won't be recovering like you want to, and your performance will suffer. Count on it.

Running at your best requires optimizing all aspects of your life, removing all outside stress. A baby will simply not allow that to happen.

My advice is to stay flexible and be reasonable. In a perfect scenario, you can make it happen. But be real about the fact that you are likely to fall short of performing at your absolute best. Also be prepared for the possibility that when you have the baby, you may simply stop caring about running like you do today. Your life is about to change in a drastic way, and your interests may also change along with it.

Good luck to you!

To OP:

I have a 2.5 year old and a 6 month old and rediscovered my passion for running after the first was born but it was not without it's difficulties. Here is my advice to you:

1. The first 2-12 months will be very difficult depending on lots of factors that have all been mentioned (baby sleep patterns, feeding, health of baby, etc.) Treat this time as a recovery phase, expect to miss some runs and lose some of your normal weekly mileage but spend the more time at home taking care of some of those niggling injuries, core work, PT, and things like that. Appreciate the time that you have to get out the door. If you run well that is great, but don't expect to.

2. Be very open about your planned schedule to your GF, work your running around your other obligations as a father & boyfriend. This helps prevent some possible resentment from her about your time running. She says that she wants you to continue to run but post-partum mothers will have some big emotional swings and she will see you spending lots of time on yourself and will probably become resentful at some point. Talk about these feelings with her and address them to come up with solutions that work for both of you - ignoring this will only make things worse.

3. Once your GF is up for it encourage her to schedule some time to do something for herself multiple times per week for an hour or two while you watch the baby. This will give her some time to have some adult interaction or catch up on some sleep and you can also build a relationship with your child and she will feel more comfortable leaving the baby with you or others as time goes along.

3a. Get a good jogging stroller (I have a BOB and double Thule), and run with your kid once they are big enough. It gives everyone a break and now is a lot of fun working on vocabulary and counting with my older one (counting dogs, naming colors of cars, things like that). My stroller miles are about 30sec/mile slower but it doesn't seem to matter to my training.

4. You will have to sacrifice some things if you want to continuing running at your level. For me it was social outings such as happy hours and nights out with friends - I wish I would have cut these things out a long time ago; they weren't adding anything substantial to my life. Much of my social interaction is now with other dads at parks or with running friends.

5. You have more time in your day than you realize, if running is really important to you then you will find time for it. Be there for your family first, but in order to be a good father/boyfriend/husband you need to be happy yourself. Take care of yourself, significant other, and child in that order have open communication and be flexible.

Remember, you will only run fast times for a few more years and nobody will really remember or care how fast you are/were in 20 years besides yourself. Your kids and GF will remember having a supporting and loving father in their lives. It sounds like you have a pretty good head on your shoulders, you should be able to figure it out. Good Luck, being a dad is amazing!

Although a decidedly non-elite running father, I think some of my experiences will transfer. My advice:

1) get a good jogging stroller and get the kid used to sleeping in it. While not ideal for workouts, you'll get used to it for recovery runs and it'll give tour girlfriend a break. Babies are usually strong enough for the stoller by about 6-months but do ask your doctor.

2) dont attempt anything more than maintenance of basic fitness during the first 2 or 3-months. You just won't be getting enough sleep to recover properly. Just run enough that you'll be able to ramp back up once the baby starts sleeping.

3) whereas I used to pursue many interests, my experience of fatherhood is that I have time for only one hobby. So I think you can continue to train seriously but accept that that's going to be your personal time. You won't have the time to run competitively and also read novels, watch TV, follow soccer or do whatever else you used to do. Your day will be filled with there things: work, running and family life. If that's what you want, great, then you can have it all, after the first 2-months anyway. The first 2-months are legitimately hard.

Baby will be sleeping ALOT the first couple weeks. If mom breastfeeds/plans to use breastmilk baby will be eating every couple hours day/night in the first few months. It's challenging the first 3 months especially since Baby might be really fussy if dealing with reflex etc. By 6 months a lot of babies even breastfed ones can sleep 6 hours (some more some less) through the night soundly and usually reflex issues have improved...also they become more predictable with their routines and needs.

I know your post mentioned she was deciding to keep or not so I'm not sure if you'd be taking all the responsibilities. I hope if you're willing to do this on your own you have some other support (mom, sister, etc.) because that would really help if your new to the baby thing. If no help at all and your the only parent it will be tough but you can still make it work depending on your attitude. There is no reason why you can't find 90-120min to exercise a day with one baby...you just have to get it done but realize it's not going to be exact. If your girlfriend is going to help then you'll def. be able to find time.

I should add that once they string together 6 hours they might get up to eat/need diaper changed but most fall back asleep. I think most babies/toddlers get around 10+ or so hours until 2-3years. So realize you won't sleep much at least the first 3 months but that should improve.

Dad of ten kids here, 44 years old, all from one woman, still married to her, she runs 5 miles a day, can run a 5 K in 24:33 on a certified course at 4500 feet at the age of 41. Kids run as well, some better than others, but all that can walk (9 out of 10, the baby will be there soon) run on a regular basis.

Before I was a father my marathon PR was 2:39:48 (St. George 98) at the age of 25. The fastest I ever got was 2:23:57 (St. George 2007) at 34 years old as a father of five children. As a father of ten I have run 1:15:04 half at the Utah Valley Half this year. All of this given that the fastest I've ever run in the 800 is 2:12 and that was specifically training for the distance. Realizing that my 800 was a severe limiting factor I frequently made thorough efforts to try to improve it.

The above level of performance was enough to win a couple thousand dollars a year when the stars aligned - I chose my races carefully. If somebody with more speed did what I did he would be competitive at a much higher level. While it would be impossible to support the family of our size off a running income unless you were top three in the US or about, I think it would be possible to be at least OTQ-competitive (heck, even with my problems I almost made it back in the day when it was 2:22 and St. George was eligible). If I could give you my marathon endurance you would run 14:15/15:37*2:27:46 = 2:14:50 on a Trials eligible course just off your 5 K speed. And mind you, it required some pain and creative training to covert 2:12 800 into 15:37 5 K, so perhaps if I gave you that endurance your 5 K would go under 14:00. I do not have a good 3000 mark, but 9:10 would probably be on the higher end of it. So with that 8:15/9:10*2:27:46 = 2:12:59.

All this was with the priority being a parent, and running serving as a helper to be a better one which for me and my wife meant quantity as well as quality - the two working together in harmony the best we could make it. Of course, with more kids you and your wife learn the needed parenting skills. The older kids become helpers as they grow up. They also become training partners to keep you company and push you as you get older. So having more kids might actually be a net advantage - you make up in unexpected ways what you lose in the obvious ones.

You have to find a way to provide for your family off a more or less relaxed schedule. Preferably by working from home. This requires some investment in your skills. For me this was mostly time. Lots of initially frustrating but eventually rewarding experiences. I learned how to program computers well enough to become a major contributor to one of the Open Source projects that just happened to take off at the right time (MySQL). With that and other good things going for me I was able to dodge the bullets of life and always find enough work either as an independent consultant or working for someone in some kind of a flexible arrangement so that my family could eat, my wife could focus 100% on being a mother without having to worry about going to work, and I would still have enough time to run with my kids and teach them what I know.

So, in short, go ahead, marry your girlfriend, take good care of her, and continue to train. You can be a good runner and a good father at the same time, the two working in harmony and supporting each other. Do not give up when things do not work initially, be patient!

Modern Drunkard wrote:

Phil Coppess is a runner I haven't seen mentioned. What he accomplished as a single parent boggles my mind. Anyway, here's a good article on his training, racing, and parenting:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/04/sports/phil-coppess-still-holds-twin-cities-marathon-record.html?mcubz=0

Good luck to you and your girlfriend. I hope you can find an arrangement that works for you, her, and your child.

Thanks a lot!

Really cool article.

Your post brings up a lot of good points. And also sums up pretty well why I want to pursue it for a few more years. I have a decent chance at running a fast marathon next year, and obviously that may now have to be recalculated things would've been very different had I been 30, then I'd walk away or at least not concern myself with this to the same extent. I know I would love the child if it came to be, that's never been a question, the question I guess boils down to if it's right, right now. But then again it may never be. Weirdly enough I haven't thought as much about accommodations, finances e.tc. there I have a far more laissez-faire approach of "it'll work itself out", weird that the OCD running gene doesn't operate the same way.

Thanks for the response, I understand that the first few months would be pretty strenuous, a big transition. In terms of the social aspect and other interests, because of my running a lot of my friends exist and operate within the world of running and are serious runners, which means that late night outs are far in between. I would not have anything substantial that I'd give up in terms of that, most and all of my friends are good people that would understand my situation and accept that I wouldn't be able to hang as much.

Long term goal has always been the marathon, maybe that type of training would be more conducive to the type of schedule I'd have to carry. I would be in school for 18 more months, kid would arrive March/April and she'd be home till December upon when I'd start parental leave. I would have a lot of time for the baby. Thank you for your input, honestly this thread has helped a lot.

I understand that next year might be impaired, I had planned for it to be a career year (running wise), maybe it'll be postponed. It's more about if it will work within this 5 year time frame that I've allotted for myself to be the best runner I can be. I'm gonna sit down with my girlfriend this upcoming week to sort of pick her brain further about how she sees these aspects working. Thanks for your ideas and thoughts.

She's a stand-up girl, she would not bail on this if she goes through with the pregnancy. We both come from upper-middle class families and would be fortunate enough to have supportive parents on both ends. My parents (runners themselves) and hers (not runners, but very understanding) both understand that our financial and social situations would require some support.