Over the last few years I have got to a stage where I enjoy working out and actually feel more lethargic and tired if I don't do it. Although I do have periods when I have a complete day(s) of rest, generally I am relatively active.
Finding the time: I am fortunate that my children are a little older now (youngest is 10) and my work place is only 17.5 miles from where I live - so my commute is relatively short. I am a bit of an 'early bird' and still get up at 5:45am during the weekdays, which gives me plenty of time to get some training in the morning. In addition my decision to join a local Triathlon club (more on this later) has meant that I have regular training sessions (mostly swimming) with driven like-minded individuals. All these factors have helped me in allocating time to training and motivating me to get to where I am now.
If I had to define a good week it would look something like the following:
2x commute - 35m (56km) round trip for standard route: so 112km (total 4 hours)
2x club swims - 1.5hours on Wed evening and 1 on Sat morning (total 2.5 hours)
2x runs - tempo / interval + longer easy run (total 2 hours)
1x Sunday ride - longer easy ride (total 2.5 hours)
So around 10.5 hours for a good average week.
In preparation for Ironman Austria my intention is to increase the average to around 12 hours per week, which is quite realistic and should be achievable.
The challenge is to be more structured about the training. I have never been very good at building on the training week-on-week and I could easily have a pattern of 10 hours one week, 5 hours the next, then 12 then 7. From my research a 10% increase each week followed by a recovery week would be more advisable. One of my other weaknesses is that too much of the training is completed at the same pace (possibly leading to junk miles). On more than one occasion I have been recommended to keep my easy sessions very easy and the hard sessions - you guessed it...hard!
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