“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”
- H. Jackson Brown
Although the quote above makes me feel like I haven’t done anything with my life, it has motivated me to find the time to squeeze in three runs and two cross-training sessions per week. In my defense, I don’t think any of the people above were ever asked to navigate the complexities of Nationwide’s online performance management system. Had H. Jackson Brown delivered that quote after I started my job at Nationwide Better Health, I’m certain he would’ve mentioned my name in the context of figuring out how to load my team’s goals for the year into the performance tracking system in less than a week. It was quite an accomplishment.
When I first started training earlier this year, it was tough for me to find time to run on a regular basis. I have a demanding job that requires somewhere between 50 and 60 hours per week in the office and often some additional time each night when I’m at home. Since I’m married and have two kids under the age of six, I also try to spend as many of my non-working hours as possible with my family. I found out early in the game that finding time to run didn’t mean I could just squeeze in a few minutes between a regular mid-afternoon nap and an evening spent managing my fantasy football team. Those leisure activities went out the window a long time ago. It was right around the same time I realized I was too old to wear t-shirts with pithy slogans printed on them. “A hangover is the wrath of grapes” or “Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder” only looks okay on a shirt worn by someone my age if he’s at a Jimmy Buffet concert.
Even with no weekend naps or fantasy football team ownership competing for my time, I still needed to come up with a couple hours to set aside for training each day. I thought about what to do while using my old “Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics” t-shirt to dust furniture…
Before I decided to train for my first half marathon earlier this year, my typical weekday consisted of waking up around 6:30 a.m. and leaving for work about an hour later. I would get back home at about 7 p.m., put the kids to bed at 8:30 and hang out with my wife until 11:30 or so, when we’d go to sleep. There wasn’t a lot of time in there during the week to fit in the training mileage required to finish a half marathon. My training plan at that time called for cross training on Mondays and Wednesdays, speed runs on Tuesdays, tempo runs on Thursdays, and distance runs on Saturdays. It was easy to find time for my long run on the weekend, but my options for squeezing in my weekday workouts were somewhat limited. It all boiled down to pursuing one of four paths:
(1) Reduce time spent with my kids. This was absolutely out of the question. I don’t want my kids to know me as “That Guy Who Hangs Out with Mommy” or “That Guy Who Lives Here on Weekends.”
(2) Try to work out during breaks in the work day. I think this would be difficult because of the demands of my job. In order for me to have time to stretch, warm up, run, cool down, stretch again, replenish the calories I’ve burned, take a shower and change back into clothes appropriate for the office, I’d need to block off an additional two hours on each day I have a scheduled run. The chances of me being able to find that kind of time on my weekly calendar are slimmer than your wallet after a trip to Vegas. It’s also difficult because I believe in maximizing my hours in the work day, fully utilizing my time in the office to lead my team with Winston Churchill-style skill and gusto… and I’m definitely not just saying that because my boss reads this blog and Nationwide is in the midst of mid-year performance reviews (hi Jim).
(3) Petition Congress to change the standard day to 26 hours. My Congressperson didn’t even respond when I suggested making the Cincinnati Reds’ opening day a federal holiday, so I gave up on this idea quickly. I mean, if Congress can’t get excited about paying $8.50 for a beer and $4.50 for a hot dog in order to watch half the team go 0-4 and strand a dozen guys in scoring position, then the 26-hour day idea has no chance. Plus, Congress is focused on more important things these days, with two ongoing wars, the economic downturn and the frightening fact that some people actually refer to the Jonas Brothers as a modern-day version of the Beatles. I personally feel a bit ridiculous for even acknowledging the Jonas Brothers’ existence in writing and thought about using this space to formally request that Congress take action to end their careers. But with the amount of money pre-teen girls spend on their merchandise, CDs and concert tickets, pulling the plug on the Jonas Brothers might send the U.S. deeper into a depression.
(4) Wake up earlier and work out first thing in the morning. BINGO. Waking up early would test whether I was really cut out for this. If I was willing to get up at such an ungodly hour, then I knew I would be able to accomplish my goal. If not, then the whole deal was going to fall apart. My wife and I started going to bed a little bit earlier than before. I don’t get to see The Daily Show or Colbert anymore, but if I really miss watching it, then I can always use the DVR.
On a typical weekday I started waking up closer to 5 a.m. and working out. I was still at work for the same amount of time and spend the same time with the kids, but I was going to bed an hour earlier. And I wasn’t really missing time with my wife because she has a habit of falling asleep in front of the TV before 11 p.m. anyway. It might appear that I was getting less sleep, but I actually made up for it by getting an extra hour of sleep on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. I also started falling asleep much more quickly on training days, probably because I was expending more energy. In total, I got about the same amount of sleep each week as I did before I started running.
So that’s my recommendation to you. Get your lazy tail out of bed earlier.
And if you’re ever out in the eastern suburbs at about 5:30 in the morning and you see a runner who looks as accomplished as Thomas Jefferson, oozes the panache of Winston Churchill, wears a Cincinnati Reds hat and listens to an iPod stocked with non-Jonas Brothers music, please offer him a big cup of strong coffee because he’s still not a morning person. On the good side, though, he weighs about 15 lbs less than he did the last time you saw him and he feels like a million bucks.
How do you squeeze in time to train during your busy day?
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As another runner with a demanding job, two kids and an even more demanding wife, this really hit home! I completely feel your pain in the time crunch. I have another factor to throw in for you. My wife is the one in the fam who is up @ 5 AM working out and while I am sure the treadmill or elliptical would suffice, I need to be pounding the streets and I am sure children’s services appreciates my not leaving my kids home alone for an hour in the morning. We tried alternating mornings for a short while but as with most things my wife won out. So as I told you, I hit the ground running late in the evening or more accurately in the middle of the night around midnight. While I hate going to bed after sweating, it really can be a soother after an 18 hour day. I live in the country, so absolutely nothing is going on. It is me, the road, the stars and the occasional small nocturnal animal. I do miss out on an hour in bed with my wife, but I am usually in the office doing paperwork anyway at that hour so there is little difference. I mean look at the time I am sending this comment. That 11 PM bedtime would be great, but staying near some semblance of a fighting weight is worth it. And once I hit the pillow I am out. I will never have insomnia as long as I can run.
I think the thing that needs to be reiterated from your post here is to figure out some time that works and commit to it. We all lead hectic schedules. It is way easier to sit on the couch or make that last minute waiver wire check than to get out and do something productive. I have had to adjust my paperwork schedule a little and certainly have cut out the unnecessary things to make myself more efficient in the hours I do devote to evening work, but I think most people have the time if you trim the fat a little and know where to look. My father always told me that I have time for what I want to make time for. It is a matter of figuring out which things we want to make ourselves available for.
And to comment on a prior post of yours…..if I had known you had knowledge of Matisyahu at the golf outing we could have had another topic of conversation.