FTWM who trained for a full marathon??

Where are all the working mom's who trained for a marathon?

I want to train for a full for the fall. How challenging was it to train while working full time and with children? I want to know what to expect. It seems so hard to fit it all in. I just wanted to get other mother's experiences and input. Please tell me it's possible; I really want to do this!

And the real kicker is my husband also wants to train for a full so we can run the race together in the fall! Seems so impossible but hopefully we can both work it out together!

Message edited 5/7/2013 12:25:28 PM.

Re: FTWM who trained for a full marathon??

I did it 2 years ago. At the time, my children were 2 and 3 years old and I work full-time. I will start by saying it definitely can be done, you just have to get creative. I've always been a morning workout person (5am and sometimes earlier), so it was clear that was going to be when I trained. I did all my runs before work, even some of my longer runs - one Thursday before work I ran 15 miles!! It was crazy, I was out at 4am and it was August; put it this way, you know you're out too early when there are people still hanging out in the bar!! Anyway, the thing you have in your favor is that DH is on board. My DH is not a runner and not a huge fan of the commitment it takes to do a marathon. So I did everything to make sure it did not interfere with family time or inconvenience anyone. For me, that meant getting up at an ungodly hour to get my training in. I even took a few Fridays off alone (meaning kids at childcare, DH at work) so I could do the super long runs at a normal hour and then I'd just do some errands to make it worth taking the day off. This also allowed me to "recover" so I'd be fresh to enjoy the weekend with the family. I have a ton of vacation days, so that allowed me to do this.

For your situation, is it possible that one of you could run in the morning and the other after work for the weekday runs? Or, for those runs, you could simply take turns at night heading out. For the longer runs, one could do Sat morning, the other Sunday. Or....you could get someone to babysit while you both go together even if it's on occasion - the only thing with that is in the summer you will want to go earlier when it's super hot out. It will take compromise, but the fact that you both want to do it, you'll figure it out. It CAN be done, I did it with 2 very young children and working 5 days per week. It is not easy, but you know when you want to do something, you find a way - I of course did not have the luxury of training at the ideal time as many have, but I adjusted and made it happen.

Enjoy the experience, it's quite an accomplishment! Which marathon are you doing? And congrats on the LI Half!!

Message edited 5/7/2013 1:50:09 PM.

Re: FTWM who trained for a full marathon??