Last month John did Ironman Huston (which I will post about soon). The preparations for this event were extensive and lasted for well over nine months. I write this post so that if John ever asks to do it again, I can refer to this post to remind me of how much work goes into this whole thing. So here goes, some thoughts on what it's like to be married to an Ironman triathlete:
1. You will make a lot of food and your grocery budget will double. Goodness, keeping this man fed was almost a full time job toward the end when the volume of training dramatically increased and he was consuming close to 5,000 additional calories a day. Each day he'd pack himself breakfast (to eat after he hit the gym), a protein shake, a mid morning snack, early lunch, lunch, and late afternoon snack. Then he'd come home hungry and hit the pantry while he helped me finish up getting dinner ready. Then there was another protein shake and a green smoothie and maybe a dessert to top it all off.
Some days at the gym when he'd be spending a few hours on a spin bike and a few more hours on a treadmill, he and his training partner would bring in the most ridiculous snacks...just because they could. One of them would usually stop by at the bakery next door and pick up a bunch of donuts. Then they would each set a stack of donuts and sometimes a bag of Sun chips right there on the treadmill stand. Can you imagine how mad that must have made some of the other gym members?
The other part of the food thing was trying to figure out what would work best for his event nutritional plan. Sometimes he looked like a chemist mixing different concoctions. He had to try various mixes and powders to see what would work for him because as they say, "only a triathlete would consider a few bottles of sugar water their nutrition for the day." Oh, and you should see the spreadsheets he has for all of this- this many calories for this many hours, this many grams of sodium and potassium, this many carbs and this much fluid etc...
And many times your dishwasher will be half full of water bottles. Something's gotta hold all that "nutrition!"
2. You will do a lot of laundry. I'm lucky that I have a husband who does most of his own laundry. If you can imagine the amount of laundry that can accumulate as a person trains for three different events at the same time, it's pretty crazy. I'm also lucky that when we first moved in, John installed all of these hooks in my laundry room (in our bedroom closet and garage too), but I never thought they would be full. All the time. Swim gear, bike shoes, gloves, shorts, running shoes, jerseys, jackets, sweat bands, running shorts, socks, towels, towels, towels.
And even with all those hooks, there were times when our bathroom still looked like this (I think this picture was taken when I was in the middle of training for my sprint triathlon- double the mess).
3. You won't mind when your living room gets turned into a gym. John did a lot of his long simulations on the trainer- like 6-8 hours at a time. It was nice having him around while Ty was at school during some of John's Fridays off (he has every other Friday off- that helped a lot in all of this). I'd chat with him a bit, we'd catch a movie and I could slip away to run a quick errand while Robby was sleeping because John was home.
Robby also loved this plan as he got in on the action sometimes. He seriously pedaled on that little bike and watched cartoons for almost an hour. He was sooooo cute!
On this particular Saturday, I was heading out for a ride (hey, I get a turn too sometimes) and John needed to get a long run in, so he got up early to start on the treadmill and when the boys woke up, he finished his run while they watched cartoons. He decided that it would be better if he pulled the treadmill out where he could be with the boys while they played and watched cartoons.
When people ask us how we make it work, I tell them you gotta get creative sometimes. John did all of his training in the early morning hours- sacrificing sleep for family time. And then we did things like this as well.
4. You will laugh at some of your husband's tan lines (or burn lines). I think John forgot to put sunscreen on his neck and given the geometry of the tri bike, he rides with his head all tilted up and his neck kinked. I don't think he realized how bad his zebra stripes were the next day.
You'll also laugh when your husband's new helmet arrives in the mail and he's so excited to try it out right when he gets home from work.
And then you'll have to let your three year old try it out too. He's totally the fastest kid on the block when he wears that thing.
5. You will get super excited and want to support your ironman with lots of posters and other fun stuff.
Here are the boys making their sign for dad. They had matching t-shirts, whistles, and cow bells to help cheer dad on as well.
And since John had some family coming to town to watch his race, I made each of them an Ironman gift bag as well. We might as well make it a party!!!
And now it's done and life has settled down a bit, but I really didn't mind helping John achieve his goal. It was fun to be a part of the process and watch it all come together. I'm proud of John and how he approached his training. He never took time away from his kids and he never trained on a Sunday- neither were even an option. He worked hard, got creative, and made sacrifices- that's a true Ironman.
