New Baby - Skip workouts or follow plan chronologically?

I’m sure there is another thread out there because I can’t be the only one, but I couldn’t locate in any of the “new parent” threads.

I’ve got a 4 week old and am dabbling in training again. I’ve started following a low volume plan, but life is preventing me from always completing the workouts. Sometimes I only do 1 of the 3. So the question is, should I follow the workouts chronologically or should I just chalk up the skipped workouts?

I’d understand saying just skip it if it was once in a while. But if your schedule is likely to get yanked around weekly and the plan is based around a building TSS, at some point I’d think it’s more logical to follow the plan even if a “week” of workouts takes 10 days to fit in.

Any help is appreciated and if this topic is elsewhere, please feel free to just post the link!

Thanks all

TLDR; Get the highest intensity workouts in first. Miss a single week, just push the week and try again. Miss more than that, rewind the plan that many weeks.

1 Like
1 Like

Firstly, congratulations!

Secondly, I agree that you should focus on the most productive workouts. Not all tss is equal so if you can get in some decent sweet spot work it will help maintain your fitness far better than a potentially longer, lower intensity ride.

I think what you do need to accept is that there will almost inevitably be a drop in fitness, accept it as a small price to pay. :slight_smile:

1 Like

YMMV but I wouldn’t put myself on a plan at all because it’s just going to lead to disappointment. I’d go through one of the low volume base plans as able. With kid #2 on the way in two months, I’ll wrap up SSB2MV and then probably not assign another training plan for a while. I expect to make good use of the time crunched maintenance plans and accept that I’m going to lose fitness while taking care of my wife and daughters.

1 Like

I’m thinking I might can the plan and just do anywhere from 30-60 min sweet spot workouts 1-3x a week as life permits. Most bang for my buck. Combined with a few runs a week I should be alright. Maybe not the fitness gains I’m used to but not the regressions of just sitting around either.

1 Like

With my first, I tried to plan training. I missed so many workouts in those first months for various reasons it became a stressor in itself. This time, I’m not planning to race in 2019. If I can jump in something with some kind of fitness, great. If not, I won’t worry myself about it. A little maintenance with some sweet spot and such so I’m not starting completely from scratch as I did last time. Even if it comes to that, it’ll come back when I can put the work in! Good luck to you (and me! Ha!)

Are you training for an event? If not, I’d say just do what you can when you can. The plans have a progression, so I’d do them chronologically unless too many gaps make the progression steps too big. In which case I’d go back a week or 2 and build up again. If your working towards a fixed date, things will be different.

Amen to that. You’re moving into a man coverage situation so the challenge def increases. Wish you the best! I am still racing this albeit with limited expectations. It helps that my wife also races, well runs, so she gets the mental health side of things. We look forward to running together with the baby in the stroller. It helps that he seems to enjoy his rocker time next to the trainer as well. The three fans, trainer and background TV put him right to sleep.

2 Likes

Well said dear.