Just wanted to say how encouraging it is to see a lot of wise words and sentiment expressed here.
Working hard at your key relationships is just crucial.
I’ve found, like others, that making time to exercise is essentially for my overall health - but in particular my stress levels. It makes me a much easier person to live with - yet at the same time it’s crucial to make sure I also prioritise time with my wife. So long as I do that consistently, alongside doing my fair share of basic things like household duties, she never has an issue with my cycling. In fact - is hugely in favour of it.
One practical piece of advice I would give that could be passed on for free and in my opinion, risk free… advise anyone who wants to make their marriage stronger to get Dr Gary Chapman’s book - ‘The Five Love Languages’. Regardless of whether you share his faith perspective, it’s such a brilliant book.
For quite a long time every time I talked about the bike or got annoyed about not having time to train I could basically hear my wife’s eyes rolling into the back of her head.
Anyway - lots of give and take I guess. Unless you can get the spouse into training with you then it’s just going to be an uphill battle for a while.
I think setting out set days/times that you’re going to do training and for me moving those sessions to early morning seems to be the best fit. Not getting annoyed that you can’t get the kids to bed early so you have time to get on the trainer in the evening and having a set time on the weekends to be able to get out.
The thing that confuses me though is that if I pay money to sign up for an actual event I seem get a lot less of the negative week to week issues.
This actually reminds me of when I was in college and training to do a cross-country bike ride for charity. I remember having several fights with my girlfriend at the time because she said all I talked about was cycling and training. We broke up a few months later. I’m fairly certain that if we had stayed together, I would not be riding at all now, and I’d be broke and miserable. Haha!
Like most have said, I try to ride/train when it’s more convenient for my spouse. But there definitely are times where that’s just not possible. Over the years, he has become very accepting of my time spent training. I’ve discovered there is definitely a balance that I need to strike. The good thing is that he lets me know when he’s feeling “abandoned” as we call it. I really pushed the limits this year as I went to Leadville, CO for two whole weeks without him. He was not able to attend due to his work schedule. So he is currently A LOT more sensitive to weekend bike trips right now. So I’ve kept those to a minimum this year knowing that I would be completely gone those two weeks.
I think the big goal is to find the balance that makes you happy and makes your spouse happy, and it’s a continuous thing that has to be discussed and worked on.
Single (23yo) male here with no life experience dealing with relationships and cycling but I had to contend with parents when I lived at home and was trying to train. What I found is setting a precedent helps. Making compromises makes the training easier for others to digest. I would always try to be done training by dinner (so we could eat together) and the parents definitely preferred the lowered risk of indoor training. I set the precedent that I’d get home, and start training. This was my time. If they needed or wanted to come chat they’d be able to find me.
Of course this may not work with a demanding spouse, in which case, talk it out. 99% of problems are solved with proper communication.
As the saying goes, “The grass is greener…where you water it”.
So many great comments on here about give and take in a marriage; fundamental to a healthy marriage for sure. After 21 years of it, I’m by no means an expert…but…I think I am an expert at finding hobbies which push her to the limits of what she’d willing to put up with! Falling back in love with cycling after being “distracted” by golf during my 20s and 30s, to her seemed like that next thing that would keep me away from her and the three kiddos.
What helped us meet in the middle? Google Maps Location Sharing was a great start. Allowing her to see me in real time as I made my first few several hour outdoor rides gave her comfort in knowing I was continuing to move…and almost home. She would sometimes call me if the signal dropped and she didn’t see me moving anymore. Then came the group rides. Happier that I was riding with other folks (safety in numbers) the Wahoo Bolt helped here also as it would email her as soon as I started the ride and she could again track my progress. Then came the Kickr schedule. Started Zwifting after work in addition to my 15mi lunch ride. Eating at 8pm each night got old quick. Setting the alarm for 4am to get a fasted ride in before work was a great compromise…and a great fat burner. I was able to get into a routine during the summer which enabled me to help with the kiddos homework as soon as I got home once school was back in session. SOOOOO thankful for finding a program like Trainer Road! 5,300 mi logged so far this year and I’m not on the couch yet!
Support her in her passions to the level you wish she’d support yours gents.
Ride on!
I think TR is a bit happy-clappy sometimes, in the real world wives are not supportive all the time - if at all. Sometimes you take your ‘me time’ regardless of what they think. Support at races? Maybe the first few, it quickly loses novelty for people who don’t race. Asking for support and being rejected is soul destroying, just do what you want without them.
Anyway, training is best done in “commute” time or at work. Avoid weekends, or use the time you know they’ll be busy with homework or classes.
Be helpful when you can and be home before bed time.
My friends and I do randonneuring which is long distance unsupported rides (200km out to 1200km), often with iffy cellular coverage. For the nervous spouses, getting a SPOT or maybe the new Delorme/Garmin Inreach Mini for satellite tracking/emergency declaration really helps.
Also a communicated ride plan that mentions some other person on the ride.
None of this addresses the time issue . Maybe for rando, the issue is the length of the rides rather than the training which is shorter/closer to home/in home. Sometimes you just make the call that ‘i’ve been gone too many weekends in a row’ and need to prioritize the family.
I plan my training out in advance using TP and so on but then each Sunday I fill in a little whiteboard with my weeks training summarised and it lives on the kitchen fridge. My wife can then see what I have planned and can voice any concerns. Its also easier for her to refer to it and seems less like what I am doing is un-planned or random. Since doing this she has become much better and will now often look at it and give alternatives with swapping longer rides to other days and so on when other things come up.
Wow, what a sexist group of replies here. I coach both men and women, normally if it is the woman training, the man is a lot less supportive. Even partners who say they are supportive, tend to only be supportive if it does not interfere with what they want to do.
We also run camps in Mallorca, lots of married men with children come on them alone, very few married women with children are able (allowed) to.
I’m not sure the majority of replies here are sexist but I agree with your observation that women are generally less able to get the same leisure time in a relationship than a lot of men do.
Cycling is a very male dominated sport which may colour your experiences in terms of the training camps (who knows what their partners get to go and do alone in return?).
FWIW my spouse is very supportive and I want to support her in her fitness goals too - in fact indoor training started for me so that she could leave the house to run/gym/yoga whilst I stayed in to watch my son.
I’d love to commit 10 hours a week to cycling but I know it would negatively impact my family and our relationships so we negotiate and try as best we can to make things even whilst also spending time together.
For me, it’s finding the balance. I’ve got the support to do the Saturday club spin most weeks, but if I have to skip it then I will and will work around it. Or I’ll go out early, meet to club spin and peel off early - I get the km’s in, I get the social interaction I need with my club mates, but don’t impact too much on family commitments.
I’ve also had to compromise on some of my goals/ things I’d like to do ideally. Sundays are family day, so I can’t commit to frequent sundays, even though there’s race series’ I would like to do.
Similarly, even though it isn’t ideal training, commuting a few days a week frees me up in evenings when my wife does her activities, rather than me disappearing into the pain cave, and I’m able to do drop offs and collections. When the children were younger, I started TrainerRoad so I could do my training while the children were in bed.
I don’t find training is any different to any other aspect of family life or marriage - everything is about a compromise really!
This is a great idea! As I ramp back up next month, I will try to do this. Especially now that she has taken up running. Or figure out how to get everything into our shared calendar.
My tip. Don’t marry someone that is unsupportive of the things you like to do in the first place.
I’m lucky that my wife races as well but that isn’t luck. I married a competitive athlete on purpose and we have shared values of fitness and competition.
Doesn’t work for everyone but if they are unsupportive of something you enjoy then there are far bigger problems with the marriage than just being unsupportive of this one thing. It’s really sad to see. I’d stay away from providing that advice at all except for being helpful for ways to change training times during the day.
It’s simplified because my wife and I made it so. There are a ton of families here in Colorado that are all out at the race course together. Both of them racing etc. I know that’s not helpful for people that are stuck in this situation but maybe a cautionary tale to others that aren’t married yet. Think about the things you like to do and make sure your significant other is supportive of them and the other way around before you make a life commitment to them.
Yeah, it’s not like people change over the years or anything. Me and my wife are exactly the same people as when we got married, before we had children, before our careers developed… Unless you’re one of those multiple marriage kind of blokes, I don’t think that’s realistic.
I only got into fitness in the last 5 or so years of a 14 year and counting marriage. Me, or her, doing training wasn’t on the agenda.
I am a randonneur. We tend to do longish rides and are away from home … a lot. You can see some patterns. Randonneurs are either very young (fairly rare), young with children at home (even rarer) or over the hill (most).
In my experience randonneurs are nice, considerate people. That is probably why you don’t find many who are young with children. They are doing what considerate people do, giving priority to the family.
When I say gone a lot, … we’re talking about days at a time, if not weeks. Sometimes we decide to do a ride half way around the world and that takes time.
My wife is very supportive every four years (Paris-Brest-Paris years) and grudgingly supportive every other year (London-Edinburgh-London or some other ride somewhere), but the other years are pay-back years. Fair enough.
I might add that she is very happy about the investment in a smart trainer and a subscription to Trainer Road. The best money I ever spent on cycling. I wonder why?
