Balancing Life, Work, and Swimming

this is the big question for every Masters Swimmer and there is no one size fits all.The only thing I can add is that when I get irritable or in a funk my wife says"you need to go swimming."

Anybody who figures this out should write a book--they'd make millions! I almost never achieve a good balance between work, family and swimming. Perversely, of the three it's almost never work that suffers. When I do pull off a good balance, I definitely feel the most satisfied with my life... I haven't been in a pool in over a month and I'm not a happy camper about that! :(

this is the big question for every Masters Swimmer and there is no one size fits all.The only thing I can add is that when I get irritable or in a funk my wife says"you need to go swimming." My wife says "you need to eat something".

I feel the same way. Sometimes I feel like I take my swimming to seriously and less for my schooling. It's tricky I swim three times a week in the mornings and twice on fridays; one in the morning and one in the evening, but I ve been running on my off days. I don't have a job so school is my work and I feel like i put school on the back burner because when I should be doing school work I am out exercising. On the contrary if I don't exercise as much and have the interactions with my master's teammates I would suffer in school and be less happy. If anyone finds a way to solve this I would like to know as well.

this is the big question for every Masters Swimmer and there is no one size fits all.The only thing I can add is that when I get irritable or in a funk my wife says"you need to go swimming." Same for me (husband tells me that!) :)

What I'm trying to say is take a deep breath. It won't alway be like this. At different ages you will have different priorities. That's just the way it is. I would make two suggestions: 1. Set realistic goals for your situation. 2. Swimming is time consuming (getting to the pool, the session itself,shower and driving back) and you are also time constrained by the pool. I would suggest something I have done in the past and still do - a body weight exercise circuit done at home. You need minimal or no equipment, it can be done in 20-30 minutes and will give you a great w/o. Go here to see what I mean: www.rosstraining.com Doing two bw sessions a week + 2 swimming sessions will keep you in great shape. This is not too far off what I've been doing these days. Wife and I had our first in November and since then I've been swimming 2-3 days per week and getting an extra 2 days of running or bw if/when I can squeeze it in. My pool time is either spent doing drills or trying to go fast. I don't think I've done an EN2/3 set since we had our daughter.

Agreed, if someone could write a book that tells us how to live our lives, they'd be set. And, obviously, no one else can tell us how to live our lives, so there is no such book! Katie, I was under the assumption you had kids... Anyway, I have 4 kids (2-9), teach full-time, and try to work out whenever I can. My husband also works full-time (albeit we are on opposite schedules so the kids don't have to go to daycare), and he would also like to swim. My suggestion, since it's the two of you, is that you wake up early and workout. That would free up the rest of the day for work and hubby time. There is no balance per se. But I know that there is a whole lot of guilt, at least for me. I can't give 100% to everything, so I do the best I can. My priorities are: kids, hubby, swimming, work. My work won't always be part of my life so it is the least important to me. My kids and my husband are the most important, so they often win out over swimming and sometimes even work. I drop everything for them. I've missed a couple of Nationals (airfare up in smoke) because of kids' events, and while I wanted to swim, I didn't want to miss out on a special event at home. There will be other swim meets, but I'll never get the Kindergarten Mother's Day tea back again. My personal struggle with working out is that I like to do 3 different types of workout: running, weights, and swimming. I like to go to the gym, but I never make it there. I have to prioritize again, and I try to make sure I swim. I often swim when I have a long break at work. Most often it's at night from 7-8:30. I no longer feel guilty about letting my husband do the nighttime routine with the kids. I do it 4x/week by myself. Sorry to ramble. One last thing though. I have recently discovered that I really need to get away from home about once/month. I went to Long Beach in Dec. and discovered this. I didn't realize how much I needed to take a break, just for me. So I went to the Las Vegas meet in January, with a friend for the day, also. Perfect. I have found that it is critical: to sort out what's the most important in your life, do the best you can, try to be guilt free, and enjoy your life. As Hannah Montana sang, "Life's what you make it." :2cents: :2cents: (since I rambled I figured that that was worth 4 cents) :D

I can only relate my experience. I am now 56 with 4 grown up kids. I am at the peak of my career and have attained most of my career goals. I am of good health and pretty good financially (but still unable to retire). I now swim nearly everyday. But it wasn't always like that. Like when I had 4 young kids and we were struggling to make ends meet. What I'm trying to say is take a deep breath. It won't alway be like this. At different ages you will have different priorities. That's just the way it is. I would make two suggestions: 1. Set realistic goals for your situation. 2. Swimming is time consuming (getting to the pool, the session itself,shower and driving back) and you are also time constrained by the pool. I would suggest something I have done in the past and still do - a body weight exercise circuit done at home. You need minimal or no equipment, it can be done in 20-30 minutes and will give you a great w/o. Go here to see what I mean: www.rosstraining.com Doing two bw sessions a week + 2 swimming sessions will keep you in great shape.

Agreed, if someone could write a book that tells us how to live our lives, they'd be set. And, obviously, no one else can tell us how to live our lives, so there is no such book! I have found that it is critical: to sort out what's the most important in your life, do the best you can, try to be guilt free, and enjoy your life. As Hannah Montana sang, "Life's what you make it." Karen you really hit the nail on the head. It is so hard to figure out what works for each person individually. It's like with food, just someone tell me what to eat that will be the best for me and I'll eat it. I don't do so well when I have a million choices to make. I appreciate your insight, and everyone else's, on how to balance things and what you do to make it work. I also enjoy going to the gym, running with friends and coworkers (it is a little more of a social sport than swimming). I want to try to get into healthy habits now so that I do not hopefully have to face some of the same health problems I see at my job each day. The way that my schedule is now, most days I have to swim on my own at 5am so that I can get an hour workout in to get to work on time. This is not desirable as I really miss being a part of a team. There are a few days when I can make it to a 6am group workout, but that is not consistent. After work is out of the question for me, as I am too physically exhausted to face the pool. I can get in a quick jog with some coworkers after work if I haven't exercised yet for that day, but it is not the same as swimming. I am sure that most of you would agree that you feel your best after a workout in the pool. Part of the reason that I brought this thread up was to try to see how others do it. I want to get things sort of figured out now, so that when my husband and I do have children we will be able to figure it out then a little easier (or so I hope!). Everyone has been so helpful in their advice.

I am very lucky in this regard because where I work fitness is not only encouraged, but required. I get an extra hour to use for fitness, three times a week in conjunction with my lunch. So I get a 2.5 hour lunch on Mon, Wed, and Fri to spend at the pool. Unfortunately very few actually participate in fitness with the program so I am left with envious coworkers trying to sabotoge my planned schedule, but it's nevertheless just a minor nuisance. Still relatively new to balancing competition with family but for my first meet my family (wife, and two kids 11 & 13) came along. I only swam Saturday's events and the remaining weekend was spent having fun doing family things like pranks on each other at the hotel, dining, going to a museum, running around on the beach, listening to the kids fight. They're definately looking forward to Atlanta. That would be a great way to break up the day. I wish that more employers would see the benefit in doing something similar!