Urban legend has it that Bill Koch rollerskied up Mount Greylock pulling his daughter on a mountain bike. With a rope around his waist, Koch double-poled eight miles uphill, towing his 70-pound child. Was this extreme strength-training, childcare duty, or both? Even if the story isn’t true, it illustrates how far some parents will go to get a workout.
Time is of the essence
The number-one limiting factor for athlete-parents is time. “Quality over quantity” became my mantra after my babies were born. Gone were the three-hour trail runs; now I fit a workout into whatever window I have. Running gained supremacy over skiing, sculling, hiking, and other sports of my pre-baby life, due to its high efficiency—no transit time, just lace up the shoes and go.
Likewise, former US Ski Team member and ‘06 Olympian Justin Freeman says, “The biggest change has been a focus on running instead of skiing. It’s possible to get into great running shape on 10 hours a week. Skiing takes more training hours and requires lots of hours traveling to snow and waxing. Right now, I simply don’t have enough time.”
With a baby and a toddler, Justin is in the most intense phase of parenting. “Between my job and my family, my yearly training hours are down from 800 to barely 400,” he says. “I train like I do through support from my wife, early mornings, less sleep, pushing or pulling one or both children, and generally being creative about when I can fit it into my schedule.”
Many parents rely on early mornings for dependable training. Former Olympian Brenda Smith had stopped competing when she began her family, but still counted on exercise as “a way of life.”
As a mother of three (now aged 10, 8, and 5), Brenda’s running workouts were “a mental break that allowed me to be calm and focused on my children for the rest of the day. I got up very early and ran before my husband went to work.”
Some parents squeeze in training later in the day. My husband, Tim Whitney, a former national team sculler, has a weekly training night with a competitive friend, running or skiing up local mountains by head-lamp. Montpelier Masters racer and father-of-two Dan Voisin also trains after hours: “Skiing at night is the best way. I can usually get on snow by 8:00 after helping feed the kids and putting them to bed. Some nights it’s very hard to stop skiing.”
Supportive Spouses
How could Nordic Olympic medalist Sara Renner return to World Cup ski-racing 10 months after having a baby? Because her husband, Canadian Alpine skier Thomas Grandi, retired in order to do full-time childcare. While most parents aren’t in Sara’s situation, many say their spouse is their number-one support system.
Mother of two and 2006 cross-country ski Olympian Rebecca Dussault is gearing up for the 2010 Olympics. Having an encouraging, adaptable husband helps her immensely. “It’s tricky to balance family with elite athletics,” says Rebecca, describing a day with her boys, ages seven and two: “My husband has a flexible schedule, so I typically home-school in the morning, make lunch, and lay the kids down for a nap. Then I’m free to train for an hour or two. As a last resort, I keep my road bike on a trainer in my living room so I can put the kids to sleep and ride for 45 minutes, then fall into bed myself.”
Dussault’s lifestyle displays the flexibility and spontaneity required to combine sports with parenthood. “I usually don't plan training even a day in advance,” she says. “I have to wake up, see how I feel, and find out what else is on my plate.”
When both parents are athletes, things get complicated. Three-time Olympian and Masters racer Dorcas Wonsavage says she and her husband do the parent tag. “I run in the morning, while Paul watches cartoons with our nine-year-old, then Paul goes on a ride with his cycling team, and Max and I play.”
But there’s a cost in trading off exercise, says skier Dan Voisin. “Our winter weekends consisted of swapping ski time with family time. We rarely spent an entire day together as a family. It sucked, but it allowed us both to get out.”
My husband and I have also mastered the parent tag, but sometimes we want to ski or run together, without our girls (ages two and four). For couples who were once training partners, this presents a challenge. Hiring a babysitter for a workout “date” is a worthwhile investment. This way, parents aren’t “scorekeeping” about who gets more training time. And when Mom and Dad share rewarding exercise, they build intimacy that is healthy for the whole family.
What if the parent tag involves days rather than hours? “Being divorced has its privileges,” quips cyclocross racer and telemark skier Sheldon Miller, who also happens to be the father of two. When his kids, now ages 10 and 12, were little, Sheldon’s philosophy was simple: “Train hard when they’re with Mom, then put them in the trailer when they’re with me.”
Gear
Athlete-parents must invest in child-carriers. “My recommendation is to not skimp on the stuff,” says Voisin, who owns a bike trailer, baby-jogger, and pulk sled.
Rebecca Dussault describes the Chariot child-carrier as “the most superior brand on the market.” She loves it for skiing and biking and recently pulled it through California wine country on a family bike trip. Justin Freeman owns a Chariot Cougar-1 and Cougar 2, and says his babies usually fall asleep when he trains.
Mother of three kids and three-time Olympic rower Judy Geer remembers entering running races as a family of five, pushing single and double baby-joggers. “Gradually the kids would decide they wanted to do the race themselves, rather than in the stroller. Cool!” Geer and her husband, Olympic rower Dick Dreiss-
igacker, also used backpacks, bike seats, bike trailers, and pulks for family exercise. “These worked often—but not always,” Geer says. “There were days when we had to abort an adventure.”
Being realistic about children’s limitations helps everyone have more fun. You can’t go as far or as fast when you bring kids along, but you can share your athletic passion. For Geer and Dreiss-
igacker, “training has always been an integral part of life. We loved the lifestyle too much to give it up—and we wanted our kids to grow up appreciating it.” Their approach has worked. The Dreissigacker children are now 22, 20, and 18, and highly competitive in skiing and rowing.
Successful outings depend on the character of each family, especially the parents’ patience and the childrens’ temperaments. My high-energy girls can only tolerate our Mountain Buggy baby-jogger for a three-mile run, which often ends with a toddler tantrum. An excellent resource for how to include kids in exercise is Heidi Hill’s book Fit Family: The Infant, Toddler, and Preschool Years.
Creativity is Crucial
Life with small children is unpredictable. “Sometimes you renounce your pre-child athletic goals and make the most of whatever the day, weather, schedule, child, and mother have,” says Dorcas. “Sometimes manual labor— shoveling the driveway, stacking wood— becomes the workout.”
Creativity and a sense of humor help athletes rise to the challenge of early parenthood. I remember driving through Morrisville when a bizarre contraption appeared on the hill before me. It was Sheldon Miller riding “The Fathership,” pulling his son on a trail-a-bike with his daughter hooked behind in the trailer. Head-down, he was cycling hard on his commute to work and daycare. “It was good strength training,” says Sheldon.
Priorities shift after children come along, but most athletes need to keep exercise at the top of the list. With flexibility, good gear, and strong support, we do what we can, one day at a time. And sometimes, with enough sleep, we find a deeper drive to get out and train, and a hunger for competition that surprises us and others.
Diana Whitney is a writer, yoga teacher, cross-country ski coach, and mother of two. She lives in Brattleboro, VT, and blogs at www.spiltmilkvt.com.
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