Workout Scheduling

I love schedules.  I'll make a schedule to create a schedule - well, probably not that far, but you get the point.  I will methodically plan out my workouts around my family life(wife and 2 kids), work schedule,  my daily clients I have for GettingFitness, and various other endeavors I have going on at the particular time.  On my schedule I block off time for swimming, biking, running, and weight training with no in-depth specific workouts, but I do include if it will be easy, long, race specific, tempo, etc.  I then share the plan with my hopefully approving wife to get the 'OK'. 

Awesome, I have a plan and am ready to get to work.  Here's the kicker - I bet I've stuck to that schedule about 5% of the time!  Things always come up - kid's activities change, spur of the moment commitments, doctor's appts, client's schedule changes, work, etc.  Almost weekly, I need to make key changes, but there are rules that I follow to mitigate the possibility of injury and ensure that I have enough recovery to put forth a good effort for the next workout.  These are the rules that I follow:


- don't do back to back speed or interval run sessions
- keep a few days between long bike and long run (except when approaching a race - it's good practice to run on tired legs every once in a while
- If I have to skip a workout, I'll skip weight training - it's not as important as swimming, biking, running
- if doing a big brick session, a recovery day should follow
- if my energy is drained I'm OK with bagging a workout for recovery purposes - one easy/recovery day is better than suffering through an entire week of below average workouts
- never do back to back weight training sessions - I do full body weight training in one day
- I try and have one easy and one harder workout each day(easy bike, big ring bike ride)
- most importantly, family comes first

When I have to throw my schedule out the window I manage to keep track of these workouts in my head and log them into a spreadsheet.  The most important thing is to figure out what works for you, which takes time, experimentation, and trial/error.  If you're questioning what you should do, go easy.