Discussion: Alternative Training Methods

I am looking for some ideas on alternative training methods given work and time constraints.

Basically, I have the following problem: I work in the middle of a huge city (Paris) with no forests, in an office with no shower, where I typically spend the hours of 9am to 8pm (or longer). Plus, the people in the office aren't exactly "sporty", so leaving for 2 hours during the day to go out to a forest is not seen as very normal...

So I am looking for ways to keep up some reasonable training schedule anyways, with a minimum investment of time. Obviously, changing jobs would be an idea but I was hoping there may be other ways...

Here are some examples I thought of:
- Running home from the office
- Doing strength training by walking up the 7 flights of stairs, 2 or 3 at a time, fast, for a few times in a row (hopefully without sweating too much given absence of shower)
- Telling everybody I'm doing a marathon next spring, which will be a much more compelling reason to train than "well I like to run 6 times a week so I can come top 100 in the jukola" - even though it's a laudable aim of course..

SO: I was wondering whether anybody else has experienced this problem (or a similar one) and what ingenious solutions you have come up with.

Thanks!

Matthias, i can certainly commiserate, at least to some degree. Living in a huge city (New York) with basically no maps and working full-time (though with pleasant vacation times, such as the whole summer), i've definitely had to rethink approaches to training.
After consulting some gurus, i attempted to go for quality over quantity, emphasizing intervals and map runs over filler workouts. Clearly, it isn't an ideal solution, but if you can manage to leave work early twice a week to get in hard, but not necessarily long, runs, and get to maps on the weekends, that does pretty well. (See especially Sergei Zhyk's training logs). And, of course, biking to work as easy cross-training is an option - i bring a full change of clothes and manage with a quick wash in the sink at school....
Much like Matthias, i am also very interested in hearing what others do in similar situations.
Thanks!

Well... improving the 3.5 miles Corporate Challenge company's record by a whole lot may do the trick, in making your co-workers beleive that you are a respectable runner, and that you need time for you to train.

Also, intentional bragging about some of your sport-life feats at your work place may draw some attention as well. However, the best way to really make everyone know what is that that you are into, is to place a big O-Map with the course and your route in the kitchen, or some place that everyone passes or gather at, for the following reasons.

The mind doesn't know if the eyes don't see, therefore, like in my case, having that map up there will constrantly remind people of your unique interests, and sometimes, even prone some of them to ask a question or too. Placing some pictures on your dest and hanging a marker, may help as well.

As for the actual training, I liked Boris' approach with the "shower" dilemma, plus some excessive use of deodorant if you plan to train during the breaks. However, as far as keeping a somewhat decent physical fittness concerns, I found that training three times a week and everaging between 4 and 5 hours forks for me as well.

Certainly, it doesn't look serious in comparison with those who put between 8 and 12 hours a week into traing, but you can manage to do well even with little traing as this.

Fist, consider buying a good pair of sneakers with cushioning system if you are to run on paved roads, will appreciate it in the long run.

Of cousre, the intersity of your training sessions will have to increase since you start traing on shorter distances. Thus you'll feel the wear of your body more often in form of drowsiness and some fatigue in your muscles, that is why making a rest day in between your traing days (3 time a week) will allow your body to regain necessarily strenght, as well as allow you to function normally at work.

Do more spead work such as surges of 3min with easy running for 1 min in between. Finding some hill or a bridge for your hill intervals may substitude a boring treadmill.

However, what I find very imprtant is what you do at home after your work is over. Shrug that laziness aside and do some weight traing for at least 20 min a day. Even some sits up will do the trick unnoticed to your eye.

This all I can add at this point, but I am sure that there is a lot of room left for other folks to fill you in on their own experiences with the problem that many of us O'rs are faced with.

Sergei.

I was in Paris two weeks ago and I saw a lot of Lotto bars (bars where people sit around playing the lotto all day). A little bit of luck in there and you could quit your job and spend all your time training!

I live in Brooklyn and work in Manhattan just one street below the Central Park. My work hours are from 8AM to 6 PM (or later). I bike to work on my single speed bike every day under any weather conditions and make 28.8 miles a day. My bike is about 17 pounds and I carry also 12-16 pounds bag (spare cloth, Kryptonite NYC chain with pad lock, Kryptonite Evolution Micro U-lock, repair kit, pump, lunch). My commute time ranges from 45-58 minutes dirty time (stops on lights, slow rides between cars, etc.). My commuting ride style is similar to a fartlek workout when I speed up catching lights or going uphill. I like the most speeding uphill on the Brooklyn bridge. My normal week includes 1-2 hard (near threshold HR) commute rides, one hard mid-week run (tempo, intervals, fartlek, hills) and 1-2 orienteering weekend workouts. Other days - recovery commute rides. I'm adding also swimming workouts and gym. I was running to work when my office was 8 miles away and only when I couldn't bike because of a snowstorm or black ice on the roads. I used to run stairs weekdays at lunch time 3x10 flights of stairs with easy jogging down. However, our new office building allows using stairs only in case of a fire. I don't have a shower at work, but wet and dry paper towels will do the trick.
To sum up, every week I have about 2 running workouts @ threshold HR, 1-2 hard bike rides. Recovery workouts include bike, swimming, gym. As you can see my easy excercises have much less stress on my body compare to running resulting in fewer injuries and better recovery. In six month of such training schedule my rest HR dropped from 60 to 42 per minute.
Alternating hard training with a glass of good red French vine is also helpful :)

BTW, three co-workers started biking to work after watching me biking. The biking virus is highly contagious :)

Intervals will only get you so far. The sad truth is that base is not a "filler".