out of shape and exercising with an athlete

I love, love, love my husband.  He's a great guy and has been very supportive of me throughout my weight ups and downs.

The problem is that he's very slender and athletic.  He mountain bikes (including commuting daily by bike) as well as jogging, karate, wrestling and hiking.

Recently I've started exercising more, just home videos and stuff and I decided I was ready to hike with him.  Well, to make a longish story slightly shorter, it was a mess.

We live in a very mountainous area and we literally tried to climb a small-medium mountain.  He's bounding up the rocks like a goat and I'm slowly hauling my carcass up the rocks.  He doesn't understand, but then he isn't hauling an extra 60 to 70 pounds with him and he's not struggling with a cardiovascular system on the edge of collapse.  To make matters worse, I have a pretty bad fear of heights.

He tried to be patient, but I could tell he was annoyed.  At the same time we would like to spend more time together and I would like to get in better shape and deal with my heights issues.

Has anyone else had a similar problem?  Did you manage to work it out?

My boyfriend ran track the last four years so he's always been really skinny and in shape.  He didn't make his college team so he kind of slacked off the last few months and he's now trying to get back into shape, similar to me.

So I kind of know how you're feeling.  He thinks he's "out of shape" now but compared to me he is in perfect condition and he doesn't really get how out of shape I am.  We've thrown around the idea of working out together because we're both super busy and barely have time to see eachother.  But because of our different levels of fitness we avoid it and spend our time together doing other things. 

I guess this doesn't really help you out any since we didn't come up with a solution, but I do know how you feel.  My plan is to just be in really good shape by the time I'm in college (next year) because then I'll have access to the same gym as him and maybe we will be able to work out together.

It's nice to hear someone else understands what I'm talking about. 

I'm not sure if I'll ever get in quite as good of shape as he is.  I want to be healthy but I'm not sure if I'm interested enough to spend all my spare time pursuing it. 

I've had a sort of similar issue over the years with my husband.  I'm 5'5" and he's 6' and really fit - he can basically go forever.  Over the years I gained a lot of weight and let myself get really out of shape.  So, I've lost a lot of the weight and I've gotten in much better shape the last 12 months, but because of our height differential, even if I were in tip top shape, I would still have to walk faster and longer to keep up with him. 

The best thing I've found to do is to let him do the big mountainous type of hikes by himself or with his buddies, and for you to do the research and find hikes/walks/activities that you are comfortable with accomplishing and maybe you will have to stretch a bit and that he's willing to do with you.   Then to whatever extent you are comfortable with doing this - you lead the way, setting your own pace.  You may have to negotiate a bit on some of this.

He may not have been as annoyed as you thought, also.  Sometimes I make assumptions about what my husband is feeling, and I find out later that really it was just me worrying about it. 

 Or you could strap a 60-70 pound backpack to him and see if he's still bounding up those mountains.

  Tell him it's for his own good - he needs a more challenging external load to develop more strength endurance :)

Megan: Thanks for the advice.  I think you're completely right about the annoyed thing.  It may be my own guilt and frustration that I'm pinning on him.

Melkor:  Haha, I should totally try that (although he'd still probably kick my butt). 

Even then it wouldn't be fair though because I'm reasonably strong for someone who hasn't done much exercise in a long time.  The thing that's holding me back is my terrible, terrible cardiovascular system.  Do you know of anything internal I could give him that would allow me to clog his arteries, bog down his heart and give him weak, wheezy lungs?

 Well, if he were to take up smoking?

....

Probably not a good idea - quitting was the best decision I've made this century.

 Just stick it out for a month or two - when I started walking up mountains last year, well, it took me three days until my legs could bend at the knees again after the first trip.

Then we went back and did it again.

Took about a month to really notice the difference in cardiovascular fitness, and after three months I was doing things at a speed that would have killed me at the start. So just stick with it and you'll see results in a reasonable timeframe. 

I know how you feel.  My husband is a Marine-- with a near perfect PFT score-- AND he works out at lunch too, beyond what he has to do- He thinks he is getting "fat" when he hasn't worked out in 3 days.  Anyway- he is trying to help me with getting more in shape.  At first he was trying to do things with me, but he got so frustrated because I can't (obviously) keep up with him.  SO our solution is that he tells me what I need to do, and then encourages me while I'm doing it- say running stairs for 10 minutes, or situps, etc.  I'm not sure what we'd do for hiking, except I probably would try to give him a handicap so he has to slow up enough that I can keep up.  Whatever you do, don't get discouraged, and maybe start with a smaller hill? 

I dont have a husband thats an exercise fanatic, but I do have a brother that is. He will come in for a visit and want to go hiking in the woods or long jogs, mountain biking, the list could go on forever.

This is what I do now when he says hey sis wanna go ______

I say yes I will go with you but on one condition you let me decide what my limits are and when I need a break or have to call it quits. Im carrying around much more weight than I should be for my height so that means im pulling double duty on my body. Please let me be the judge of when things need to slow down or come to a crashing hault. Unless you want to be dragging my ass to the ER I suggest you listen to me.

He pretty much knows the drill now and its taken him a while to understand but he now lets me decide for myself and doesnt push me. It helps sometimes to have someone athletic to workout with sometimes you push yourself a bit more than you normally would and its a nice little kick in the ass if you have been slacking!

I may be burned at the stake for this post, but here goes anyway.  My ex and I had the same problem--but from the opposite point of view.  I am in really good shape (I run like a fiend and work out all the time), and he was, well, not.  He constantly wanted us to "work out" together and while it was a good idea in theory, it simply didn't work in practice.  He always ended up pushing himself WAY too hard to keep up with me (regardless of whether it was hiking, biking, running, etc.), and I had to slow down too much to feel like I was getting anything out of it at all.  Eventually we decided to do our workouts on our own.  Often, we would go to the gym together, split up once we got there, and then grab a smoothie or coffee together afterward.  Another option we often used was going to a park/trail together, picking a time to meet, and then having a picnic together afterward.  It allowed him to keep his 10 min/miles, me to keep my 7 min/miles and we both still got the benefit of sharing a healthy lunch together after. 

Thanks guys, there are some really great ideas, hopefully I'll eventually be able to keep up with him, but I think for now I'm going back to my exercise videos.

No stake for you runner_girl, it's nice to have the opposite perspective once in a while.

Just seeing this now.  My idea for you is to ride your bike or rollerblade while he runs - it will be pretty easy to keep up with him this way.   I just read about some woman who helped her husband train for the olympic marathon trials this way.

Anyway, I know how you feel, although my situation is a little different.  My boyfriend is a triathlete who competes up to the Ironman distance (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run).  He always places very well.  I compete in triathlons as well am in good shape, but I am not quite as fast.  Even if I were to reach my peak, I'll still never be as fast as he is.  I don't let it get to me.

But we barely get to see each other in season if we don't do some of our training sessions together.  So we have some things that we do where it doesn't really matter how much faster he is.  Lap swimming is the best activity for working out together at different speeds, but we also have indoor trainers for our bikes and will spin on them while watching movies or whatever.  Running is a little more tricky since we hate treadmills, but we will run outside on a route where we can pass each other a few times.  It keeps things from getting too boring at least. 

I think you need to come to a compromise with your husband.  My husband loves to lift weights and play racquetball.  I hate racquetball and I cant give him the workout he lies because I laugh too much during it.  i like to dance and go for walks.  So we do each others stuff.  ill life weights and play racquetball only if he will do DDR with me and go for a walk.  Its worked so far.  Its not far to pressure one person to do another's activities when they wont do it too.

We have the same situation at my house, I'm the fitness fanatic and my wife wants to work out with me but can't keep up.  We have found a few things that work.  She rides her bike next to me while I run sometimes.  We take the whole family to the school track and then everyone can run at their own pace.  My son Alex just ran his first 1 mile race (he's six years old).  My oldest boy runs races with me a lot too.  The other 2 haven't quite gotten into it yet.  You can also lift weights together.  He may be able to lift a lot more weight than you, but it is easy to adjust the weight between sets for each person, everyone who lifts with a partner does that anyway.  Comming from the guys point of view, I would recomend you let him have his own work out time too because sometimes you just want to push yourself as hard as you can.  Another idea would be to let him go for an hour or two without you and then you could join him when he is tired.